Avencast: Rise of the Mage

I really was not expecting much from this game because the reviews on line touted this RPG action adventure to score points in innovation but for every point do something wrong in the design of this game.  So far I am quite enjoying my progression.  Where I was expecting to be tossed into into a survival situation of fending off invading armies of demons that the trailer video on Steam had available on this entry I was surprised by a very lengthy in depth tutorial exploration of Avencast, a 'Hogwarts' per say that the hero character had been sent off to.  The hero is unfortunately somewhat bored with the rigorously meticulous curriculum of the typical magic user and starts the game falling asleep in an alchemy class.  After a Potter-esque-like shaming he is sent to the headmaster for disciplining.  This leads to your hero's beginner quests where you get to try out the ropes of being a hands on battle mage.  The controls are almost intuitive (ASWD + mouse) offering varying methods of automating camera movement around the movement of your avatar (which you can control yourself).  The spell casting, however, can be at first cumbersome since at first you are too panicked to fend of rushing attackers with your staff.  You are given the option to map spells to function keys or trigger spell by ASWD + mouse clicks (which comes in handy later on when fending multiple attacks).  The visuals themselves are WoW-like but slightly a notch up on the reality scale.  In any case it's a beautiful game considering this is an independent development.  For $9 USD on Steam I can say it is well worth the purchase and hours of RPG goodness in store.