Rating: 
Summary: Majestic RPG
Review: Well, since is third Infinity Engine game I've played (the other two being BG1 and Icewind Dale) one might assume I would plenty tired of it by now. One might also assume thathaving beaten about 4 or 5 RPG's right before this one (Diablo2, Darkstone, etc.) I would be plenty tired of another huge, lengthy RpG.Not so. BG2 is simply the best RPG out there today, and the single most satisfying, engaging and amazing AD&D computer games in the past ten years, if not forever. It has you fight enemies you would only dream about in other RPG's. It has a mature enough storyline (not the best, I will admit; Torment is for those who really want a STORY) to interest and engage players; and it advances your puny, orc-bashing party into a bunch of demi-gods, one (or two) of whom are actually the children of Gods. And no nice, noble God either; the game is about facing up to the heritage of being the child of the God of Murder. Not only is the plot more than passable, the game is simply huge, yet incredibly well developed. This is one of the biggest RPG's I have played (and I've played a lot of them). The city of Athkatla is amazing, with tons to do that isn't even required by the storyline. Liches lurk in houses, doors lead to alternate dimensions and Dragons walk among men, disguised. Its the sort of magical place that any RPGer would like to explore. The storyline itself takes about 50 to 60 hours; yet with all the additional subquests (none of which, thank God, are FedEx quests) the game swells to about 100 hours. Even miniquests will have interesting and surprising twists. Finally, NPC interaction is finally up there to satisfy most RPGers. Your party members hav minds of their own, and WILL make their own decisions, quite often. They will get romantically involved with you or they may simply bash each other. Much of the dialogue is humurous and really funny (try having Edwin and Minsc in the same party; or watch the first time Jan tries stealing Boo from Minsc). Combat has been the Infinity engine's strong point, and its just as good if not better. Facing up to a dragon with all the interface panels down and watching him in action is simply amazing. The 800x600 res also makes a big difference, and the architecture is simply amazing. The only problems I have with the game is that alignment doesn't matter enough. I mean I would think evil characters would NOT be approached by a noble silver dragon to get back her eggs; whereas I highly doubt a Shadow Thief guildmaster would come to a lawful good character about breaking into a rival guild, and spying on them. A bit more differentiation would have been welcome. That said, any RPG fan should go out and buy this game. Its probably the best AD&D game created yet, in terms of overall polish, storyline, combat, and sheer ability to engage the players interest and amaze him/her.
Rating: 
Summary: More Like a -7 evil stars!!!! This Is A Gross Sick Game!!
Review: Okay,I wish I could give it a zero! yuck!!! This game is twisted! The plot is sinister. Its down right creepy! The villain defines evil! He collects people in jars of water and does experiments on them. Some of the victims beg to be killed. In fact, the PLAYER must kill one of these tortured victims in order to continue playing the game!!!! I bought this game because of the reviews claiming this was the best of all games but then I played it. So now I'm utterly DISGUSTED!!! Yes, the game play is great but the plot and scenarios are evil. I can't believe that SO MANY people have skipped over the plot in their reviews and some people have even praised it! EWWWWWWWWWW!!! So Beware! If you have any moral backbone or ethical values, then stay far away from this evil game! And don't argue that it's only a "game". What type of person would want to spend hours "playing" by killing tortured victims yourself before you can move on in the "Game". It's wrong, evil, and harmful. If you don't care, then what does that say about you? Don't buy this game!
Rating: 
Summary: 90% hype with a 10% delivery on promise
Review: From all the hype this game was getting, I was expecting something outstanding. Instead of a great game, I end up with a piece of junk called Baldur's Gate 2. Is it an improvement over the first Baldur's Gate? Not by much. Baldur's Gate 2 has a rather linear and unimaginative story line, which can be completed in less than 50 hours (and this is including the side quests). I realize a lot of computer role playing games have story lines that are rather straight forward, but from all the talk about this game, I was expecting something different than the run of the mill linear story line instead of the nonsense that passes for a plot in BG2. This game is nothing more than hack and slash despite its cries to the contrary. One thing I did find amusing was the so-called romance subplot; I have one thing to say about that: what a joke. If you're going to try to give characters personality, do not do a half-baked job of it. There are only two redeeming qualities this title has. BG2 does have graphics that are well done, but they are no where near to being excellent. The second redeeming quality of this game is that it probably made its creators plenty of money from all the people that were suckered into buying this over priced piece of trash. Since there are games out there that are even worse than BG2, I will give this title 2 stars instead of 1.
Rating:
Summary: Yeah Dog
Review: I had some issues with slowdown in multi-mage battles on a P3 866, 128MB RAM and 32MB GEForce2, but other than that game-play was excellent. Great storyline. Great interactions with NPCS. Reminds my why I liked P&P gaming so much. If only I could play with others:-(
Rating:
Summary: It's my first
Review: Well, I have been a console gamer all my life, with my occasional chare of PC games, namely quacke, warcraft and starcraft. Since I got a new PC I decided to get a new PC game, and looking around some internet sites, I saw BG2. The game seemed good, and I wanted to know what Dungeons and dragons exactly was. I decided to get the game. And man. I didn't know what I was getting into. I haven't gotten much sleep since I got it. The game is so much fun, tons of side quests and adventures. To be truthfull, I never expected to like it as much as I do. I decided to create a Monk, and he's real great, even though he uses no armor or weapons. Stunning blow and quivering palm make enemies bend to their knees. And the magic resistanse make him a massive wizard and priest killer, he get even more that the wizard slayer! Anyway, get the game, you won't regret it. And wait for the expansion in summer.
Rating:
Summary: this game is sweet!
Review: buy this game and if you don't you are not a true gamer. ... ... this game should be the game of the year probably the longest most interesting game i've played in a long long time.
Rating: 
Summary: So very close to being fantastic
Review: First I just want to say that I played this game with my wife, and so take it from the multiplayer angle that it is. I really think the story was great, but I have come to expect that from both Black Isle and Bioware. The game was MASSIVE as far as side quests, hours of play, critters, NPC's and items go. I was really impressed, and say that the size alone makes it very worth the price. As usual the graphics are amazing, actually it is even better now than in past games. The addition of 3rd edition 'extras' like extra character classes were a great bonus. I played a monk, and let me tell you this. For some ol'boy that never uses armour or weapons, he is a killing machine. I would spar against well armed players and beat them in a straight fight. If I added stunning blows and quiver it became unfair. The selection of armour and weapons is staggering, causing you to make some very tough decisions on what you wear, wield and carry with you. (even strong characters only have so much room for loot :) The bad... well, the very reason this gets a 4 and not a 5 from me is technical problems. It is one thing for a game to have limited gameplay, archaic graphics, bad story, or whatever is possible... but technical problems are inexcusable. The multiplayer problems seemed to be endless. Lock-ups, dropped players, bad resource allocation and inability to free resources later, along with problems with syncing the machines together made for many frustrating moments. My advice as always... save soon and save often... but save on different files. If the game craps out while saving, it corrupts the file. Now for the non-technical gameplay part. Well, as with the technical part, the multiplayer is really not well done. Much of the problems/omissions of multiplayer are not of technical reasons but well... I really don't know. For example, other player characters can NOT summon familiars, yet NPC enemies can. Other player char's can NOT have strong holds, yet if the problem is multiple strongholds then why can a multiplayer have multiple strongholds. And another problem is their choice of what conversations and situations are global and which are player local. For those who don't know, the game does cut down on the annoying break-ins of other players, if one player talks to a shopkeeper, goes in a building, or talks to a non-essential NPC. However I found that their choices for what is essential and what is not were often reversed. Many times I or my wife would have to relay vital conversations to each other because we couldn't see the dialogue. Other times, we broke into each others buying/selling because of talking to some nobody NPC. I think that too much of the party revolved around the 'protagonist' as they called it, and stepped too far away from the traditional D&D setting of party oriented adventure. On that note, I am looking forward to Neverwinter Nights. Game engine was tweaked a bit but I still find it a bit old... not enough world interaction. I still say that Ultima VII was the best CRPG ever, at least on the grounds of world interaction. Character development and freedom of movement (non-linearity for one) would leave me to vote for Ultima Underworld II. I still yearn for a REAL RPG game that allows you to develop the character, step through the story, and interact with the world the way YOU want to. I guess my biggest gripe (non-technical) with this game is its all too frequent re-writes of D&D rules in order to make situations happen... or to be hard. It off balances the game and takes away from the epic feel it normally gives you, to be replaced with a cheep Nintendo 80's clone feel. How is it that various sorcerers have such amazing telekinetic and teleporting powers... yet my level 21 mage does not. How is it that enemies can run off because the story says so, using "SaveMyBuns Gate Spell" yet I never see anything useable like that for my characters. Stick with the rules guys, or you end up making a Kiddie Nintendo Clone. If I can't do it, then neither should the monster or NPC. To end on a good note: the addition of the character kits and the ability to truely duel wield really make it easier to bring your table top character to the screen here. Good game, but I hope they don't get lazy like Origin did....
Rating:
Summary: I know it's nothing new but: THE BEST GAME EVER
Review: I was never a d&d fan, so you can emagine what I thought when my friend wanted to show me Baulder's Gate I. When I first saw it, I was amazed!!! I looked everywhere searching for that game-unsuccessfuly. when I finally found it I immediatly ran to my comp. and played it 'till I finished it. When I heard that there is a new Baulder's Gate I was excited. After a long search I finally got it and immidiatly started to play it. At first it seemed boring, however, that was only the first impretion. After about an hour of playing I started to enjoy it. Eversince the excitment just growed untill tonight (1:45 am) I've finished it! this was a very big dis appointment to me... Now I have to wait about 5 month's to start playing the next game... by then I'll be in the Israely army... coclusion: THE BEST GAME EVER!!!!! (only one flaw-it's too ... short-inspite the fact that I spent over 300 hours of gaming!) If you don't have it yet-buy it(I recomend that you play BG1 first)
Rating:
Summary: Another great game from Interplay
Review: After reading Stephen Edwards' review warning that this game could lead to divorce, I realized that my husband came up with the perfect alternative: he coerced me into playing these games with him! This is our second multiplayer RPG game to play together (Icewind Dale was the first), and we both had a great time. The game offered many options for gameplay, with a ton of character types to choose from, and with the ability to take on ready-made characters like Keldorn and Yoshimo, I was able to focus on my own main character, a Kensai/Mage. There are so many great side quests that it took us more than a month to finish the game, providing us with many hours of entertainment. The game was great in that it is flexible based on what type of character you are. There were side quests for good and evil characters, so if you want to play more than once, you have the opportunity. And there are many visits from non-player characters from the first Baldur's Gate, including assistance from Drizzt in one of your battles. And be prepared for a few unexpected turn of events! We had a few problems with the game; there were bugs here and there in technical aspects of the game. And my computer locked up on an average of three times a day though my husband's did fine (extremely frustrating). But overall, this was challenging and a lot of fun!
Rating:
Summary: Baldur's Gate II = Love / Divorce (Follow-up Review)
Review: This is a follow-up review to my review of Baldur's Gate II dated December 31, 2000. See that review for many more details about what is great in BGII. I have played further along in Baldur's Gate II since my last review. One of the things that is interesting is the romantic aspect to this game. As the protagonist, your male character can become romantically involved with a few of the other possible party members (Aerie, Jaheira and Viconia: Note that a female protagonist can only become romantically involved with one other possible party member). If you are meeting the needs of all of these characters and they are all in your party, they will gradually begin bickering and insult one another until you choose a particular young lady to be your love interest. Each of these young women must be approached in the correct way to get a relationship going. Do not rebuke them if they bring up things at the most inopportune times. Play it out following the guidelines below. To court Aerie you must be sensitive to her needs, her past & her future. You cannot rush things along with her. Let her know how important she is to you and tell her you see her in the picture of your future also. She is like the bird with broken wings. Jaheira is an odd one. Her deceased husband Khalid was most likely a member of your party in the original Baldur's Gate. Since his demise, she has now focused a lot of time and energy on you. You must be sensitive to the death of her husband Khalid. In addition you must reply fondly to the past remembrances that she goes on about. To really get the relationship going you must perform bold and brave acts. Viconia is a drow elf whom from the original Baldur's Gate. Without a doubt she is of an evil nature. She is interested in you as long as you show her that you are not weak in any way. Male dark elves are basically slaves to the females and die upon their whims. Due to this fact you must show yourself to be strong and don't lose an opportunity to insult her. One thing is for sure, she will frequently insult you and any other party member she feels is in competition with her for your affections. Oh yes, you will eventually be required to make a choice. This can result in some of the party members leaving due to their being spurned by your character. I again recommend this game for the depth of role-playing offered.
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