As always Jonesch went down to the river to get water. As he walked towards the stream he noticed a basket on the shore. In it he found a baby with a strange amulet around his neck. He chose to take care of this lost child and raise him. Soon he discovered that the child had a great gift for magic and when the child was old enough, he send it to the mage academy of Avencast in the hopes that he would be able to satisfy his desire to know more about magic there. And perhaps the sorcerers of the best of all academies in Uria would know what the amulet meant.

The basics of the game are the same as in other Action-RPGs like Diablo II. You fulfill quests, kill enemies and level up. But the game mechanics differ from those games.

The first notable difference is the way the game is controlled. Instead of using the old click-and-move mechanic, your hero is controlled more heavily with the keyboard much like a FPS. To make it easier to adjust to that, you have the choice between three different control schemes ranging from a simple, more old-school system to a version where the camera is behind your hero at all times and everything plays much like an action game like Shadowgrounds. Casting spells is a little more tricky and it does not change with your control scheme.

Each spell has a specific key combination assigned to it. The hammer of rage for example is activated by pushing "W", "S" and then the left mouse-button. If that is too complicated also the combinations are always shown under the spell on your hotbar, you can also define one of the F-keys to them. But they can be pretty hard to reach during a fight.

Another break with established standards is that the game focuses less on items. This is most evident in the fact that enemies rarely drop any loot. Your main source for better items and gold is completing quests, looting chests or simply buying them at the trader. The focus is instead more on the three different magic schools "Bloodmagic", "Soulmagic" and "Conjuration". Each school has its own skill tree and each new spell is unlocked by investing the talent points you gain at each level up.

Depending on how good you fight (magic efficiency and how many times you have been hit), you also gain points of fame. These are not important for the game itself but once you have finished the campaign, your hero will enter the "Hall of Heroes". There you can compare his points of fame and his equipment to all the other heroes you have created.

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Alternate Titles

"Avencast: Ученик чародея" -- Russian title

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Merchant	Title
	Avencast: Rise of the Mage
	Avencast: Rise of the Mage
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The Press Says

RPGFan	Nov 13, 2007	81 out of 100	81
GameSpot	Jan 22, 2008	7.5 out of 10	75
GameStar (Germany)	Nov 28, 2007	72 out of 100	72
IGN	Dec 11, 2007	7 out of 10	70
Pelit	Jan, 2008	70 out of 100	70
Worth Playing	Oct 04, 2008	6.5 out of 10	65
Jeuxvideo.com	Mar 28, 2008	13 out of 20	65
Absolute Games (AG.ru)	Feb 07, 2008	53 out of 100	53
Gamekult	Apr 11, 2008	5 out of 10	50
Games Radar	Nov 29, 2007	4 out of 10	40