Avencast: Rise of the Mage

Rating Teen Genre role-playing Publisher Lighthouse Interactive External Links Official Lighthouse Interactive Website

As I lay here on my sickbed I write yet another review for the Static Multimedia game review team. What’s that? You wonder why I’m laying here on my sickbed? Well, I was food poisoned last night at a restaurant where I ate. Foul play I suppose, due to all of those terrible game reviews that I’ve been handing out. Kind of similar to a highway patrolman handing out tickets on the day that his local donut hut closed down. I digress, Avencast: Rise of the Mage. I know what you are thinking “oh no, not another Diablo clone”. But this one is actually a lot cooler. It actually has complicated puzzles on top of a Diabloesque shell. Much fun to be had.

The game starts off with you being found by a gracious benefactor who trains you in the way of the mage. After he realizes that you are far beyond his training he sends you off to an academy, where you will live your life similar to the way Harry Potter lived his life at his famous witchcraft academy. Game play is quite standard for one of these games in the action role-playing game genre. And by that I mean you will go on small task around the academy and go through a decent amount of training which is fully interactive (nice touch).

The AI of the enemies is actually very impressive which makes for a very challenging game. Bravo! The puzzles are hard but they are not as hard as games, which are built to be completely impossible, i.e. Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Controls are your standard WASD format, which is always fun but the camera angles are kind of odd. You can set them in the options area in the game but it’s still a little awkward. That in my opinion is the one thing I did not like in the game. This game has a totally new idea as far as casting spells is concerned. You have multiple combinations you have to type in before you cast a few monster-hindering flares, of sorts. So my only qualm with controls with this game would have to be the camera angles, which can easily be over came with time and patience.

The graphics and sound of this game mix the right amount of flash and flare in all aspects. I never had any issues with the choppiness, or not understanding what the voice actors said. I still to this date am getting more and more impressed at how modern day games are utilizing the full effect of voice actors. So in this aspect of the game, I am highly impressed. This was all around a great game, which I enjoyed to the fullest extent of the word. This is a game that every one should give a chance, especially if you have no other game that you are power leveling through.