and that it and Freewheelin’ are the two big acoustic albums. I never thought of it as a lesser album. I guess I always thought of those two albums, everything from Bringing It All Back Home through John Wesley Harding, Blood On the Tracks, and Desire as the core of his discography.

Avernum II is more linear for the first third or so, and then it opens up more. It is still generally more focused than the first game, and has has a stronger and much more sharply defined story, but there is flexibility in the order you can do things in later in the game.

The journey down the river was intense in Exile II in ways that it’s not in Avernum II, because in that game you needed to carry food that you automatically ate periodically, and you lost food every time you went down a waterfall. It’s one of the things I miss in the transition from the original Exile series.

Avernum II is bigger than the first game. Most of the old overworld is in this game, but there are also new areas. Only II and V don’t place much of the game in the first game’s map.