Hey all,

I know a couple people took a poke at AVWW when it came out. Arcen has already rolled into AVWW 2 with a significant facelift and revamped gameplay. If you own the first game on steam, you automatically have the sequel and can install and play the beta for AVWW 2.

I'm only an hour or two into things right now, but it certainly seems a lot tighter. I'd say the general aesthetic is more widely appealing, too, but the art style of the first game didn't bug me as much as it did others. There does seem to be less resource gathering and crafting right now, but that might change later. I like that the combat is a lot more streamlined and I'm generally okay with the removal of mouse controls. It seems a lot closer to the metroidvania/roguelike thing they had in mind before.

Anyone else check it out?

I haven't checked out the second one, didn't even know about it, but I enjoyed the first and will try it out right away. One of the guys who works for Arcen hosted the Indie Game panels at pax east last year, that is where i heard about the game. He seemed really cool so it made me try and end up loving the game. Thanks for the heads up!!!

I loved the first game. I actually prefer the AVWW's art style to that of the sequel. The first was kind of like a patchwork of different styles tied together - akin to how the setting of the game was made up of shattered realities. Everything had a strange sort of high quality sheen about it. Coupled with the jerky animation - it made for a unique feeling of locomotion.

When I play games, I usually do so standing up with a gamepad, and the same with AVWW. So, I used the auto lock feature to play the game, and I really enjoyed it. I heard some people justify the new 4 way only controls as an effort to guarantee a similar gaming experience between gamepad users and keyboard users. And I'll admit that AVWW wasn't the hardest when played it how I did, but I really enjoyed the experience, solely for the setting. I consider the sequel's art style to be more uniform, but I find it to be a bit bland - kind of like a flash game.

With the current controls, I feel a bit more tied down. While I wasn't ever aiming in AVWW, I felt much more free than I did in AVWW2.

AVWW2 has a more involved turnbased metagame involved, but I never really cared for that element in games. It's just not my sort of genre. In general, AVWW2 seems more like a spiritual successor than a direct sequel. It's put together well enough, but right now, I don't care for the game to much. However, Arcen is a pretty amazing game developer. They did a lot with AVWW with every single update, and the very same could happen with AVWW 2 - for the better.

The one thing that I love about AVWW 2 is the size of the buildings and levels. Sometimes, there was a bit too much exploration in AVWW - an issue addressed with alright enough with patching. But all of the map tiles played out at a much quicker pace than AVWW.