Rating: 
Summary: BALDUR'S GATE
Review: Baldur's gate is one of the most addictive games you can come across. If you are someone who is interested in advanced dungeons & dragons games this is the game for you. Although there are some minor flaws (ie. the graphics aren't all that great) this game is worth the money.
Rating: 
Summary: The best RPG... ever?
Review: The original Baldur's Gate is what turned me on to PC RPGs. Always a fan of console RPGs, I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked it up. What I got was a game that seemed to address every problem I'd ever had with other RPGs. The world was deep and engrossing, the characters superbly realized, the combat fun and strategic, and the story and sheer volume of content allowed me to do many things in whatever sequence I wanted. Take all of that and make it about three times better, and you have Baldur's Gate 2, in my opinion quite possibly the finest RPG ever crafted.If you want to see everything there is to see, and do everything there is to do in the Forgotten Realms, be prepared to drop at least 100 hours into this game. It's that big. Of course, you can stick to the main storyline only and complete the game in less than half that time if you want to, but for die-hard role-players like me, this game is a dream come true. After completing the dungeon in which the game begins, you find yourself in a gigantic, wide-open world with dozens of quests you can take on or ignore as you please, in whatever order you prefer. Of course, there is a certain amount of linearity to the game, but there are always enough extra options available to offer you a great deal of control over how your characters progress. Moreover, the inclusion of all this extra material makes the world seem more real, and not just a stage that's been set for you to carry out one pre-set task. The NPCs in this game are interesting, well-drawn characters, and often quite funny as well. There are 20 NPCs to choose from, and you can have up to six characters in your party at any given time. Most of the NPCs are new, although some favorites from the original Baldur's Gate return, like Jahiera and Minsc. The characters are distributed nicely among the various alignments and classes available in the game, so that you'll be able to form a well-balanced party no matter what your style of play. Anyone who played the original Baldur's Gate will recognize the character creation system, which allows you to build your protagonist however you'd like. This time there are many more classes available, as well as specialist kits within the primary classes, who get various bonuses and penalties that allow you to customize your character even further. Many of these come from the D&D 3rd Edition rules, even though the gameplay mechanics themselves are more akin to the 2nd Edition rules. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it. This game is far more complex than, say, the Final Fantasy series, but you don't need to know how the D&D rules operate to have an incredible experience with Baldur's Gate 2. The instruction manual explains everything you need to know. Finally, let me talk about the combat in this game. You control all six of your characters in realtime combat, and you have tons of options on how to do it. Each NPC has an array of AI scripts available to him, and you can select whichever you like to govern how that character will behave in combat. Whether you want someone who charges in and engages the enemy in melee combat, someone who hangs back and uses his ranged weapons whenever possible, someone who supports other characters and heals them if necessary, or any number of other options, you can do it easily. You can also control all six characters manually, which is how I prefer to play. If doing that in realtime sounds a little daunting, you can use the game's auto-pause settings to create a more turn-based battle system, which might be more familiar to some. Your characters start at about 7th level -- which is where they finished in the original Baldur's Gate -- so combat will be very interesting right from the start. Particularly, if you enjoy making heavy use of magic in battle, this game will keep you enthralled from beginning to end. Mages can become obscenely powerful in this game, and can develop an arsenal of hundreds of spells. You can summon demons from another plane, disintegrate your foes instantly, or even stop time. Fighting an enemy mage is a tricky proposition, and requires a good deal of strategy and foresight. If you rush in heedlessly and attack everything you meet, I hope you like dying, because you'll be doing a lot of it. For example, there are literally dozens of spells that provide a mage with one form of protection or another. They might shield him from certain kinds of weapons, or from certain types of magic, or render him invisible, or create a clone of himself, and so on. High-level mages can use a spell called Spell Sequencer that lets you cast up to three spells ahead of time, then activate them all at once later on. You can also use a spell called Contingency to automatically cast a spell once a certain condition is met. Thus if you engage an enemy mage in combat, he might instantly raise four or five different barriers around himself, before you can do anything. Before you can kill him, you have to figure out how to strip away each of those layers of protection. It can get complicated, but that's what I love about it. You can go into a battle and get completely and hopelessly slaughtered, then go into it again using a different strategy and configuration of spells, and crush your enemies mercilessly. My party in BG2 had five characters who could cast mage spells, because I love this aspect of the game so much. This is by no means a mindless game. The battles will challenge you every step of the way. Combine all this with an intriguing and immersive world and a particularly strong story, and you have a role-playing experience like none other. Baldur's Gate 2 has yet to be equaled on the PC or on any platform, and you're doing yourself a huge disservice if you miss it.
Rating:
Summary: Few, not even BioWare, follow the path prepared by BG.
Review: Baldur's Gate shows us how great a CRPG can be when the NPC's are well written and placed in the context of a great, epic story. Epics have grandeur and scale, but they also spend a lot of time fleshing out small details. Just read Homer's Iliad as an example. Baldur's Gate did not always have great writing, but it had enough of it to show us a glimpse of what we had been missing in CRPGs. Now with Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale it is clear that the focus of both BioWare and Black Isle has shifted away from great storytelling. We can only hope that BioWare's secret RPG project and Black Isle's semi-secret Project Jefferson return to the path perpared by the Baldur's Gate series. Otherwise, we are bound for the Path of Eternal Barrel Smashing.
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Summary: the new order
Review: Baldur's Gate 2 - One of the greatest game i had pleasure of having and playing. The ability to have a party that interacts with you and your decisions is unbelieavable. With a sharp turn around every corner of the story this game is undoubtedly deserves 5 starts. With the great history of Dungeons and Dragons this is a great accomplishment done by Black Isle Studios. If you are a fan of Dungeons and Dragons' games this is a must by for you. ---- Janos Horvath
Rating:
Summary: ...-KICKING FOR GOODNESS!
Review: I bought this game when it first came out, after enjoying the original Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast. I started playing and then set it aside -- for a reason I'll explain later -- and then got wrapped up in Dugeon Siege, Neverwinter Nights and then Icewind Dale II. But I kept BG II in the back of my mind, knowing I wanted to come back to it. I did restart it recently, and I've had a great two months of gameplay. What a fantastic game -- story, music, humor, interface, combat, voices. It is simply first class in every way. It ranks among my all-time favorites. I'll admit to being a total freak about playing D&D role-playing games -- they have wiped out any desire I have to play games like Unreal, Quake, NASCAR sims, etc. Ever since Planescape Torment, I've been hooked. These D&D games can be grouped into two main types 1) hack 'n' slash -- Diablo and Diablo II being the best of those and 2) role-playing stories -- Planescape Torment being the purest of those I've played. Most games combine these elements. Dungeon Siege barely has a story, Icewind Dale and IDII have a story, but who cares? Baldur's Gate II falls much more into the category of role-playing story. It has a great plot, and the plot is nearly always a factor. Combat, although plentiful, is not hack 'n' slash. It is more strategic, using your team of characters (up to 6) to the best of their abilities. In a good team, each character must contribute. In fact, one of your characters at any moment might be the key to your survival. That's engrossing. But the greatest feature of BGII is the quirky personalities of the characters. They are all unique and VERY willful. They will nag you, annoy you, please you, surprise you. And they might just up and revolt against you. I had Keldorn (good) and Vincona (evil) in my party, and they are both really valuable characters. Keldorn is a [good] fighter with great magic resistance, and Vincona is a pure cleric who can save your life in the worst of the undead dungeons. But after a few heated arguments, Keldorn just up and attacked Vincona. He would have killed her, but I broke it up. I then dismissed Keldorn in favor of Vincona. About one chapter later, Vincona got angry about the 'goodness' of my team and quit on me in the middle of a quest! The characters make for great, unpredictable gameplay. And the dialogue at times can have you rolling on the floor with laughter. Minsc (a tough but goofy ranger) is always ready with a funny line...and yet at times shows such fierce devotion to your team that it can almost draw tears. And Nalia (a mage) is always fretting outside a city, because she doesn't like peeing outdoors. And Korgan, the evil dwarf, will agree to your direction, but add "or I might chop your head off, heh heh." This gets back to my initial mistake playing the game. I tried to create my own team of six user-created characters. Although I formed a very strong team, they had no personality at all. That would take away all the fun of the game. When I restarted months later, I created a female 'skald' bard as my main character, and used NPCs for all the rest. Much, much, more enjoyable. I highly recommend Baldur's Gate II. It is an exceptional gaming experience.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best games of all time!
Review: Pros:
Extremly rich and enthralling story-line
Very colorful characters with professional voice actors
HUGE world and hundreds of hours of gameplay!
Has challenging and interesting puzzles and quests...not the dull delivery/kill quests of some other rpg's.
EXTREMLY ADDICTIVE!... Cons:
Graphics will look dated for those who have played recent hack and slashes such as Dungeon Seige Summary: BGII is my favorite game of all-time! Now that's it's a few years old, you can get it at such a low price I wouldn't hesistate to recommend it to anyone who enjoys mindful games.
Rating:
Summary: Citizen Kane of Gaming World. A classic -- & you're the star
Review: Here's what I have to say: Best RPG hands down, ever. Nothing has come close since. This is the Citizen Kane of the Gaming World, People. Romance. Tragedy. Comedy. Shakespeare would be jealous. If you love to read fantasy and are getting started in the gaming world -- check this out. You will not be dissapointed. The playing is fast and furious, you can plot and calculate, you can philosophize on good and evil, you can unleash the good or evil in your soul, learn what side of the forc you're on, or if you're your own force. As the child of a god of murder, you embark on an odyssey to be either the god's next incarnation or hack out your own path while saving your childhood companion from a man named Irenicus who seeks to steal your very essence, unless you are stronger than anyone imagined. You'll have stouthearted and valiant companions to aid you as you need, from the wise Keldorn and Jaheira to the laugh out loud funny Minsc and Jan Jansen, to the arogant and those in need of your guidance. It's all here. Boot her up. On a side note: There are romances. They are entertaining, and optional. If you drop of the romance characters from your party at any time you will never have a romance. Rated teen, Viconia, the drow elf, can be more explicit in the romance, so you may want to think about this if you are a parent.
Rating:
Summary: The End never looked so good
Review: This is a great expansion to one of the best RPGs of all time. I loved this game. I only have one major gripe about it that made me give it 4 stars. When I played BG2:SoA, after i would complete a sidequest and try to talk to the person i completed it for so that i could get the XP, it said he appears busy!! So then i would wait numerous days (completing other side quests in the process) to get the XP i should have gotten way earlier. But other than that it was one of the best expansions to a game ever.
Rating: 
Summary: Go get Shadows of Amn instead
Review: GraphSim fixed all the little things and [messed] up the big ones. Sure, it's nice that everybody now has two quick weapon slots (so Jaheira is playable), and that hide in shadows doesn't work if there aren't any shadows (oops!). The new quests aren't bad either, though they're nothing special. The big problem is that it crashes like a drunk driver. Most sounds HAD to be turned off during big fights or I would get an error saying that a decoder was not available & the game quit. I considered myself lucky if I could get through an hour of play without having a hard freeze that required a full system reset, even after tweaking the settings (most sounds off, etc.) to improve stability. Don't even think of increasing the game's memory partition, because it will actually crash MORE, even with tons of extra memory left over for the system! As far as I can tell (i.e., just looked at their Web site), GraphSim never released a patch at all. Save yourself some frustration. Go get Shadows of Amn instead. It's not only prettier & more interesting, it WORKS.
Rating:
Summary: Great fun, but oh the crashing.....
Review: As with other reviewers, I had problems with the game crashing....most noticable during the most difficult fight in the game. Luckily, an experienced RPG player knows to save the game often. The additional items, spells, and areas are a welcome addition, though the experience cap of 161k is still a bit low. However, there are easy workarounds that can be downloaded from the web. Still, the overall enjoyment of the game makes up for sketchy stability.
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