Icewind Dale Ultimate Collection

Rating:
Summary: Boring and Tedious
Review: Sure, the graphics and sound ARE nice, but this game is very linear and very forgiving- too forgiving. You can save and reload just about constantly, so long as there aren't monsters nearby and things are made kinda dummy-proof so you can't make any significant mistakes. As a result, I never really felt like I was taking much of a chance doing anything. The dialogue is mostly a matter of clicking responses until you can't click anymore and there's not much bad consequence to clicking them in any ol' order. There's really only one path through the different areas of the game and nothing ever respawns. You can also adjust the difficulty levels from very easy to very difficult but the experience and treasure don't adjust accordingly. This means if a fight is too tough after a couple reloads you can make it very easy and still get the same rewards you would have gotten when it was hard. <yawn> Maybe I'm just a little jaded from playing online games like Everquest for so long. In online, realtime games with other humans playing around you there is much more of an unpredictable, and more importantly uncontrolable, and much more exciting environment to play in. I got so bored with this that I actually stopped playing while close to completing the very last area of the game. I just didn't care anymore. This game requires very little thinking or strategizing.

Rating:
Summary: Better than Baldur's Gate!!!
Review: These games are virtually the same as the Baldur's Gate games, only you get to create ALL of your characters, making for a pretty crazy squad