Avencast: Rise of the Mage Review

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Written by BuckGB on January 25th, 2008

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Given all of the above, you would expect Avencast to play like the usual dungeon crawl. But here's where the game takes a little walk on the wild side. For starters, combat has been enhanced with dodge maneuvers. Instead of click-killing all of the skeletons, ghosts, giant crabs, golems, and other beasties that the game throws at your humble mage, you roll and tumble through battles with double-presses of the WASD keys. Most enemies have ranged attacks, too, and do a lot of damage in short order during melee combat, which prevents you from playing Conan and hacking your way through the monstrous mobs. Instead, you generally bounce around like an acrobat, avoiding projectiles like flaming skulls and boulders while ripping off magical bolts of your own with the right mouse button.

Your arsenal is augmented with spells from three magical schools. Blood, soul, and summoning spells can be bought with the skill points earned each time you level up, and then employed in battle through the use of key combos. Some of these combinations are pretty tricky, although the less arcade-inclined can skip the whole procedure and just map specific spells to single keys. No matter how you choose to cast them, spells in the main blood and soul categories don't differ all that much. Blood magic is more down and dirty, with spells that force you into melee-style combat, and soul magic is more about killing from long-range, but most of the spell effects are the same. Also, you're a mage, not a warrior, so staying out of harm's way and avoiding heavy melee combat is a necessity for much of the game no matter which magical ability you select.

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