Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn
Rating:  -
This is the best game I have played in my life. I have played about a few dozen rpg games starting from the Pool of Radiance series on the Commodore 64, and this game is the best. I am just simply voting here and this is not really meant to help people know what the game is about.
Rating:  -
This game is similar, but vastly inferior to Arcanum. It would nonetheless be a very fun game if not for the fact that you are constantly "roped" into new missions. In Arcanum, if you want to find a new mission, you talk to someone and prompt them for a mission. In this game, right while you are in the middle of another mission, you will get approached, over and over again, with requests to do new missions. Before you know what happens, you have 5 missions in your queue and the clock is ticking on all of them (in some cases, travelmates will die if you don't solve the mission quickly enough). And for every mission you finish, it seems you get two more that you have to do. At a certain point, I just found myself so buried in missions that I quit playing. I had totally forgotten what I was doing in some of the earlier missions and I just realized that it wasn't any fun any more. I think if you use a walkthrough guide to make sure you finish your missions more quickly, then maybe it wouldn't be such a burden to play.
Rating: -
This is easily the best game i have ever played. You can rank a game in many ways, i give this game maximum points in every single category...
Voice Acting
Probably the games strongest area was it's character development giving the game an extra dimension of realism and gravity, integral to this was the awesome voice acting which was/is the best i have ever known, this game showed that voice acting in computer games can be incredibly powerful, the actors who played the characters are real pro's. My favourite was Irenicus, he breathed a realism and a menace into the character which truly brought that villainous character to life. Also in this category is dialogue, which is equally incredible, occasionally i can still here a reedy voice in my head saying...."you should not have come to this place", unforgettable.
Graphics
For their time, these graphics were top of the range, the outdoors are particularly impressive, wether it's the temple district or the wilderness, no two trees look anything alike.
Sound/Music
The sound effects in the game were amazing, when you are in a city you here murmurings (of street traders/hawkers) which blend wonderfully into the background complementing everything. When you enter Suldanesselar you hear the frantic almost deranged chirpings of the birds which convey a sense of order-disrupted. The games musical score is absolutely gorgeous! The main theme (which kicks up when a fight starts) is rousing and exciting and a pleasure to listen to, it adds even more grandeur and scale to the game.
Gameplay
Top marks here too, there are so many ways you can play the game, so many paths you can take, the challenge level varies but overall is suitably balanced. The games replayability was awesome (i won it at least 10 times and each time i was amazed at how new the experience was). When you add to this the extraordinary value for money you get because the game is extremely long, yet it never becomes repetitive.
Overall this game showed me for the first time what the computer role playing genre was capable of, playing this game was like starring in a movie combined with reading a wonderfully gripping novel. You really feel for the characters. I had thought Planetscape Torment was good, this game introduced an entirely new experience. Easily the best game i have ever played (and i have played a lot).
How did they pack it all into five cd's?
Rating:  -
It is difficult to stand against the onslaught of love and respect for this game. And I'm not saying don't try this game. Too many people loved it for me to expect you to go by my experience, but I do want to share with you my different perspective.
First off, looking back, I don't hate Baldur's gate. It has it's virtues. Its just that after 20 or so hours it began to weigh on me, leaving me with a feeling heavy, bleak, and insistent. In taking up computer games as a hobby a year ago it was one of the first games I played or really got into. Fascination rolled into addiction and addiction rolled into a kind of dread and tedium. Finally I realized I didn't actually have to play this game anymore. So I didn't. This may seem like an obvious solution to you, but then you don't actually know me so well.
Enough preamble. I like to rate games based on categories that I find important to me and so I will do that below on a scale of say 1 to 10. How's that?
Story: 4, I'll admit my predispositions here, and also that not actually getting more than a third of the way through this game limits me a little, but I do feel I got the main idea. My predisposition is that I long for a computer game that is story driven effectively and actually works as a good story. Story is always such a distant second to gameplay that you end up with these half hour stories built into 15 to 60 hour games. Generally they either make little sense, or fade into a weird sequel nothingness in the end (hello half life 2, beyond good and evil (good games both nevertheless)). I have tried so many, do actually like many games, but have been underwhelmed repeatedly as far as story. Baldur's had the advantage that I was new to gaming and so hadn't seen all it's conventions before, even if they were familiar. In this game you wake up in a prison cell and have a secret destiny. Yeah yeah yeah. It's actually not too bad though and the quality of some of the characters helps, but, and I think this might be the key problem, in order to create an open ended world, provide a variety of quests, and give the good/evil option as it were, the whole thing comes completely apart at the seams. The story falls apart into ridiculousness except the game pretends it hasn't and you're supposed to too. Just to start you spend hours struggling to break out of a dungeon you have no knowledge of even though a member of your party broke in to get you. Wouldn't she have some helpful information? How did she manage it in the first place? So much of this game is full of stuff like this. Its been awhile so I'm fuzzy, but could come up with quite a few more examples, like places where the sense of what is good and effective to do in the game defies the reality of your characters as actual people. In my opinion you can have a very linear game (problem is too few options as a player unless it's done perfectly), or a completely wide open, basically questless game (problem is it feels kind of pointless unless it's done perfectly and beautifully) or you can have a reality defying muddle in the middle of the two. Baldur's takes this last path I am afraid. Still, I would have sort of liked to see how it all turned out if I didn't have to slog through so very much stuff and time to get to it.
Characters: 7 or 8, very good. Love the pictures. Voices excellent. Really nicely done, though after awhile hearing them say the same phrases hundreds of times was hard to take. Also the story caused them to do things completely out of character at times.
Gameplay: 5, I prefer less difficulty in games and would have appreciated a difficulty level system very much. There is a lot of fighting, managing your stuff and fighting some more and its that d and d dice rolling fighting that can look very strange (big guy with huge sword swings at weakened creature just standing there and misses wildly). It often left me feeling faintly like it wasn't working and that the game didn't do what was in the queues for my characters even though I suppose it really was.
Graphics: 6, nice general visual design and though its dated now its pretty powerful in the sense of mood it imparts (though see below). I mean it really did affect me in an almost dreamlike way for awhile. It was a bit of a letdown in terms of giving me a sense of wonder though.
Dreariness factor: 1, cold, chill and frequently joyless. That's how I found it. Some of the character humor helped a little, especially the nicer characters, but so much killing and grim characters and so little relief or oasis or real rewards or lightness in comparison. Plus I felt burdened by the way the quests could just sort of pile up on you and all be emergencies.
Technical issues: I always feel this is so subjective as you never know what will be a problem with your computer, but a few small or weird glitches were really awful for me. I couldn't get downstairs in one place, something crucial disappeared in another.
Learning factor: 4, had a tutorial level which maybe I wouldn't find too confusing with the experience I have now in games, but I really wish it had been more clear and specific.
Product materials: 5, a nice start, decent book, but really quite incomplete.
Chore factor: 2, well, you know, so many rooms of so many monster things to really get anywhere. I really did feel burdened.
Difficulty: 3, kind of already discussed but I'll add that everything seemed either kind of hard to kill or quite hard to kill, it would have been nice and even appropriate if some things had been very easy too. I will repeat I might have lasted longer with an easy or moderately easy setting, but it still would've gotten to me in the end.
Game saves: 7, a pretty good save anytime system only flawed by an inability to save in combat, which, if I recall, could sometimes sneak up on you and then it was too late.
Conclusion: I find when I write negative reviews of really popular and respected games (gta vice city is a good example) people tend to say its not helpful, and if I like them its very helpful, but sometimes I think they maybe already played the game and think it's some kind of contest these reviews (then of course, maybe they just think its not a very informative review). I'm just telling you my reaction here and my thoughts. A lot of people gave this classic game 5 stars. I really think this game could've been alot better.
Baldur's gate made me think maybe I don't like rpgs too much, but I am currently pretty far along in star wars knights of the old republic and very much like it.
Rating: -
Baldur's Gate is a first-class game, so why change the formula in the sequal? Yea, you can fight with two weapons at a time now, but who cares? I still use only one. Graphics didn't change that much in my eyes, so it's actually the same game with another story-line. But the story - because of that I fell in love with BG - is again very good. I saw someone complaining that the bad guy (I forgot his name) is too evil..well, did you expect that the bad guy just sold illegal armor or something? I didn't really like that beginning part - there in those underground mines - but the rest is again amazing. Someone complained you don't know how strong the monsters are if you want to attack... doesn't that make it more real. It's kind of silly if you see a number above his head or something.. It's an addictive game and I wished my copy of it didn't brake (just like my copy of BG1). I love this game (maybe because it's one of the few games I'm really good at), it's perfect just like the first BG. Buy it, the game is cheap these days..
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