Rating: Summary: good, but not necessary Review: It added a little to the main game, but nothing earth shattering and the quests don't have much to do with the main plot. The quests are VERY difficult to get through and take more than a little patience and perserverence to succeed. My advice? Seek out and downloadthe unofficial add on "Dark Side of the Sword Coast" to suplement Baldur's Gate and this Expansion Pack instead.
Rating: Summary: Details, Details Review: The 3d animation and video clips were all fine and good, but the storyline could be quite annoying at times, sometimes it's really hard to do things that don't have much consequence in the plot...poor programming really....let's hope that Baldor's Gate 2 is'nt like this, as far as I'm concerned it had better be a vast improvment.
Rating: Summary: Low Quality Expansion Review: There are three kinds of expansion packs. Some, like Starcraft: Brood War and the Wing Commander 1 Secret Missions, are like mini-sequels and can actually be better than the original. They contain all the good ideas from the original that didn't make the initial release. The typical expansion pack increases functionality of the product a little bit with a few new features and adds on a decent amount of new content. The last type of expansion pack is where a lower design team comes on to take stuff in the original, change it around a little bit, add a few new levels, and call it an expansion pack. TOTSC is squarely in the third category. It's only reason for existing is for people who like to get more stuff and get more experience. If that's exciting to you then the game will be perfect but personally I found that the most tedious part of the game. I also like stuff making logical sense. In this game I recall a +3 Plate Mail just basically sitting around! Why would anyone leave that behind, seriously?It's not just that the quests don't tie into the plot, but that they don't fit ANYWHERE. Unless your party is a bunch of treasure hunters it doesn't really make sense that your character would put the iron crisis on the backburner and go off on a boat ride that might take months. Finally, it's meant to be played out of order. If you try to play it in order as I did, you will find the expansion quests too difficult at first and then the end of the game too easy. So basically, I cannot recommend this. Don't get it!
Rating: Summary: I can't believe I wasted my money Review: This expansion pack (EP) was a complete wast of my time, and money. It adds a couple new magical weapons and armor, some new spells and a couple new areas to explore. There is no plot to the the EP, just some NPC saying "Oh I lost my son in Durlags Tower. . . ." and stuff like that. The only thing that made this EP worth two stars is that they cleaned up a lot of the rough edges from Baldurs Gate, and increased Experience points to a point where your fighter and like one other class can go up a level. By the way, it is just one more disk that you have to flip through if you decide to replay Baldurs Gate. In conclusion don't buy this EP, it isn't worth it, unless any new EP's come out that require it.
Rating: Summary: BG Expansion pack is fun & playable Review: This expansion pack to Baldur's Gate adds a few areas and moves the EXP cap from 89000 to 161000. It also adds a LOT of new magical EQ into the game. So your characters can get a lot more powerful. I found it fun, and fairly challenging. The new areas are fairly quest and puzzle oriented, a bit more than the core of Baldur's Gate. But don't try to take durlag's tower without a high level thief.
Rating: Summary: Same old... Review: This game provided little improvement to Baldur's Gate, chiefly by not advancing the plot at all. Hard-core gamers will buy it, but I advise the casual gamer to stay away.
Rating: Summary: Tales of the Sword Coast Review: This is an expansion pack to Baldur's Gate, it is an add-in, and it does not expand the original plot. There are three new areas that your party can explore. The experience point cap is also up to 161.000 in this game, making it possible to gain 1 or 2 more levels, depending on your class. The three add-in areas are: Ulgoth's Beard, a small town north of Baldur's Gate where more or less all the expansion adventures take their start from, an...island(trying not to reveal too much), and Durlag's Tower. Of these Durlag's Tower is the most challenging and interesting. Durlag's tower is the biggest dungeon in the entire game, and can be a challenge for even experienced parties. The other areas, offer some interesting information, but are less exiting to play through. All in all it is an interesting expansion, although not an expansion in the true sense of the word. But since you can sometimes find both Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast in one package at a good price there is no excuse not to get it.
Rating: Summary: Brutally Hard Review: When I played Baldur's Gate, it was a wonderfully long experience of exploration and balanced encounters. If you ran into an over-powering encounter, you knew your party had ventured into the wrong place at the wrong time. This expansion is a bucket of cold water in the face. It's short, just four areas with a dozen or so levels, and brutally hard. Maybe I didn't level-up correctly in Baldur's Gate, but I found every step a struggle of high-level encounters, traps my their couldn't disarm and, worst of all, key puzzles. Additionally the expansion didn't have of the story elements of the original game. The game itself had almost no changes although there was a new auto-pause feature that was very helpful. Hard-core Baldur's Gate fan with a high-level party (10+) will love Sword Coast but other should probably skip it.
Rating: Summary: Expansion pack is a must! Review: You get a lot of interface improvements with expansion pack. Ctrl-Tab is the best one. So get both before you play Shadows of Amn.
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