It doesn't rely on flashy cut scenes but heavily on storytelling.
Graphics: 4 (not its strongest points however it does serve its purpose, barely)
Sounds: 3 (the weakest point of the game however being an indie game, something has to give)
Value: 10 (plenty of things to do / see without being a total grind fest)
Tilt: 9 (can be a little frustrating at times especially when the mini boss is 20 times harder than his minions / does a great job bringing back that nostalgia feeling)
Score: 7.8
I miss the days of those pen / paper role playing games. This is not to say it's now defunct however for me, I haven't played one for ages. The natural advantage of these games is using your imagination as the dungeon master provides you a 'wall of text' and it's up to you, the player, to compile it. Avernum is basically the computerised version of these types of games – i.e. provides you a wall of text, well written of course and it's up to the player to imagine and play it out accordingly; and this game has done exceptionally well at it.
The premise of Avernum (for short) is that a party of four has banished to 'The Pitt' for wrong doing the empire. The game doesn't provide you the reasons why as it leaves it up to you. Initially I felt a little negative about this however you soon realise this is actually a good thing as considering there a main plot (three to be exact), you, the player can determine the characters back story – i.e. is your main goal to revenge against the empire? How about simply escape the underground? What about making Avernum your new home? You see this is a better option as you can conjure a back story thus dictate the ending that you prefer. And if you are adventurous, you can do all three however it's a little harder than you think.
The game play style is a role playing game (RPG) with turned based combat. So in the beginning you get to create a party of four and provide you a set template for each of them (I think there's around eight of them). Or you can use the character editor to create your person however I feel it's not that necessary as the templates are quite decent considering. Also being a RPG, you earn experience points and with them increase your character's skills. Note that you cannot reverse anything that you have selected so forward planning is required.
The world is quite literally open ended – that is there are absolutely no limitations of where to go. On one side it's a good thing as, like mentioned before, you dictate the course of action. On the surface (great, already a pun) it seems like a great idea however if you are a novice RPGer, this can cause frustrations as sooner or later, you will get owned by critters that practically impossible for you to hit. This happened to me quite a number of times as my entire party was wiped out before I can even swing a sword. Note though I was playing it on hard.
But don't despair as there are over a hundred quests and many more 'hidden ones' (i.e. not recorded in your journal however provides you key words. You can see jot them down using the 'record' button manually). Also there are four levels of difficulty being easy to torment. I consider myself a decent RPG player and find hard (the third hardest) quite challenging. I recommend playing it on normal first then readjust if necessary. However if you are an achievement hoarder, you might want to reconsider this option very carefully otherwise you will lose some achievements.
Eventually your guys will enter into combat. When this occurs it zooms to a 'battle ground' and its turn based; meaning basing on your character's statistics, determines who acts first. Other words, if you got a bunch of slow characters, your enemy will attack first (and that's not a good thing obviously). Of course there are some skills to assist your character to react a lot quicker so it's a case of first in, best dressed.
The combat itself is not too tactical as there are no alterations for elevation / cover / prone etc. So it's basically your guys start to the left of the screen and the baddies to the right. And if you think you can simply barge in and attack the first guy, think again as there's a good chance you'll be outnumbered (and possibly outclassed). Another way to look at this is like a game of chess where you need to learn when / where to attack at the right time to achieve the best possible outcome. However combating indoors, the environment is as is – meaning there's no combat screen. Indoor combat has a lot more tactical approach than outdoors because of this, and benefits you to be very careful when choosing your next opponent as line of sight is quite limited.
An example of this is using my party. I created a warrior / mage / priest and a bard (jack of all trade). The bard's main attack is a bow however can cast priest spells yet very quick on her feet (meaning melee characters will most likely miss her if on equal level). My warrior just barges in and gets smacked around, my bard either heals the warrior / group heal or attacks, my priest ensure no one is charmed / dazed / dies etc and my mage is the area of effect specialist. So it's mainly my warrior up front and then my archer then both the priest / mage. This works on most occasions as my warrior has a lot of taunt skills (i.e. holding aggravation). Of course there's a lot more to this however it's a matter of trial and error to get the best possible outcome.
Controlling your characters is a mixed bag. Combat is pretty much straight forward – click on the skill you want to use then click on the enemy; nothing to it. And there are four quick slots for spells and potions / scrolls. However the general interface is a little clunky to say the least. Some examples are when scrolling the world you need to move your mouse cursor to the edge or the screen. On hindsight that's fine however under combat situations, there's nothing worse than trying to click one of your character's portraits only for the screen to scroll across (as the portraits default is on the top left of the screen). Why not incorporate arrow keys to scroll instead?
Also any menus you select needs to be closed down before opening another. What this means is that if you want to view the inventory / spell list / character's stats, each screen cannot be opened concurrently as only one is allowed at a time. The quest logs can be improved too as granted there are hotspots with a quest marker however the marker at times does not get updated. So there are times you think you haven't done a quest only to realise you have done it once you read the actual quest (via the journal button). Yet you can alter the character portraits and mini map anywhere on the screen however I prefer to leave it as it is.
The conversation trees are there with multiple options however there are no real consequences for your answers; so it's a matter of clicking on every option until it ends (and repeat if necessary). To my knowledge, there are only a few that had some sort of consequences however nothing to worry about. Yet because you can literally have many quests in pending, the game does a decent job of not screwing things up – meaning that I haven't encountered a quest bug. Beware though of chain quests as sometimes you can pick up a valuable quest item however unable to reap its benefits until you reach a certain point of the quest line – I guess that's the beauty of an open world game.
And because there are many quests and the world being free roaming, it's very hard to say what the expected completion time is. On average (according to Raptr users) it looks like about 90 hours however most just finish off one of the three main quest line. For me wanting to do everything, it took me about 180 hours however the point is, its great value for your dollar and it doesn't feel repetitive at all. Note that some combat can easily take thirty minutes plus and major battles an hour.
Being an indie game, something has to give; in this case it's the graphics and sounds. Graphically it looks like a 90s game however it's still clean enough to identify items. However the downside to this is that it's extremely difficult to see what's lying around on the ground, especially after battle as you can easily miss a valuable item. So start getting into the habit of pressing the default 'g' (grab) key to see what's lying around. And unfortunately you must do that quite often especially if the room is large. Or use the 'u' (search option) to see what items can be searched and to locate hidden switches.
The sound quality is pretty much in the same category as the graphics. There's extremely little musical scores (almost non-existent), no voice acting and the spells all sound the same. There are those 'general' sounds like opening doors, footsteps etc however it's obvious that this is not on the developers top 'to do' list. So if you are expecting top notch sounds / graphics, look elsewhere now.
Yet what made up the game twentyfold though is the game play. Granted the interface is a little clunky as well and there's plenty of that 'wall of text' however if written well, forces your imagination to kick in full time. Also leaving the opening storyline to your whim, the game in effect creates a story within a story – i.e. your story (do you want to revenge against the empire, escape Avernum or make it your new home) and the game's main plot (which one do you choose). This is the pure essence of a role playing game as it doesn't rely on flashy cut scenes but heavily on storytelling.