Avadon 2 - Review @ Gear Diary

Gear Diary has the first review for Avadon 2: The Corruption. The review doesn't give a score but the impression is they enjoyed the game.

Avadon 2: The Corruption took me more than 40 hours on my ‘review playthrough’ – and that is after already being familiar with the entire game. I would estimate that it is ~25% larger than Avadon in terms of real-world scope. Still not as big as a game like Avernum VI, but much larger than many of the RPGs we are seeing released in recent years.

One thing I really appreciated as I played was the care taken in balancing the combat systems and character classes. In nearly every encounter with disparate enemies, you will find some challenging and others trivial. Similarly your individual characters will at times be attack leaders and at others be nearly ineffective. It forces you to think about how you distribute the responsibilities of the party and brings even more strategy to the game.

In his personal blog Jeff Vogel reflects the values of loving gaming, but as a developer, husband, and parent he lacks the time to do all of the gaming he wants. I find that reflected in his development sensibilities – I never felt like he was wasting my time: by allowing me to enter regions from various points I don’t have to do excessive backtracking; by balancing the need for combat with the boredom of trash mobs my combat time felt well spent; and I never felt the need to go around bashing every barrel looking for gold nuggets like in Neverwinter Nights.

My time was appreciated, and as a result I felt constantly engaged even during short gaming sessions. It made for a very rewarding and easily recommended gaming experience.