Walkthroughs & Tips

Review by: kain50bc

Reviewers Score: 10 / 10

Posted: November 14, 2005

Black Isle has always been a favourite company of mine, making many awesome games including the Fallout series in conjunction with Interplay, Planescape Torment and this series, Baldur's Gate. I've only ever played the demo of the first game but my friend purchased the second one which I borrowed straight away.

Graphics: 10/10
Get your buckets ready cos we're going into drooling mode. From the moment you double click on your little desktop item you are given lovely eye candy in the form of film clips. The intro movie is really cool, one of those half slideshow half realtime movies. Character portraits are excellent and you can even make your own and upload them if you wish. Spell effects are absolutely DAZZLING and in such variety! Scenes look masterful and basically the only problem (and its such a small problem) is that some area's are so jam packed full of scenery it makes it hard to find what you're looking for. But then again you might just say that's part of the challenge.

Sound: 9/10
First off minus one point for repetitively. Even in most 'Boss' battle's there is no change in music. Cities all have the same background noises (which are excellent by the way) and its basically the same for different types of areas ie. Dungeons, woodlands etc. But because the music and sound is just so grand I'm leaving it at 9. And also the voice acting, just listen to Minsk or Jan for a while and you'll be in stitches. All the voices fit the given portraits (except perhaps yours, because your voice is customizable as well as your portrait).

Gameplay: 10/10
You know how in RPG's such as Final Fantasy where you can 'power level'? Well some clever bugger has put a stop to that. If you want to achieve greatness you'll do it through your equipment, your spell selection and your battle tactics. The battle system has a nifty feature where you can pause and and take time to issue orders. Of course though people won't be transported to the spot you tell them to go to if they're in trouble so you better plan your attack well.
Like in the Fallout games, you have a variety of choices of what you can say to people, whether it be good or bad. This influences your reputation and the way people think of you. Also if say you have a very low reputation, good aligned NPC's may leave you or not join you if you ask them to and vice versa with evil-aligned NPC's. And if your character sways from their alignment difficulties may arise.
The story of this game continues from the original Baldur's Gate game, but this time you're in Amn. I won't spoil ANY of it for you other than that.
Also my last point, this game can get difficult and frustrating. Usually the enemies will work in pattern's which you can take advantage off but even sometimes you can't do that.

Replayability: 10/10
Because of the astounding amount of choices you can make in character creation the Replayability factor is full. You can choose a good path or an evil path, you can be a fighter, mage, thief, paladin or any number of things. You might decide to take some NPC's with you in one game or take other's in another.

Overall: 10/10 Role playing by the masters.