Baldur's Gate

Rating:
Summary: Faithful adaptation of AD&D - which may be its fatal flaw
Review: Baldur's Gate has got all the eye candy you'd look for in a modern computer role-playing game. And it's also got a fairly intriguing storyline, which is something you don't see too often on the desktop. With enough horsepower in your system, the game plays pretty well and after applying a patch from Interplay's web site, doesn't crash too often either.

So what's the problem?

It all depends on your past role playing experience and your expectations. Baldur's Gate reproduces the AD&D ruleset surprisingly well. But it also reproduces the feel of most AD&D gaming sessions in that there's way too much combat.

Now, if your AD&D experience is primarily from the premade modules from TSR, then you'll love Baldur's Gate. My own AD&D experience deemphasized combat and focused on character interaction and acting. My dungeon master would routinely lie to me and my fellow players as we unravelled intriguing and sometimes epic plots. We formed attachments to the NPCs presented to us, and would sometimes be on the verge of tears as the dungeon master struck them down before our characters' eyes. Our greatest experience point rewards would come from playing our roles well, complete with accents, facial expressions, and emotions.

The computerized dungeon master that controls Baldur's Gate cannot come close to that experience: sure, the story twists and turns, but the random encounter of 2D4+2 kobalds ruins the flow, and the AI won't appreciate you role-playing your heart out.

That's not to say that if you don't like combat you won't be able to finish the game. You can, if you use the cheat code to summon one or two of the Driz'zt characters, who will happily slash their way through any obstacle. That's distracting, but I did get through the story, and it was a pretty good story in the end.

Rating:
Summary: If you liked Diablo you will love this game
Review: If you enjoyed the kill and reward system of diablo this game is for you.With lots of surprises and great graphics it will keep you playing into the we hours of the mourning.

Rating:
Summary: interesting but very frustrating
Review: I've never played much D&D, so it took a little while to adapt. There are some cool things going on, but it can be very frustrating, because you often don't know that a person or an item is going to be useful. Quest items are not labelled "Quest Items" and if lose 'em before you find out you need them, that sucks. If you finally get near the ending and you don't have the right configuration of character types, potions and weapons, you're out of luck. You've come all this way, and you find that you made a bad decision last week that you can't really overcome at that point.

Rating:
Summary: the fix that you need
Review: I loved the game. I started playing it on a slower processor and found it very plodding. Once i loaded it on to a faster machine, the game got moving. Its challenging enough, but not untill you've got experience playing the game. You can save it pretty easily so if you make a mistake (which the game will punish you for) if you were smart, you won't have to redo much if any. If you also have Sword Coast, it will take care of some of the quirks of Baldurs Gate. Also, to make it easy for you, try for a full install. This way you dont have to be switching cd's. You just put in #1 and go from their. If you are any kind of Forgetten Realms fan or just an RPG fan, this is a must. It is trully the fix that you need.

Rating:
Summary: Go forth and conquer
Review: Baldur's Gate finally consumates the promising mariage of computing power and role-playing games. However, it's not for everyone.

I cut my RPG teeth on pen and paper geeking out in my buddies' basements. In the post-Commmodre-64 Era, I slogged through all of the original Ultimas and developed a high-patience threshold playing "Bane of the Cosmic Forge" on my Macintosh classic. (Imagine the bit-mapped dungeon slogging by on a tiny Mac screen, the horror.)

When I finally took the plunge last year and delved into the modern world of computer gaming on a newly-purchased PC I was overwhelmed with the fast action, fabulous graphics of most of the games out there. But Baldur's gate is the game for an old foggy like me who can't get up to speed with the methed-out the hyper-activity of circle-strafing Quake II enemies.

First, it's cerebral. This is not the game for people who enjoy the thoughless slaughter of Quake II. If you like puzzling over the right combinations of weapons, armor and magic, you will love Baldur's Gate.One of the things I enjoyed most about Diablo was this puzzling ("Would the battle axe of the moon be better than...") but I hated when you ran out of weapons to acquire in Diablo. Baldur's Gate has six characters to juggle equipment with and when you add that to the AD&D limitations on who can use what you have some wonderful tinkering.

Second, it's immersive. There is this feeling that you can go and do whatever you want. You are tied to a linear storyline but it will always wait for you to return from the numerous side quests. Go explore the woods to the east storm the Gnoll stronghold, it's up to you.

Finally, your actions have consequences. The choices you make in selecting party members and interacting with NPC's impacts how the story unfolds. This is the most compelling aspect of the game for me. If you chose to slay that guard over a stolen haubrak the evil characters in your party will rejoice will the lawful good paladin will decry his association with you.Your reputation will rise and fall based on your actions and this will affect game play down the road. Finding the right balance of allignments and actions is a pleasure and in encourages and entire replay of the whole game.

The game's main shortcomings lie in the party AI. Sometimes you have to babysit your characters negotiation of obstacles. Some people complain about the combat but I disagree, tinkering with various tactics against new enemies is part of the game's joy.When you get some tactics down for a certain baddie just let the AI take over and open a beverage.

In reading some of the other customer reviews I've seen two different players: Those who hate Baldur's Gate because it's slow and tedious at times and those who love it because it is a graphic incarnation of the beloved AD&D rulebook. Gamers who cannot swallow thier need to run and shoot, maim and kill will probably not like Baldur's Gate. However, if you enjoy tinkering and exploring a vastly varied world in style you will love it. And hey you won't have to dig up your 32-sided dice.

Rating:
Summary: '... the stuff of legends!'
Review: RPGs have been my favourite type of game ever since the days of the Commodore 64, so naturally I was very exited when I first heard about Baldurs Gate. The one thing I have never liked about most computer RPGs is turned-based fighting which in addition to not being very realistic, also disrupts the gameflow. BG has found a near-perfect way of dealing with combat though; its all real-time, but you get the option to pause the game to issue your orders. It also adds a way of 'programming' your characters so how they react (or if they react at all) when specific situations arise, is entirely up to the player.

As for the game itself, one of the things I found very appealing is that BG has hundreds of quests, but its up to the player wether or not he/she wishes to complete most of these. There are some you will have to complete to finish the game, but most of them can be done or left alone depending on how you feel about it. It's possible to finish this game without having seen a lot of the locations and having met a lot of the characters, but this will of course also mean missing out on a lot of the fun. Oh and the characters you meet along the way (NPCs) are a chapter of their own. They all have their own unique personality and for the party to function as well as it should, you should pay some attention to which personalities you bring along with you in your quests. NPCs will also interact with you and the other characters by offering advice or telling you just how they like (or don't like usually) a situation or action. The atmosphere of the game is one of the best reasons for why I (and many others) keep coming back to this game. The graphics are great and full of details and the sound is absolutly stunning. I hardly every play games with the game-music turned on, but with Baldurs Gate I make an exception. This game has some of the best scores I have ever heard in a game, and the kind of music varies depending on your location and situation. My favourite is 'Streets of the city' (not sure if that's the official name btw), which plays while you're walking through some of the towns. It is a wonderfully melodious tune which is almost reason enough to buy the game in itself.

If you enjoy RPGs I can almost promise you you'll love Baldurs Gate. If you're new to RPGs, then BG is the perfect place to start with a friendly interface and a a first level which can be played almost like a tutorial with friendly monks telling you how to do this and that. And if you don't like RPGs... well, BG might change all of that :) But you'll probably want to try it somewhere before buying it if that's the case.

Rating:
Summary: Hold On Not An Award Winner!
Review: I bought this, but I should have saved my money. The combat system stinks. PEOPLE YOU CANNOT CONTROL MORE THAN ONE PERSON during realtime combat, if you think you can imagine controlling multiple characters during any of your favorite shooters, while each is being attacked at the sametime. Game developers who thinks so need to get out of the business. The only way to give you a chance is to dum down the AI making the whole combat experience pointless. Settings allow automatic pauses for different events, character wounded, etc, but this made the combats VERY painful. I like RPGs that allow multiparty groups, turn-based or phased-based combat systems aka Wizardy or Might and Magic are the only answer. Also the movement system is among the worst I have seen. I cannot tell you how many times the different members of my party chose different routes to the same spot. Usually causing one of them being attacked and killed before I could get them regrouped. All-in-All great graphics, good story, shame about the mechanics. I would have given it a D- and not RPG of the year.

Rating:
Summary: Not terrible...
Review: ...but not as good as all the hype. I found the combat very irritating, as far as controlling all the characters. I spent half the game hitting the pause key. A lot of the quests were pretty dull, same old thing. I only finished it because I'd already spent so much time. I think if you enjoy D and D, you'd love this game, but I always found D and D very boring. I MUCH preferred Fallout 2 to this game--for me, that was the RPG of the year!

Rating:
Summary: As Great as You've Heard
Review: OK. Just thought I'd chime in with the chorus. This is the MOST ADDICTIVE computer game I have ever played (and I've been playing them since you had to spend hours typing in code from magazines to play simple DOS text only games). I don't get into to the shoot-um-up games; I like story line and puzzles to solve, etc, so I usually play adventure games. I played D&D years ago and so enjoyed a return to the RPG format when I received this game as a gift. It's the best of all worlds. The Tales of the Sword Coast pack adds more depth and challenge - puzzles and better side quests. Some parts of the game do move too slow and the monsters tend to get more numerous rather than more complex as you go through. My only complaint is the abrupt ending. You finally get through this horrible battle and the game just stops. You can't even plunder the bodies much less have closer to the quest. All-in-all its worth the money and the hours-upon-months you'll spend playing.

Rating:
Summary: AD&D really come to life.
Review: If you're into RPG's and are looking for a computer game to mirror the AD&D world then THIS IS IT. If you're into exploring a realm and discovering it's secrets then THIS IS IT. The multiple choice dialog approaches real Role-playing. Rules, items, character classes, etc, come directly from AD&D.

As the main character in the story, you've got a series of tasks to complete. These major plot sequences help you discover your hidden past and possible future. Many minor sub-plots fill the story out with lots of flavor. The outcome of some encounters depend upon your characteristics or maybe who's in your party with you.

Magic, weapons, items, strategy, diplomacy, tactics, personality... it's all there. This software is very true to it's genre. I can't wait for the sequels.