Spiderweb Software has released Avernum: Escape From The Pit for the Macintosh, a role-playing game which tells an epic story of a world far beneath the surface. The first game in a new trilogy, you’ll experience life in Avernum as you struggle for survival against your many enemies, look for a way to escape, and even get revenge on the cruel Emperor Hawthorne of the Empire who cast you and so many others underground.

After the diminishing returns of the last three episodes of Back to the Future: The Game I was dreading the final installment of the series, and indeed, the opening didn’t give me much hope. Marty’s in 1931, still trying to untangle the problems of getting Emmet Brown to exhibit his first invention, a flying car. Flying cars are inherently exciting. You know what’s not? Walking around a science expo, trying to figure out where to buy tickets. But that is, alas, what you must do. But then, slowly, the game started to pick up steam.

Feral Interactive has announced that Lego Star Wars: the Complete Saga is now available on the Mac App Store. The popular family adventure game takes the players through all six movies in the saga, with a lighthearted take on some of the most famous scenes from the films. Feral also announced that since they’ve started releasing games via the download system, they’ve made over 50,000 sales.

And so Back to the Future: The Game limps towards closure, giving up any pretense of having been based on a high-energy action-comedy, and simply falling back on puzzle tropes that were lazy and boring when the first movie came out in the mid-eighties. Considering how well the game started, working in the films’ continuity and references and bursting towards the original episode’s cliffhanger ending, it’s just become sad.

When a game draws comparisons to “Leisure Suit Larry,” you have to pay attention. So, that’s exactly what we’re doing with Telltale Games’ announcement that Hector: Badge of Carnage Episode 1 – We Negotiate with Terrorists will be released April 27 for PC, Mac and iPad and has a very long title. Mac and PC pre-orders come with a free copy of Puzzle Agent.

Here’s the problem with the second episode of Back to the Future: The Game: there’s barely a game in it. There are virtually no puzzles in it, and most of the obstacles can be solved just by visiting the right person and saying virtually anything to them. It’s so easy it can barely be called a game. It’s more like an interactive novel.

It’s the little things. Marty wanders around Hill Valley in the 1930s, and the movie playing is simply titled, “Shark!” The law offices of Gale, Zemeckis, and Fine. One of the first puzzles involves the giant speaker in Doc’s lab. I’ve seen games made of movies before, and they’re usually quicky cash-ins of low quality, but Back to the Future: The Game is obviously a labor of love. I’m confident that based on this first bit, this is going to feel like the fourth movie in the series.

That Da Vinci fellow was quite talented, I’m told. A good thinker. Drew stuff. Did some other things. But he was also, apparently, quite secretive. And now, courtesy of Coladia, you can uncover The Secrets of Da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript via the Mac App Store. This investigation and adventure game offers “… a thrilling mystical quest into the heart of the Renaissance.”

Dracula 3: The Path of the Dragon takes place largely in 1920s Transylvania. The Twilight and Lost Boys and Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter crowds may find this all a bit quaint, but for an adventure game such as this, it’s appropriate. Kheops makes old school adventure games for old school adventure gamers, and honestly, this is the best of theirs I’ve played.

Return to Mysterious Island 2 is a very frustrating experience for all but the most patient of players. The game presents a variety of puzzles for you to solve in order to move forward, ranging in level from completely obvious to totally obtuse. Expect to spend a lot of time working things out when you hit a wall.