Avalon II Review
The main interface: even without the sound on, you already feel like you just left Camelot! The mythical Quest for the Holy Grail is well known in popular culture. It is said that eternal life is yours if only you can find the «grail», which is either the cup (or serving dish) of Jesus from his famous Last Supper. King Arthur had a crack, even Indiana Jones, but the elusive grail’s whereabouts remain unknown.
Until now that is, for hidden deep within the naughts and zeros of computer wizardry, and even deeper still within a game called Avalon II, the sacred grail awaits your eager little hands! Retrieve it from the nether kingdom and return it to its rightful place in Avalon. Eternal life perhaps not, but a few extra pennies in your pocket would be almost as sweet.
Gameplay
It’s a feature rich game with all the bells and whistles you could hope for in a game of such epic proportions. Once you understand the quest laid out before you, and the grand fact that there are 243 ways to win, we’ll understand it if you want to quit work for a week, start wearing peasant clothing and yell «Nay, wench!» to your wife every time she tells you to get off the computer.
The graphics of this game, as you can see, are really well done and the accompanying medieval melodies set the tone to draw you in. Once in though, we warn you, it is hard to get out! Magical 3D animations sometimes come out at you from within the tiles and look out for the «Expanding Wildcard» – the lovely Lady of the Lake, taking up the 3 vertical middle slots in her ghostly mystique. Always a nice surprise, the old magician Merlin will randomly appear on the lower right to wave his bonus-giving wand!
Along your journey you will likely run into some of the other characters, such as Arthur himself, Guinevere, Morgan, and the Black and White Knights among others.
Symbols & Bonuses
The Wild Symbol
The Wild Symbol, as we already mentioned, is the graciously expanding Lady of the Lake. She makes the reel «wild», substituting all the symbols for generous rewards, excluding, of course, the «scatters». Blessing us with her presence: the lovely Lady of the Lake.
The Scatter Symbol
The scatter symbol is the Holy Grail. Find 3 or more grails on your reels and permission to enter the main feature, the 8 bonus games is granted.
The Bonus Games
These 8 extra games will keep your sense of adventure – and plunder! ¬– attuned. Once allowed in you will find this perilous looking map (below), from which you are transported one by one through the eight destinations where you will lay down your sword and start filling your purse.
The 8 Bonus Games: Feeling adventurous yet?
Each destination along your path gives you a well known game as follows:
- Lake of Legend (a Dice Roll game)
- Misty Vale (a Choose Your Wild feature)
- Whispering Woods (Pick Until Stop game) OR Forest Falls (a Trailing Wild™ feature)
- Dusky Moors (Pick Until Match bonus game)
- Morgan’s Keep (a Rolling Reels™ bonus game)
- Hall of Shadows (a Level bonus game)
- Isle of Avalon (a Wheel bonus)