Rating: 
Summary: Baldur's Gate on Valium
Review: I wanted to like this game. I really did. I was so excited when I got it. It was one of the first games to use 3rd Edition Rules Ad&D, complete with an old-school turn based combat system. My excitement would quickly turn to disgust, though.It becomes apparent that this game was rushed right when you first create your party. The characters look utterly bland and generic, and customizability is extremely limited (ooo, my mage can have either a blue robe or black robe). Conspicuously missing are the Druid, Bard, and Wizard classes. Why these were not included is beyond me, and takes away from the authenticity and depth of the game. Also, you are not able to choose your own feats. For those who are unfamiliar with 3rd edition rules, feats are special abilities that you gain upon leveling up that enhance your character. Normally, you can choose which feats to take, but in this game they're all chosen for you as you level up. Ridiculous. Things don't get any better after that. You're immediately thrust into a battle upon starting the game. Battles are full-turn based, with one character taking an action, then the next, etc, etc. Combat is excruciatingly long. Character animations are slow...prepare to be bored to tears while waiting for fifteen zombies to slowly lurch across the playfield before you can take any action (and wait again the next time around). The most frustrating aspect of combat, though, is the miss rate of your physical combatants. It's not uncommon to go a few rounds with all of your party memebers hitting absolutely NOTHING. In a real-time game like Baldur's Gate, this isn't so bad, since everything is happening at once, but in a game like this, it can make what should be simple and quick battles take FOREVER. After about ten minutes of both sides swinging at each other like they were playing pinata, I finally kill the three or four orcs at the beginning of the game and am rewarded with about 20xp for each of my party members. It takes 1000 to reach level 2. Needless to say, leveling is painfully slow. Expect to play for hours and hours without advancing a single level, even early on when leveling should be relatively quick. In addition, to make things quite lopsided, you'll find troves of uber equipment, often in the first dungeon. My level 3 Barbarian was wielding a +3 Axe at one point, which is analogous to giving an Uzi to a kindergartener, and a practice any self-respecting DM would stay far away from. My biggest gripe with this game is magic and magic-based classes. As I stated before, the Wizard class is completely absent from the game. While the Sorcerer is a great class in its own right, the Wizard adds an old school and authentic feel, and it's sorely missed in this game. Aside from that, what IS there isn't much to write home about, either. Upon looking at my game's manual, I was appalled at the paltry collection of spells available to spellcasters. NO level 9 spells, and few higher level spells, with no creative or innovative spells whatsoever. Spellcasters themselves also leave a lot to be desired. In short, don't pick a Sorcerer for your party unless you want to be lugging around a dead weight xp hog with the durability of tissue paper for a very good portion of the game. Early on, your caster will start with at the very most 6 hit points, and cannot wear any sort of armor. This means that if an orc decides to turn his axe on our robed buddy, he won't last much longer than a round or two. The said orc while also laugh mockingly with when the sorcerer tries to defend himself by shooting a pretty little red bolt at him which scratches the orc for 2 damage. The sorcerer can cast this same little red bolt 4 times before exhausting his spell reserves, making him even more helpless. He could always try attacking with his equipped weapon, but he may as well be firing a musket at a penny 100 yards away, while blindfolded. I know mages are supposed to be weak when starting out and come into their own at higher levels, but as I mentioned before, levels comes extremely slowly, so it will be a long an arduous path before your mage can actually do anything other than die. This was one of the main reasons I stopped playing in disgust, since I'm a big fan of magic users and they're practically useless for a good portion of this game. In conclusion, an overhyped game that deserves to be forgotten. [Money] wasted that I'll never get back.
Rating: 
Summary: Uninspired
Review: I didn't hate this game as much as most of the reviewers here, but I must agree that it was a disappointment. For what it's worth, I've had none of the technical problems that others have described (crashes, lockups, etc.). The user interface is certainly less than ideal, but it's workable. And yes, the load times are ridiculous, but that by itself isn't enough to ruin a game. And the AI is terrible, but there are RPGs with poor AI that are still great games (e.g., Neverwinter Nights). So what's the problem? It's an endless stream of uninspired hack-and-slash. The puzzles rarely amount to more than "find the right key to open the door" - and you can be sure that the key will be arbitrarily located in a random chest on the other side of the dungeon. Roleplaying is almost nonexistent, and when it does come into play, it's usually pretty hackneyed stuff. You spend most of your time wandering around a gigantic, inconveniently designed dungeon, hacking your way through either ridiculously wimpy or ridiculously powerful undead. Strategy (if you can call it that) ultimately boils down to saving your game before each battle and replaying it until you win. So while the engine itself isn't a total disaster (though it could certainly be better), the game that they designed for it is. The Baldur's Gate series did the isometric AD&D thing MUCH better, and Neverwinter Nights takes computer-based D&D to a whole new level. Unless you're just looking for a cheap way to kill a lazy weekend, don't waste your money on this yawner.
Rating:
Summary: Not a Real RPG
Review: This game is not a real RPG. Despite claiming to follow the rules of D&D 3E it does so selectively. The biggest problem is that it does not allow you to level your character on your own (pick feats, skills) - its like playing with the worst kind of DM. This game is nothing but a dungeon crawl in a (very poor) D&D suit. Dungeon Siege is much better (and gives you more control of your character development).
Rating:
Summary: Sign of the Times
Review: In the past few years, an annoying trend has emerged in the home computer video game world. Game developers, presumably tortured into submission by their publishers, have been releasing outlandishly buggy games. PoR is another in a long list of casualties. Online role-playing games such as Ultima Online and Everquest were barely functional at release. Black and White crashed constantly. Anarchy Online was a complete joke. Even Max Payne had a couple problems at first (in this case, the patch was out within a couple days). This "release and then patch" method of rushing a game out the door has got to stop. Often the problems aren't fixed for weeks. In the case of PoR, a few people actually had parts of Windows removed due to a bug with the uninstaller. The other problems people have reported are too numerous to list. Add to this some gameplay balance mistakes (or possibly bugs), and you've got an army of angry computer RPG fans flooding the official PoR forums with vitriolic hate letters. The saddest thing, in the end, is that all of these problems are with a game that turns out to not even be that good. It's a notch above mediocre, a somewhat pleasant and totally mindless diversion. There's no real depth, excitement, or role-playing to speak of. Wait for the bargain bin on this one. It'll be there soon.
Rating: 
Summary: Game play is okay but lacks imagination
Review: When I first got this game I was hoping it would be more like the first one, but that was not the case. The graphics are much better, but the game doesn't show variety at all for instance the orcs look the same as some high level monsters. The music in this game for each battle is always the same and becomes boring. Overall if you can get passed the boring then maybe you will enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Kind of a Shame
Review: I remember fondly the time I spent on a C64 working
my way through the original Pool of Radiance. I was
really looking forward to the release of this game-
unfortunately it comes up dry in several areas. I won't
repeat what was said about the lack of variety in character
creation or the agonizingly slow path to leveling other
than to say that review is spot on. The variety of monsters
you encounter is slim, the plot is not really there at all.
Finally, the combat (the meat of this game..) is plodding and
time consuming with very little flash or drama. Bottom line, and I am sorry to say it- unless you're just
between games and have something like "federal prison" type
time on your hands to kill- don't waste the hours of your life
playing PoR.
Rating:
Summary: Game play issues
Review: The graphics are decent and all but the interface / game play issues are pretty ugly and sad in my book. Navigation just stinks. Even after mapping out an entire dungeon, you have to click every single screenful to move around. Waypoints or some other form of vast-distance travel would be SO helpful. Combat - here I am with a couple of Lvl 2 and 3 weenies and I'm surrounded by a bunch of Arracat's and a Guard Arracat. I'm supposed to defeat these things?! Not fricking likely! I'm completely stuck and haven't been able to play the game. I can't kill 'em and I can't flee. Game over and I'm not about to start the whole fricking thing over. Combat - I try to cast any of my touch-based spells such as Harm and my opponant is given an Attack of Opportunity and next thing I know my cleric/enchanter is spead eagled on the dirt. Sneaking around - characters can't travel too far from the party leader. How's my rogue supposed to scout ahead and check things out for me? Answer=He doesn't! He's picks locks and finds traps and that's all. No sneaking, no backstabbing, no doing things that makes rogues a rogue and not a glorified lock smith. Combat - it's SO easy to mis-click and next thing you know your Cleric, who is supposed to be healing your 2hp fighter is firing her sling at a Master Shadow. Jee, there's a swell idea. You can't save during combat and one mis-click can change the entire outcome. Combat is so damned slow so if you mis-click towards the middle or end of 20 minute skirmish, screw up the entire battle, you gotta reload and start over. Do this a few times and I'm ready to break my fist on my monitor. Combat - experience comes *very* slowly. No, I don't want a five minute Superhero but I *do* want to be rewarded appropriately. Having a group of Lvl 1 and 2 characters take down two Orcs, an Orc Leader, AND a Spectre or whatever that thing is at the entrance of Myth Drannor is a damn fine trick but the congratulations, the rewards for performing this feat, is so incredibly minimal! 3e rules?! Bah! I sure ain't getting no 3e experience.... No, I haven't been able to exit Myth Drannor yet so I don't know what the rest of the game is like but so far the Game Play and Interface are pretty sucky in my book. If I had the option I would return this game and exchange it for something else, AFTER checking the game reviews. No more will I listen to media hype and false promises. If I do then I deserve to have my 40 some odd dollars stolen from my wallet.
Rating:
Summary: Oh my gosh...
Review: I pop in the disc and select install. The game refuses to let me do a full installation because it says I don't have 1 gig of space free on D:\(When I clearly have 5 gigs free). So, I have to do minimal install. I then finish installing it and go to play the game, only to learn that it didn't install on D:\ drive. Apparently, I need to download a patch just to install the game to D:\. Wow, the creators sure messed up on something so fundamental. They must not have even tested the game because apparently, you can't install the game in any specified folder unless you download patch 1.1. Then I go to play the game only to see my characters walking at 2 miles an hour. I start it up with a paladin, barbarian, and rogue tearing the place up while my mage sits down and rests. I then realize that my characters don't have their long swords equipped. This is odd because I just equipped those long swords. I look at my inventory only to learn that there is no long sword animation. I have the sword equipped but I can't see it because I guess the creators left that out or the minimal installation(which I was forced to use) must not have it. This pisses me off greatly. I then look around for quicksave. Where is quicksave? I have no clue. You can't customize your controls or something. I then give up on the game to play Icewind Dale. The games have the exact same stories, and Pool of Radiance has so many problems that I don't ever plan to play it again. Besides, if you do find a sword that does 585598250298 damage in the first dungeon, you know theres a problem.
Rating:
Summary: Not a Real RPG
Review: This game is not a real RPG. Despite claiming to follow the rules of D&D 3E it does so selectively. The biggest problem is that it does not allow you to level your character on your own (pick feats, skills) - its like playing with the worst kind of DM. This game is nothing but a dungeon crawl in a (very poor) D&D suit. Dungeon Siege is much better (and gives you more control of your character development).
Rating: 
Summary: GREAT GAME
Review: The graphics for this game are a bit out-dated now, but this is still a GREAT GAME. I n fact, it is by far the best RPG game I have ever played. Now for the bad news, the game is agonizing UNLESS you download the three pathces from the Ubisoft website. Without these, the game cannot be completed. Additionally, the game is prone to crash at random intervals, so save often. If you can deal with the occasional crash, and you download the patches this is a must-play and very, very addictive! It is just hard enough to keep you interested but by no means too easy (boring).
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