I enjoy Geneforge and some of the other Spiderware Software games..Do these play similarly to games like Geneforge or Avernum? Certainly tempting to pick these up.

Imo, they are more fun for me. You get more freedom to shape your character and there are probably over 1000 different character combinations with stat/skill combos involved. The class system is even more free than Avernum as unlike Avernum, you can master in any 2 stats without ruining your char. In spiderweb games you have good freedom but not like in eschalon.

Also there are bless/haste/ similar spells in this game to Avernum. The only real difference is that you control one char which is different from a party.

Yes, much better than Avernum, graphically and otherwise. To me they seem like fantasy/medieval Fallout type games. Don't be just tempted, get them. At this price, what have you to lose?

Thanks for the info! Yep..at this price I cant refuse..I picked them both up! I like what I have played so far and I can tell that I am going eagerly anticipate book III.

The character development is more in depth than spiderweb games and there's more interactivity with environments. And there's music!

But the story is terrible compared to spiderweb games. Jeff Vogel is talented writer and world builder, the eschalon guys sadly are not :(

Everything you said is exactly what I agree with ;)

I think that of the games I play-The Quest has the most balance between story and stats/skill roleplaying. Then when it comes to stats and coming up with character types-eschalon is the king. When it comes to story, Jeff Vogel is probably the best. Ive read some of his stories that he wrote for the worlds over and over again as they are just interesting.

Hopefully underrail will be good.

Not quite. It sort of plays like later Avernum games...except with a far sharper difficulty curve, more complex, and plays far slower, moving more like the early Avernum games where you have to click to move, unlike Avernum 4 and beyond, where you can click somewhere and have your character dash off. Combat is like the later Avernum games, clunky, cumbersome, and lots of small numbers.

While Avernum has the mercy/insanity of a party system, you're on your own in the open world of Echelon. And while Avernum doesn't exactly hand you the lore fist over hand, you at least have some idea what you're getting into, whereas getting int Echelon II, I have no idea what's going on, especially with according to the map, the plot town being quite far away, so I have no idea how I'm going to progress especially since there aren't any goblins to grind on, and already simple creatures have got my HP critical.

Overall, I feel that Avernum wins out by being more experienced, Jeff knows what he's doing and has built a world around it.