Baldur's Gate

Rating:
Summary: kill, get item, give item, reward, kill, get item, give ...
Review: At first I liked this game. Especially because of the books I found and my encounters with interesting characters. But after a while it got more and more centered on combat. Even though the combat system is great, I got bored with it after chapter 6 or 7. after a while I got really sick of the 'find the bad guy, kill the bad guy, get some stuff from his corpse, give it to the good guy, get something for yourself' style quests. The game is simply TOO REPETITIVE. After chapter 6 or 7 I uninstalled it even though I suspected I was close to the end of the game.
Alltogether, I had good fun playing this game the first week, but after that it got annoying. For a good story I would recommend PlaneScape: Torment.

Rating:
Summary: A Decent but Combat Intensive Game
Review: Baldur's Gate has a terrific real time engine, where you get to see everything from what weapon or item your character is wielding to the unique spell effect an image is using. Except for a few bugs easily fixed by a patch, the game's engine is exquisite, and provides the best electronic RPG system that I've seen.

The only flaw for me is the fact that the game is essentially a hackfest. While an epic and intriguing plot is included, the real villain spends most of his time hiding behind his lackeys to the point where, despite a brief appearance at the beginning, you go through 100 hours of dungeons and monsters just to speak to him. There is almost no dialogue or character interaction, and the final few battles turn out to be an exercise in how many monsters you can summon rather than an opportunity to utilize real strategies.

While the combats are entertaining to a point, I prefer more story-intensive games such as Final Fantasy or Planescape: Torment. But at the same time, this game does provide an excellent setup for it's sequel, and Baldur's Gate II improves on everything the original does wrong. If you like combat, or if you want to get the whole saga, you will want to pick up Baldur's Gate.

Rating:
Summary: The game that rules them all!
Review: Baldur's Gate, I believe, is THE most entertaining and exciting I have ever played -- It is truly a classic, and I strongly recommend it for people who want to know where the greatness of the name RPG comes from. With unique character classes, true AD&D rules (no pointless hack and slash like AC), and an immersing, exciting and slowly unfolding mystery/plot, Baldur's Gate transforms you into the hero you wish you could be. Endless hours of play, and a game that is never repetitive.

Rating:
Summary: THE BEST RPG IN HISTORY
Review: When I opened a package from a friend of mine for Christmas 2000 and saw it was Baldur's Gate, I wasn't very enthusiastic. I had played another RPG, and I wasn't very impressed with it. It had no plot, and the graphics stunk. I just assumed all RPG's were like that. So I figured, I've got 20 gb of free space on my drive, and i've got a lot of free time ahead of me, so I figured I might give BG a try, figuring it was probably gonna be really bad.

Was I wrong.

The great story, awesome graphics and sound, and many spells (I love magic stuff) just completely blew my mind. Any serious (or even semi-serious) gamer sould DEFINITLY get this game. It is WELL worth your money.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best games EVER!!!
Review: I've played the game (and beat it) 4 times now and I plan to start a new game soon...It truly is one of the best games out there! It has great graphics, great sound, and great gameplay! I'd recommend to anyone, anywhere.

Rating:
Summary: The Best of Its Time
Review: This Game is without a doubt the best RPG of its time. Unfortunately, that time has already passed. Every good bit of praise you've heard about this game is probably true. It's great fun, and the story and game are flexible enough to play through it more than once, if you choose to do so. If you are used to the 3rd edition D&D rules, you may get a bit frustrated, but it's a more-or-less faithful rendition of the 2nd edition game. The graphics are everything they're cracked up to be, and the sounds are pretty nifty, too. Most of the game's shortcomings can be made up for by free unofficial 3rd party downloads. Not only are cheats, item editors, spell editors, etc. available, you'll also be able to find custom items, voice sets, and portraits for your characters with a minimum of fuss. If you are used to Baldur's Gate 2, and try to play this one you'll probably get annoyed. You'll quickly notice the changes they made and understand why they made them. Still, it's probably worth the [money], unless you're short on cash. If you are short on cash, save for Baldur's Gate 2, it's by far the superior game.

Rating:
Summary: What Went Wrong
Review: There are three major problems with this game.

1) The CDs get scratched coming out of the box. I read about it in the reviews, and then it happened to me. When I returned the game, the EB guy knew exactly what the problem was and was nice enough to get me jewel cases for each CD of my new copy. A nice guy, but I suspect this happens a lot. As you can read below, why they get scratched is just a dumb idea by Interplay.

2) It's based on AD&D rules. You can either love this or hate it.. A lot of the rules are just plain stupid and make no sense, and magic is just too powerful. The universe is basically a poor man's Tolkien's world through the eyes of an attention deficit disorder child (ADD ... concidence?), making it seem not very believable. But the main problem with CRPG AD&D as I see it is there is really no point to doing anything you do but to get more stuff and get more experience so you can fight bigger guys. As a result the whole game is geared around combat. Personally I enjoy interacting with NPCs and other elements of the world to give me a bit of immersion into an RPG. AD&D just doesn't really seem suited for that, as it's hard to make believable characters in a world that is just ridiculous. It would be one thing if I found the combat rules extremely thrilling as in Final Fantasy Tactics but I just don't. Death is extremely common and is nothing more than an annoyance for the most part -- the worst thing is hauling all their stuff back to the Temple when you resurrect them.

3) The Infinity Engine. Ok here is what the problem is. They tried to make a great looking engine to run the story AND combat in real-time. Well it is a great try and almost works. But basically the problem is in order to make the graphics so detailed, they had to make the area maps small. In order to make it so you couldn't see all the way across the area map (actually I don't see why not if the land is flat), they keep visual range to a square about the size of the screen. This is what seriously hinders combat IMHO. Battles are spontaneous clashes that happen basically at point blank range. There is no planning or getting into formation, except for maybe hauling your mage behind some cover. The computer AI is bad, mostly because the game is pretty complicated. For examples mages, who should know the danger of the Fireball spell, tend to stay clumped in groups instead of splitting up. So basically ... in order to win the computer relies on surprise, striking first, and generally being more powerful than your characters. As a result you tend to die quickly the first time you face a boss. Repeated saving and loading and you figure out a way to win, which usually comes from stuff you learned in previous deaths. I hate that in any game but especially RPGs as it REALLY takes you out of character. There are no real epic battles either which I found very disappointing.

Furthermore, the Infinity Engine is just not good for telling a story. There is some speech in the game but not very much, and dialogue trees are very brief. You're really left to your imagination when dealing with NPCs. The plot is frequently advanced through a text excerpt read by a mediocre narrator. That really should be the last resort of any game -- saying "You are very scared" is the easy way out when you could illicit the same response with music, dialogue and graphics. The problem here is, the plot is REALLY good. But the poor story-telling just ruins it. Allowing you to play any character, good or evil, any race, any class, forces the NPCs to generally treat you ambiguously. It makes the universe broad but thin. People relate to you in pretty much the same way they do as in Final Fantasy 1 or Legend of Zelda.

Finally, I did not think it was that big a game at all. It was very detailed graphically and was filled decently, however the tiled nature of older games like "Lord of the Rings" (which Interplay released in 1990) allowed it to be just as big in my opinion, though it's been a while since I played. No way is it bigger than any Final Fantasy game.

One battle sums up pretty much the whole game for me. Another party at a bar started a fight with me for no reason whatsoever. It would have been understandable if it was a small scale rumble or just fists, but no, this is AD&D and the next thing you know it's an all-out 5 on 5 war and I'm summoning undead and he's casting lightning bolt -- all in public for no reason. His lightning bolt tore through my party, killed 4 guys minding there own business at the bar, including the bartender/innkeeper, and even killed the cook at the end of the hallway. Now while that's funny, it was stupid because only an incredibly evil or insane person would be casting area effect spells in a crowded public situation. Also because the bartender was dead I could no longer use that bar as an inn, so it was basically closed from then on. You would think an event like this would be talked about, but in true AD&D manner it's just another battle. I would argue that if it's too complicated for NPCs to comprehend events like this is in any manner then simply don't allow them to occur. I would rather have a game that feels real that is limited in scope than a game where you can do whatever you want and nothing matters.

But for all I've said, Baldur's Gate is a decent game. It has good graphics, a good plot and is fun to play early on at least. I don't recommend it to the casual gamer but if you're an AD&D fan or a hard core RPGer then obviously this is a must have. Baldur's Gate is basically a couple of AD&D sourcebooks dropped into a computer with a nice graphics engine. The allure is being able to do whatever you want in an AD&D universe. Personally I prefer RPGs of smaller scope but with more depth.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible packaging, disk often unusable. Only buy in store!
Review: While the game is a great deal of fun. The reason I rated it only 3 stars is that the packaging is so terrible, the disks are often damaged. It is packaged in a poorly designed cardboard contraption with lots of rubber cement. It falls apart in storage and shipping, so you end up getting disks covered in goo that is impossible to remove. I had to ship mine back. I went out and got it at a local store, made them open the package and check for goo damage. Sure enough, they had to open 4 (!) before they finally found one that was intact and clean. Great game, poor package design. Buy it, but buy it in a store so you can be sure you get a set of clean disks. Save yourself the dissapointment. It seems to be only this, the first Baldur's Gate that has the trouble. We have all the others and they are wonderful in every way.

Rating:
Summary: Complicating
Review: This game is too overwhelming. During each battle you have to instruct your six men, which gets annoying. Buy Diablo I and II instead

Rating:
Summary: Impressive Game
Review: Baldur's Gate is a pretty good RPG. Vast worlds, powerful monsters, weapons to find, and adventures you can find such as destroying a group of Kobolds in an iron mine or chasing down a group of bandits that is causing trouble to the people. You can choose what character you want, what race, and whether he/she should be good or evil. I find this game pretty fun but minus one star for difficulty. Some monsters are pretty strong and some can even cast spells that would give instant death to your characters. This game is pretty addictive plus, it's only (price)! A pretty cheap investment. Once you buy Baldur's Gate, you cannot stop playing til you reach the end!