Icewind Dale 2

Rating:
Summary: Wow! This game has it made.
Review: From the start of this game to the end, Icould barley leave the computer seat. This is such a good game and such a good sequel that Iwould recommend it to anyone appreciates RPG's. After about 2 hours of playing BG2 and still being in the same damn dungeon I decided to move on to a better, more action packed game. Icewind Dale 2 is just that and more. I love the choices you can make in race and class and the variety of skills and feats you can obtain to make the game more exciting. So go out and buy Icewind Dale 2!

Rating:
Summary: More fun than it has any right to be!
Review: By all rights, ICEWIND DALE II should not be nearly as addictive, as compelling, and as all-out entertaining as it is. Consider: in an era where no game seems to have any hope of selling well unless it takes advantage of the most up-to-date 3D rendering technology, IDII employs old-fashioned handdrawn backgrounds and 2D animation. While the market is dominated by flashy console RPGs with unsurpassed production values, IDII has nary a movie-like cutscene or in-game cinematic to be found. And while the gaming zeitgeist is heavily slanted towards Japan, with exaggerated manga-style characters and a frenetic J-pop aesthetic, IDII soldiers on with the decades-old Dungeons & Dragons motif of dudes in fur hats and chainmail fighting monsters straight out of Tolkien.

On paper, ICEWIND DALE II had no right to be so good - but it is.

The reason for this is that game has a number of secret weapons at its disposal. First among these is BioWare's venerable Infinity Engine, which has powered game after brilliant game from BioWare and their prestigious licensee, Black Isle. While showing its age in spots, especially in the lack of graphical flash, the engine has been polished and improved upon for over four years now (!), and in its last outing it has been honed into an almost perfectly intuitive interface for allowing players to guide their heroes through battle after battle while efficiently fielding the vast reams of statistical information that are part and parcel of anything having to do with D&D. The interface takes up less of the game screen than ever before, and this, combined with the game's higher resolutions, allows players to see vast amounts of territory with a God's-eye-view and plan their strategies accordingly.

The game features a host of new painted character portraits, all of which, with their brooding faces and evocative clothing, do a fabulous job of personalizing and humanizing the heroes you create, and most of which are simply excellent paintings in their own right. (One quibble: it would have been nice, in the final Infinity Engine game, to have access to the by-now-vast gallery of portraits that have been created for the BALDUR'S GATE, ICEWIND DALE, and NEVERWINTER NIGHTS games - though, in truth, nothing is stopping the industrious player from importing those portraits into IDII himself.)

The other major weapon in IDII's arsenal is the new and incalculably improved Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition ruleset, which is both more intuitive (having more armor gives you a bigger armor number, not a confusingly smaller one) and allows for infinitely more possibilities for character advancement: in D&D 2nd edition, the only truly significant choice you made was what class to start a character out as, and afterwards your party was more-or-less set in stone; whereas with the 3rd edition, you get so many options for skills and 'feats' (superpowers or extra abilities granted to characters) that, hypothetically, you can roll up six fighters who start out with not much in common with one another and end up with even less as they branch out into different specialties as the game progresses. This diversity is the heart of the game's surprising replayability: it is highly unlikely, perhaps even impossible, for even the same player to generate heroes that have too much in common.

Like the original ICEWIND DALE, this game is purely linear and almost strictly focused on combat, forsaking both the vast gameworld and indepth roleplaying of BALDUR'S GATE II and the intricate, puzzle-box story of PLANESCAPE TORMENT. But ICEWIND DALE II does have a story, and it's a good one - taking you from the hoariest of cliched beginnings (monsters are menacing a town and six would-be heroes arrive Just In the Nick Of Time) to an epic and surprisingly emotional confrontation with a pair of villains who are far more interesting and complex than the usual run of mad wizards and homicidal warlords that litter the pages and screens of fantasy novels and video games. Along the way, your characters solve old murders, bring peace to the unquiet dead, defend the defenseless, and right ancient wrongs...or not. Whatever you do, the game shows you the consequences of your actions in ways both gratifying and surprising. Dialogue is well-written, often sharply humorous, and occasionally even moving. There's a lot of depth here for what many will dismiss as merely a 'hack and slash' game.

Lastly, I want to give special commendation to the music, composed by Israeli musician Inon Zur. Those who played THRONE OF BHAAL will recognize Zur's more exotic sound, which perfectly fit that game's more eastern-oriented setting, and although the soundtrack is a large departure from Jeremy Soule's more traditional Celtic-styled music from the first game, the new pieces do a superb job of getting you fired up to kill monsters. (Although Soule's much-heralded theme music from the original game is back, though unfortunately minus the stirring horn section midway through.)

Rating:
Summary: not perfect, but pretty darn good
Review: Icewind Dale 2: The Collector's Edition is what I am reviewing here. It is pretty much the same game though, only it comes with some nice extras, like a map, die, and I guess an inventory upgrade in some of the shops.(Much like BG2's Collection).
The game it's self is very good with alot of side-quests for you to fullfill and they are fun, not just time-consuming like Baldur's Gate. Even the "arrand boy" quests are fun, and a "arrant boy" will make them alot easier in Targos. Character developement is the best thing about this game. It steals the show. You are using 3rd Ed rules of AD&D and use the point buy system rather than that delaupidated roll a thousand weaklings like in Baldur's Gate and IWD1. A paladin character is much easier to make, and he can become pretty powerful with the right feats and class options. The Helm can switch to fighter and specialize in wheapons(+1 to hit +2 damage)+ fiendslayer feat. I guess that would be the equivalant of BGII's Cavalier(who is much stronger but less challenging to play). Other characters can multi-class at will with no penalties(if the race allows it)
Graphics and sound are pretty good. I like the Infinity Engine better than alot of other engines because it is like a stunningly beautiful chess board(in 3d) dungeons and outdoors look much better than NWN or Diablo(or whatever thier is). The only complaint I have is the resolution is too high and the characters are too small.(I can hardly imerse myself in the action on screen). Thier should be a 640X480 option for this engine in all games, it was made for that.(Hopefully in a patch but I doubt it.) Sound includes ambience as a ship port, and many animals as well as all the appropriate weather for the area(wind rustling, or dripping caverns. Music is lacking in some fight scenes and in dungeons(Like IWD1). Thier is now a new patch out that has been fully tested and more are on the way(we hope).
It is a very good game for the hardcore PC AD&D fan(which I am not) or any RPG fan(which I am) who can get used to the rules(and understand them fully). For your casual gamer, I suggest you put a lot of time into understanding the game before you even start with the character creation. Fighter, Fighter Cleric, Druid, Mage, Thief is not necessarily the best choice in this game.(or it's very boring)

Rating:
Summary: An Awful Waste of Time
Review: Truly, this is an awful game. I have always played RPGs and this one takes the cake as the worst oneo of all time, even worse than the tedious Diablo. The entire game is a knockoff of the original. If you thought you ever heard an awful backstory, just listen to this one: A horde of goblins are attacking(duh!) and you are the only one who can save the world. That is the whole gist of it. The remaindr of the game revolves around you walking around, talking, and killing. The thing that desturbed me the most was seeing this game compared to the classic BGII. The games are nothing alike. In the BG series, the game was just fun to play. The charachters in your group were actual people, not just mindless henchmen. They had personalities, minds and opinions. They were also higher level and much more colorful. But all of that is gone in this game. Here you are forced to create a six person party using the 3rd ADD rules. No more dies, but the point system is even more difficult to keep track of. The charachters all start as absolute weaklings, spineless level 1 charachters. Unless you play at the Heart of Fury mode, you can find absolutely no good items. About halway through the game, I only had one good sword. Referring to the charachters they are awful. A goblin can take out your mage in one hit, after three hits the most fearsome of fighters fall. And the fighting is so rediculus. Charge up, tryh not to use spells, and hope that you don't die. No strategy needed. And get ready to hit the reload button often. Every minute or so a charchter dies and you have no way to ressurect them. There is absolutely no way to circumvent the annoying battles. You can't even flank them, ust follow the road( sound like Diablo to anyone?) It too all the best parts of Bioware classics and ruined them. My advice is to never buy this pile of [junk]. Me, I think the worst mistake of the year was buying this awful game. Unless you want to go insanse, don't buy this and you'll thank me later.

Rating:
Summary: If this is a good game, I'd hate to see a bad one
Review: If you never have played a computer RPG based on the Infinity engine, you might get the idea that Icewind Dale II is a great game. The trouble is that the Baldur's Gate series of games have revealed just how much fun a computer RPG can be. Next to them, Icewind Dale II is a cross between a marathon and a bore. I played the game at standard level; it can be played at more difficult levels, and that may make the game more fun -- but I doubt it.

The pros:
1. Just about any D&D RPG is fun for me, so I had some fun with this one.

The cons:
1. Linear plot: This game has such a linear plot that it makes the old SSI "Gold Box" D&D games brilliantly complex by comparison. Basically, the game is nothing more than an endless series of battles that must be approached in linear fashion. It's not simply that you can't win a later battle until your characters have reached a high enough level; nearly all of the time "you can't get there from here" except by fighting through the series of battles, one after the other, in the order planned by the programmers. Many of the screens literally consist of trails that must be followed without branching in any way. You can't outmaneuver the enemy; you simply march up the trail until the battle starts. Duh.

2. Lack of strategy: I found very few battles where any strategy is needed. In the Baldur's Gate games different battles required different tactics: some required a rapid rush of the enemy, while others required a rapid retreat to draw enemies after you one by one; some required your party kept together, while others required the party separated; still others required you to have exactly the right magic spell or combination of spells to win. In ID II the inevitable tactic is cast Improved Haste on the party and then make a mass charge. At least 90% of the spells are basically useless. The battles require a lot less thinking and planning than the battles in the Baldur's Gate series; in my opinion they require a lot less strategy than the battles in the old Gold Box SSI games. Just cast Improved Haste and charge. Duh.

3. Lack of artifacts: For the first two-thirds of the game, you're really starved for good weapons. Then, suddenly, you can simply purchase +4 magical weapons by the bushel. The seeking of important weapons, or parts of them, is probably the best way to create "side quests" that actually have meaning in a game. In this game, you just save your money until you get to where you can buy good stuff. And if that's not good enough, in the next place you can buy or pick up +5 stuff all over the place. Duh.

4. Lack of interesting characters: The Baldur's Gate games required you to build a party of characters from creatures you encountered in the game. These characters had personalities: some were half-crazy, some bickered with each other, some I wanted to strangle by the time I was done with them -- but most were a lot of fun in one way or the other. Since you create your entire party in ID II, your characters have no personality, do not interact with each other, and are no fun. Duh.

5. Bugs: They never fixed the AI problem in the Infinity engine that has your characters bump into each other and then start running in large circles trying to get from here to there. When any logic demands a party keep together unless told to separate, in this game it's typical to have your party separate in spite of your best efforts and have some characters walk into fatal traps off-screen. Duh.

6. D&D Third Edition: D&D First Edition was more than complex enough. But they couldn't keep selling books unless they changed things. So they invented Second Edition, then Third Edition. Each time the rules got even more ridiculously complex. ID II uses D&D Third Editiion rules. There are all kinds of things to do in player creation and promotion that make ID II complex but have little effect on the outcome of the game. Duh.

7. Cheesy, cheesy: In the Baldur's Gate games, every spell had a counter-spell, and there was a table in the instruction manual to tell you what countered what. In this one, if the enemy casts Improved Invisibility, I don't think there is any opposing spell that works. Also, you are supposed to be able to hit someone under Improved Invisibilty once that enemy attacks, but the game would not allow me to do so. Apparently, you are simply supposed to stand there and watch an invisible enemy kill you. Duh.

8. The final battle: The end of this game is the most offensive anticlimax I have ever seen in any RPG game.

Should you buy this game? If you enjoy D&D games, you should enjoy it. But it is in no way to be compared with the Baldur's Gate series. Baldur's Gate II was 5 stars; I give this one 2.

Rating:
Summary: More fun than a game of fetch
Review: Lots of people like to sing the praise of IWD2 and compare it to the BG series by the same company. In this gamers opinion they are right, except that comparison consists mainly of what was WORST about BG. Gone is the epic story. Gone is the interesting interactions with NPCs in your party because the whole party is you (many enjoy this, I think it just promits the worst of hack-and-slash while destroying the fun interaction and saving the programers lots of time).

What the game most has in comon with BG is the old unfortunate notion of the go fetch adventure that was BG's major shortcoming, to a large extent replaced in BG II. What do I mean by fetch adeventure? NPC: I need some wood, can you get it?, NPC: I can't live without those bones, can you go find them?, NPC: Some toilet paper would really come in handy right now. I am all out. Be a dear and run to the store etc. You get the idea. The result is a game that is slow, two dimensinal, and a lot of time just walking between areas (another problem, that you cannot always walk right from one area to another and are left pacing through empty screens while your mind goes numb.)

Clearly some people really love this game. I don't get it and I am sorry that I did, buy it that is.

Rating:
Summary: Icewind Dale II: A Triumph of Gaming Goodness
Review: Despite the fact that Icewind Dale II still brings its aging Infinity engine along for the ride, it fairs considerably better than the flashier (but less satisfying) Neverwinter Nights. When it's all said and done, gameplay is the thing - and Icewind Dale II (like its forebear), delivers the goods in pretty much all the right places.

The Pros:

· The Icewind Dale series doesn't let you create just one character, but six! To me, this is what really sets this game apart from the competition. A dedicated RPGer will spend hours joyously crafting his party of adventurers, leaving no detail unchecked. Personally, I revived my heroes from the original Icewind Dale and continued their saga in the sequel. You can even write biographies for each character! In the end, you'll really care about these folks, and that helps when things get a little tedious.
· Gaining levels is actually fun. Successfully employing 3rd edition D&D rules, the game implements "feats," which give each character an added boost. For example, you can choose the Toughness feat, which raises your character's hit points, or opt for Dodge to avoid incoming blows.
· This game has monsters aplenty. In the end, there are more enemies in this game than you can even keep track of.
· Icewind Dale II actually manages to deliver a pretty decent backstory to accompany all of that combat. Better yet, the dialogue in the game benefits from a writer's touch, and doesn't bore the player to death the way it does most often in Neverwinter Nights. The voice-acting is likewise excellent. It's so good, in fact, you may even begin to care about the characters. How ingenious! To add the icing to the cake, the music and sound effects are far better than the average computer game accompaniments.

The Cons:

· To some, the fairly linear nature of the game may be mildly distressing. Personally, I enjoy the pacing of the game and the fact that you can't get bogged down in sub-quests, but the fact remains that some would rather be playing Morrowind or Deus Ex.
· Icewind Dale II can be merciless at times. The final boss encounter is maddeningly difficult (or "a delightful challnge" if you're in the masochistic camp of gamers), and so are many other fights along the way. And that's on the easy mode!
· There are too many moments within the game where some mini-boss will hurl his men at you and then vanish while you do your dirty work. It begins to get comical after the third of forth evil wizard says, "Men, attack them while I hide elsewhere, only to curse my henchmen's ineptitude later on! Ha ha ha!"

The game's strengths definitely outweigh its weaknesses, and that puts Icewind Dale several rungs about Neverwinter Nights. If you can sacrifice style for substance, this is the game for you.

Final Grade: B+ (or 4 and a half stars on a curve of 5)

Rating:
Summary: A Worthy Successor to an Instant Classic
Review: I still remember the reason I got the original Icewind Dale. I was simply bored out of my mind, disappointed with Diablo II, and looking for more Baldur's Gate while waiting for the sequel to be released. Icewind Dale had a unique flavor that distinguished it from the other Infinity Engine games, and a fast-paced, svelte system that still makes it an eye-opener in this world of 3-D everything games. The soundtrack, also, was arguably the best of any game I've seen.

Icewind Dale II is good enough that I'd call it a worthy successor. Like Baldur's Gate II it carries on in the flavor of the original, but with improvements to increase replayability. These improvements are largely comprised of a change to the 3rd Ed. D&D rules. In this regard, the game does a fair job at approximating them. I would say it's roughly comparable to Neverwinter Nights, though there of course are some major differences since you can control up to 6 characters.

The gameplay is pretty similar to the original, with less Fed-Ex quests and more good old-fashioned slaughter. The plot is still very much linear, but there's many ways you can go about meeting NPC's requests. One of these ways is to simply kill them all and take their stuff (though you might not always want to). There are quite a few new spells, and although the game lacks metamagic feats you can do things like spontaneous casting, domain spells, and wizard school specialization. All the old summoning spells have been upgraded as well, so they are actually useful at higher levels. Lastly, the 'Heart of Fury' mode is embellished with better weapons and items to make chopping down the horde less impossible. Your characters can advance to level 30, up to level 20 in any one class. It doesn't quite follow the epic level rules, but you'll probably be glad for the extra hit dice, since the only way to get that high is HoF mode.

There are many magical weapons and items to find, and a whole ton of new magic ammo. I can't say I used very much of the latter, however, since the sell price is so ridiculously high that I ended up selling it all instead of shooting it. You also have far more quick weapon slots so changing weapons isn't a pain. There are even more NPCs and more dialogue choices than the original IWD, and more places to visit than the original game plus its expansion. I don't doubt there will be an Icewind Dale II expansion coming up, either. The music follows in the flavor of the original score, but it isn't quite as good (a different artist). It's good enough, however, for my tastes. The graphics, of course, are still magnificent. While the character avatars haven't changed at all, it has always been the rendered backgrounds (and perhaps spell effects) that's the real point of interest. No disappointment there.

I'm not normally one to lower a rating solely due to bugs, but I'll have to make an exception here. Icewind Dale is so badly bugged that it really reduces the fun of the game. Some of the bugs are so ridiculously obvious I wonder if Black Isle even did QA on it, or if the delayed release made them rush it to the store shelves. Importing and exporting characters used to be perfectly fine, but now you'll end up with weird things like extra spells, missing levels, altered natural armor class, and a gamut of others. Magic is also bugged crazy, with enemy saving throws incorrectly calculated and spell quirks all over the place. My favorite so far is the Melf's Minute Meteors bug. If you de-equip the meteors you can equip a sword or other weapon, and your attacks remain at 5/round! Who needs fighters now? Savegames are also not nearly safe. I've seen characters change permanently for no particular reason between a save and load.

I should note that most of these bugs aren't game-breaking, especially since you can use the cheat console to get past things. This isn't a very natural way to do it, though, and I hope the patch fixes everything. The original game was also known for bugs, but it wasn't nearly this bad. Though the 3rd Ed. rules are nice, I would have rather they stuck with 2nd Ed. and not had so many bugs.

Overall, Icewind Dale II was a great RPG experience and well worth its weight in good game time. It is fun enough to simply explore the areas and see a great rendition of the region, and battle- ever the heart of the game- is still as challenging and exciting as before. If you're looking for a good RPG, here's something you won't want to miss.

Rating:
Summary: Great game. Like fine wine...
Review: ...the old Bioware Infinity engine improves with time. The core system (graphics, animation, sounds, etc) might be 4 years old, but this game more than makes up for it. Icewind Dale 2 is a great sequel and it delivers on everything that it promised. All of the wisdom of the previous Infinity Engine D&D games has been poured into this game. In addition, there are a handful of improvements. If you can get over the outdated graphics, then this game is more than worth picking up.

IWD2 uses the same real-time strategy setup as the other Infinity Engine D&D games. You have a party of up to 6 characters (unlike Neverwinter Nights), and you control them by giving them orders. Everything that you liked about the old games is still there. Great voice acting, the battle sounds (which now include taunts for a critical hit), great original music, an occasional dose of humor, cool spell effects, and lots of strategy. The Icewind Dale series is more combat-driven than Baldurs Gate and Planescape:Torment, and there is no "main character".

But this game is NOT just a repeat if Icewind Dale 1. This game is better. For starters, there is MUCH more dialog and role-playing. The dialog trees are huge. NPC's react differently to you, depending upon who is talking to them. You can talk to one NPC with 3 different characters, and get 3 unique responses. An NPC might offer a quest only to a character who is of a certain class or race. Diplomacy and Bluff play a significant part in the game.

The missions are more creative and interesting. The game has added a slightly new twist -- destructible objects, like barrels and doors, which makes for a few interesting problems to solve. There is one frantic scene where you have to battle across the screen quickly and stop some bad guys from demolishing a bridge (if you take too long, you fail). Some of your missions include destroying objects (a wall or a door, for instance).

In addition, IWD2 uses the 3rd Edition rules, and it is the best adaptation yet. Black Isle did a great job of incorporating the new rules and a few new races into the game, like the Aasimar and the Dark Elf. The game offers you more character variety than any D&D game to date, so it gives you the potential to replay the game (which is pretty long) a couple of times.

I found this game to be somewhat harder than the other Infinity Engine games, but without getting too frustrating. If you are new to this genre, then I advise picking up Icewind Dale 1 or Baldurs Gate 2 first to get the feel of these games, because Icewind Dale 2 is VERY hard. The battles require more brainpower to get through, so the fun factor is very high. The AI has been upgraded - enemies come at you differently than they used too. Enemy spell casters are smarter and more dangerous. The goblins, orcs, and other minions come in big bunches, which gives you the feeling that you are truly taking on an army of the enemy.

There isn't much to complain about in this game, except for the unfixable shortcomings of the old engine. The graphics and animation are getting very outdated, and some of the other little flaws like pathfinding are still there. The story is linear, and the game is still combat-oriented. However, you can look past those flaws to see a great game. This is the best D&D 3rd Edition game out there yet. Black Isle squeezed that old Infinity engine like an orange and got every last drop of fun that they could out of it.

Rating:
Summary: Icewind Dale is back and better than ever!
Review: Icewind Dale is one of my favorite games, so I was eagerly awaiting the release of Icewind Dale 2. It is one of the most solid and well-balanced RPG's that I have played. They hvae done it again with Icewind Dale 2. It once again used the Infinity Engine that worked so well with Baldur's Gate. IWD2 is has a perfect balance of unique gameplay and challenges, yet it is linear enough that it never became too frusterating to play. The different parties that you can play with make playing the game a few times a welcome challenge. If you are looking for an engaging new RPG I would highly reccomend Icewind Dale 2.