CHUD.com Community › Forums › VIDEO GAMES & RPG › Video Games › Baldur's Gate
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Baldur's Gate

post #1 of 23
6/28/05 at 7:43pm
Thread Starter 
I don't know how I completely missed the boat on these games back in the late 90's. They are fantastic. If you have ever enjoyed role playing games, you'll like this. I don't even normally like top-down games or party management, but I am absolutely addicted.
Reply
post #2 of 23
6/28/05 at 9:30pm
Yeah, they are pretty damn, fun.

I assume you know that both Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 have expansions as well. I can't remember how the expansion for 2 works, but the one for BG1 (Tales of the Sword Coast) should be installed immediately as it has additional low level quests as well, so if you install it at the end, you'll miss alot of content.

Enjoy!
Reply
post #3 of 23
6/28/05 at 9:44pm
It's really cool if you play the same guy all the way through...Right, Boo?
Reply
post #4 of 23
6/28/05 at 10:21pm
If you like BG, find a copy of Planescape: Torment. You will not be disappointed.

Best. RPG. Evah.
Reply
post #5 of 23
6/28/05 at 11:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CountZero
If you like BG, find a copy of Planescape: Torment. You will not be disappointed.

Best. RPG. Evah.
Indeed! Good call... I even have a copy of that within 3 feet of me and forgot to even mention it.
Reply
post #6 of 23
6/29/05 at 12:16am
Thread Starter 
I was eyeing Planescape Torment.

I have installed the expansion packs.
Reply
post #7 of 23
6/29/05 at 12:39am
Icewind Dale 1 & 2 are far more linear than Baldur's Gate, but still a lot of fun. It's more along the lines of combat than it is RPG and puzzle solving.
Reply
post #8 of 23
6/29/05 at 9:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Overlord
I don't know how I completely missed the boat on these games back in the late 90's. They are fantastic.
i remember BG being so addictive i found it odd it didn't come with a huge warning label. for several weeks my only mission in life was to get as high a level as possible for my main character.
Reply
post #9 of 23
6/30/05 at 4:18am
Thread Starter 
I just purchased BG2 and the Icewind Dale trilogy. I'll be busy for a while.
Reply
post #10 of 23
6/30/05 at 9:13am
Icewind Dale 2 rocked - I spent an eternity playing it to death... pity they don't make them like that anymore (old skool party D&D rpgs). Or have I just missed them all?
Reply
post #11 of 23
6/30/05 at 10:29am
No, they pretty much don't make them like that anymore--I think Bioware retired the Infinity Engine with Icewind Dale 2; the only other fairly recent D&D RPG I can think of is Temple of Elemental Evil, but I can neither attest to its quality nor whether it was party-based.
Reply
post #12 of 23
6/30/05 at 1:50pm
Something occurred to me when I was reading this thread... I own and have played all of these games; BG 1&2, IWD 1&2, PS:T, ToEE, but I have never finished them. Any of them. Same thing goes for Fallout 1&2 and Morrowind.

It's wierd. I play them intensely for a few days, and then when it starts to look like I'm making real progress my delayed gratification switch gets flipped (I was the kid that still had Easter candy around at Halloween) and I try to put off seeing it through to the end.

Then after it sits for a few days, I lose track of where I was and I can't get motivated to pick it up where I left off. After a while, the only option seems to be starting over again, but retreading the areas I have been through robs the activity of a lot of it's pleasure.

I should make a concerted effort to clear the decks of these games. Hell I still have Planescape installed. I install it on every new computer I build but I don't think I have even opened the program on my newest box.
Reply
post #13 of 23
7/1/05 at 5:45pm
Thread Starter 
That is weird. Why not finish, if you liked the game?

I was once absolutely religious about completing games. No matter how bad, I finished the game. This continued through Colecovision, Nintendo, Genesis, Playstation, PC, and XBOX....at least, until a few years ago. Now, I just don't have the time. I've got about a half dozen incompleted games stacked away. If they don't hold my interest, I'm gone.

Anybody out there have any Baldur's Gate style recommendations? I just bought BG2, Icewind Dale 1&2, and Planescape:Torment. How is this Temple of Elemental Evil Game ? It's about five bucks on Amazon. Might be worth a shot.
Reply
post #14 of 23
7/1/05 at 6:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Overlord
Anybody out there have any Baldur's Gate style recommendations? I just bought BG2, Icewind Dale 1&2, and Planescape:Torment. How is this Temple of Elemental Evil Game ? It's about five bucks on Amazon. Might be worth a shot.
I heard from many people it was really, really buggy. Might be OK for hard-core D&Ders.

Glad to hear some people enjoyed IWD2; I loved IWD and HoW, but IWD2 nearly killed my love of the franchise.
Reply
post #15 of 23
7/1/05 at 6:05pm
Thread Starter 
HoW ??
Reply
post #16 of 23
7/1/05 at 8:34pm
Heart of Winter, it's an expansion for Icewind Dale II.

And Temple of Elemental Evil was very dull.
Reply
post #17 of 23
7/4/05 at 1:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Subotai
... but IWD2 nearly killed my love of the franchise.
How so? I played through it twice (mixing up the character types) and loved the whole game. Yes there were some lame bits (the monk temple test), but so much of it was solid gold!
Reply
post #18 of 23
7/5/05 at 3:38am
The Knights of the Old Republic games for Xbox use the same basic engine and are a lot of fun. The stories are shorter and more linear than BG (I think, anyway, I too bought both, loved them and never finished them), but very good.
Reply
post #19 of 23
7/5/05 at 4:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duke, Raol
The Knights of the Old Republic games for Xbox use the same basic engine and are a lot of fun. The stories are shorter and more linear than BG (I think, anyway, I too bought both, loved them and never finished them), but very good.
Actually no. BG and BGII use BioWare's legendary Infinity Engine, which also drives the IceWind Dale games and PlaneScape: Torment. It's the last, and greatest, of the 2D isometric RPG engines.

BioWare stepped into the third dimension with the release of the Aurora Engine, meant to be a highly customizable engine that would allow players to create their own game modules with less hastle than the typical modders' hacking techniques. It debuted with NeverWinter Nights. Both Knights of the Old Republic games and Jade Empire use a heavily modified version of Aurora, dubbed Odyssey.

Anyway, the look and feel of BG and other Infinity engine games are VERY different from KOTOR or Jade Empire. One is beautiful pre-rendered, painted backgrounds with several (sometimes dozens) of sprites walking across. The other is fully three-dimensional real-time rendered maps, fewer characters allowed on screen at one time, and artistic sensibility sacrificed for a more interactive world.
Reply
post #20 of 23
7/5/05 at 11:37am
I own all of the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games, but like Count Zero I have a tough time finishing them. Baldur's Gate I really had no problem getting through, although I never beat Saverok. I stopped playing Icewind Dale late in the second to last chapter and didn't finish until about 2 years later. I have Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale 2 installed on my computer, I'm over halfway throught the later, but have barely made any progress in the former. Then I recently bought Neverwinter Nights, and despite the fact that it's really cool I think I only put about 3-4 hours of gameplay into over the past 3 months.

Since Halo 2 came out it's been pretty much the only game I can focus any concentrated energy on, except Chaos Theory, which won't work on my X-Box anymore.
Reply
post #21 of 23
7/5/05 at 2:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Sphinx
Actually no. BG and BGII use BioWare's legendary Infinity Engine, which also drives the IceWind Dale games and PlaneScape: Torment. It's the last, and greatest, of the 2D isometric RPG engines.

BioWare stepped into the third dimension with the release of the Aurora Engine, meant to be a highly customizable engine that would allow players to create their own game modules with less hastle than the typical modders' hacking techniques. It debuted with NeverWinter Nights. Both Knights of the Old Republic games and Jade Empire use a heavily modified version of Aurora, dubbed Odyssey.

Anyway, the look and feel of BG and other Infinity engine games are VERY different from KOTOR or Jade Empire. One is beautiful pre-rendered, painted backgrounds with several (sometimes dozens) of sprites walking across. The other is fully three-dimensional real-time rendered maps, fewer characters allowed on screen at one time, and artistic sensibility sacrificed for a more interactive world.
I meant they were similar in gameplay, not graphics. The character generation at the beginning, the attributes, skills, and force powers will all be immediately understandable to someone who has played BG.
Reply
post #22 of 23
7/8/05 at 7:26pm
"Temple of Elemental Evil" is not bad after you install the patch, which solves a lot of the major issues with the game.
"Planescape:Torment" IMHO, is the best story driven D and D computer game ever made. Some games have surpassed it where Graphics are concerned,but for pure gameplay it remains unbeaten.
What is great about the game it it's sense of humor. That the sidekick of the hero is a wisecracking flying skull is great.
Reply
post #23 of 23
7/8/05 at 8:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chun006
How so? I played through it twice (mixing up the character types) and loved the whole game. Yes there were some lame bits (the monk temple test), but so much of it was solid gold!
I remember there were a couple of maps where you had to replay them repeatedly in order to get through. One with a time warp was especially frustrating. And replaying maps from the original seemed lame.

As well, the storyline for Icewind Dale was gold. Many touching points, the death of the dwarven and elven kingdoms, the druid, the final payback...The IWD2 climax, in comparison, seemed quite weak.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Video Games
CHUD.com Community › Forums › VIDEO GAMES & RPG › Video Games › Baldur's Gate