Editorial Eurogamer: Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 Retrospective

[Quetzacoatl]

The interesting thing about Baldur's Gate, but especially BG2, is how critical reaction and fan reaction completely went apeshit for the storyline, writing, and other "emotional engagement" while ignoring a lot of the more "gamey" aspects, which is where the game really shined. It's like people played the games, enjoyed the fun interpretation of D&D, crawled around in some fun dungeons, fought some well-crafted encounters, and then when going to express their opinions they gushed praise for plot, setting, and characters that were pretty decent at times but cringe-worthy a little too often (MY WIIIIIIIIIINGS!). And the Bioware head honchos took this to heart, catering to those people. I mean, Neverwinter Nights didn't have time to design anything better than one of the shittiest campaigns ever (and yet NWN2 somehow managed to be even worse...uh, good job Obsidian?) but they sure had time to write in plenty of elvish waifu shit (Linu: I'M CLUMSY AND CRY A LOT!, Aribeth: I'M A CRYPTO LIZARD!), and I even recall a lot of praise being given for this. Then with KOTOR, Bioware fully embraced their Westernized dating sim and started headlong down the road to swooping, ass pirates, slutty witches, and gay guido buttfucking. The "public" got exactly what they clamored for, and everyone else got p. shafted.

Holy fuck dude, you get everything about games. Amazing. Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 were incredibly fun dungeon crawls with really great encounter design and cool, fun spells and combat options for the time while being fast-paced and fresh.

This guy, he just breathes video games.

He better fucking finish his BG2 LP.

 

[A user named cat]

Am I the only one who enjoyed even the Icewind Dale games more than both BG games? Those I actually managed to finish without borequitting halfway in. Now that is a series I'd like brought back, talk about atmosphere.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Am I the only one who enjoyed even the Icewind Dale games more than both BG games? Those I actually managed to finish without borequitting halfway in. Now that is a series I'd like brought back, talk about atmosphere.

They're the same games, one just has more combat than the other. Only a very odd and queer individual would dislike one and not the other.

 

[hiver]

Not really same at all.
I expected they would be and disliked Icewind games a lot in the end, especially the second fucking part.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Not really same at all.
I expected they would be and disliked Icewind games a lot in the end, especially the second fucking part.

I guess the lack of enemy diversity in at least the first one can really make the combat boring.

 

[hiver]

That and terrible trudging through long dungeons collecting loot and equipment you cant sell anywhere until you travel all the way back to the starting village each fucking time, and that counts going through every fucking level of every fucking dungeon all that with that ridiculously small inventory and actually needing the bloody money so i had to scavenge all the shit!!! Being forced to go through fucking all of the Dragons Eye AGAIN only to discover that ending cave thinking "god, finally...the exit from this shit.." to discover its reverting back through time so i had to do the bloody same thing, talk to bloody everyone all over again each time, to have it revert and do it once again!!! And then again!! And again!!!

If i ever meet Josh Sawyer i swear were going to have words about that map.

The villains were also pretty meh emo-demons whatever. At least the villain in the first game meant business and i like the whole deal with that preacher with bloody hands.
Both games of course lacked deeper story, characters and dialogue. What was there was just a shallow cover for teh action. Didnt like going back to easthaven at the end of first one. Whoa what a trick! Never saw that one, no sir!

It had good stuff i was able to enjoy more once i got past these things i mentioned.

 

[Black]

Furfag poetry!

 

[Turjan]

Am I the only one who enjoyed even the Icewind Dale games more than both BG games? Those I actually managed to finish without borequitting halfway in. Now that is a series I'd like brought back, talk about atmosphere.

They're the same games, one just has more combat than the other. Only a very odd and queer individual would dislike one and not the other.

Not sure about that. Icewind Dale had a very flimsy excuse of a story. Your "mentor" was sending you around without even trying to come up with any good reason. The maps were nicely drawn and the music was atmospheric, but otherwise it was just fighting. On my first attempt, I got bored in the Severed Hand and didn't touch the game in a while.

The lack of story was good for multiplayer games, though. It was fun as a pure dungeon romp.

 

[Infinitron]

Seems like a lot of people may have missed it, but Icewind Dale had a surprisingly large amount of skill/class checks in the dialogs. It was worth talking to NPCs with different members of your party, unlike in Baldur's Gate where the game usually seemed to assume that the Bhaalspawn main PC was really doing the talking no matter which party member you were using.

 

[hiver]

Might replay one of these days so ill check that out. Surprising amount you say? And what do they give you?
I also had first party all dual class first time. Made my life hell. Along with a PC that would go frame per five minutes in bigger battles. I think i fought the lizard goddess for a whole day or something.

 

[Infinitron]

Might replay one of these days so ill check that out. Surprising amount you say? And what do they give you?

All kinds of stuff. Try talking to town NPCs with a bard, for instance. Or in the sequel, try talking to Legion of the Chimera bosses with a half-orc PC.

 

[hiver]

Not going to play the stupid sequel.

 

[Infinitron]

Your loss. I've never understood the IWD2 haters.

 

[Johannes]

IWD was a lot more boring than BG to me, because of the linearity mostly I guess. In BGs you can pick whatever quests and battles you like, gameplay choice beyond picking what spell to kill the next enemy with. IWD didn't really have any exploration going on, you mostly ever had 1 place to go to at a time. And the early game encounters were not that interesting, I quit it pretty soon though (during the big dungeon with lizardmen and captive villagers) so those maybe got better eventually. Also I didn't have any AI mod which is what makes BG2 truly attractive.

And I don't think IE engine is very well suited for low level battles, since the way it works makes bows quite an end-all solution. Later on with fighting wizards, dragons, beholders, etc. enemies with really varying abilities that require actual understanding of the mechanics to even properly scratch them, those are interesting battles.

 

[hiver]

Your loss. I've never understood the IWD2 haters.

What fucking loss? of going through all that shit again? fucking only a few posts up man...

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Seems like a lot of people may have missed it, but Icewind Dale had a surprisingly large amount of skill/class checks in the dialogs. It was worth talking to NPCs with different members of your party, unlike in Baldur's Gate where the game usually seemed to assume that the Bhaalspawn main PC was really doing the talking no matter which party member you were using.

Too bad there was only two towns in the whole game.

 

[J_C]

Seems like a lot of people may have missed it, but Icewind Dale had a surprisingly large amount of skill/class checks in the dialogs. It was worth talking to NPCs with different members of your party, unlike in Baldur's Gate where the game usually seemed to assume that the Bhaalspawn main PC was really doing the talking no matter which party member you were using.

Too bad there was only two towns in the whole game.

Icewind Dale geographically has very few settlements by the way, so the game was accurate in this regard.

 

[Infinitron]

Seems like a lot of people may have missed it, but Icewind Dale had a surprisingly large amount of skill/class checks in the dialogs. It was worth talking to NPCs with different members of your party, unlike in Baldur's Gate where the game usually seemed to assume that the Bhaalspawn main PC was really doing the talking no matter which party member you were using.

Too bad there was only two towns in the whole game.

Icewind Dale geographically has very few settlements by the way, so the game was accurate in this regard.

Yes, I also liked how the towns compared to each other, which was also accurate to the lore. Targos was large, Lonelywood was barely there, and Easthaven was somewhere in between.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Seems like a lot of people may have missed it, but Icewind Dale had a surprisingly large amount of skill/class checks in the dialogs. It was worth talking to NPCs with different members of your party, unlike in Baldur's Gate where the game usually seemed to assume that the Bhaalspawn main PC was really doing the talking no matter which party member you were using.

Too bad there was only two towns in the whole game.

Icewind Dale geographically has very few settlements by the way, so the game was accurate in this regard.

They should have made Kuldahar much bigger than it ended up being.

 

[Infinitron]

There is another "town" of sorts in IWD - the fake cleric enclave in the depths of the Dragon's Eye dungeon. IIRC you can use class/skill checks to expose them as disguised Yuan-Ti. But it's nice to make use of their services first!

EDIT: Oh yeah, there's also the svirfneblin village in Dorn's Deep.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

There is another "town" of sorts in IWD - the fake monk enclave in the depths of the Dragon's Eye dungeon. IIRC you can use class/skill checks to expose them as disguised Yuan-Ti. But it's nice to make use of their services first!

That was a really frustrating level, mostly due to not being able to rest and the summoned monsters draining your party resources.

 

[Roguey]

That and terrible trudging through long dungeons collecting loot and equipment you cant sell anywhere until you travel all the way back to the starting village each fucking time, and that counts going through every fucking level of every fucking dungeon all that with that ridiculously small inventory and actually needing the bloody money so i had to scavenge all the shit!!! Being forced to go through fucking all of the Dragons Eye AGAIN only to discover that ending cave thinking "god, finally...the exit from this shit.." to discover its reverting back through time so i had to do the bloody same thing, talk to bloody everyone all over again each time, to have it revert and do it once again!!! And then again!! And again!!!

If i ever meet Josh Sawyer i swear were going to have words about that map.

If it's any consolation, he agrees.
http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/299951097563329086

With regards to Icewind Dale 2, is there anything you wish you could have added in or removed from the game?

With additional time, I would restructure areas like the Ice Temple, Dragon's Eye, Fell Wood, Black Raven Monastery, and Dragon's Eye. I and the designers who made those areas were not satisfied with how they wound up in the game. I would also like to displace some of the central areas on the critical path and break them off into optional areas. I would thin out the density of creatures in many areas and allow for a little more space to explore.

Mechanically, I'm pretty happy with what we implemented. I do think that the fight / rest cycle became degenerate and not fun. I believe there are solutions to that, but most of them run counter to the spirit of 3E D&D.

Rushed games turn out bad, iteration is key, and so on.

 

[PorkaMorka]

IWD2 is shit because it is a third edition game that uses real time with pause.

So you have all the bad parts of third edition, (horrible balance, uber casters, builds you have to plan out 40 levels in advance).

But you miss out on the strength of third edition; precision tactical goodness. Reach weapons, attacks of opportunity, tumbling, 5 foot steps,initiative, etc etc, all dumbed down or eliminated.

2E was always a more free form system so it was more suited to the Infinity Engine. So it is not surprising that the 2E Infinity Engine games were all better than IWD2.

 

[hiver]

True that.

If it's any consolation, he agrees.

Well, ive read somewhere when he said he thought that last level of Dragons eye with that going back in time trick was awesome.
I was all like : "Saaaaawyeeerrr! grrrraggh!"

However it would be a better if he could have separated some areas and made parts of them optional ... thats not the game i can play.

 

[Infinitron]

IWD2 is shit because it is a third edition game that uses real time with pause.

Worse balancing != "shit"

Besides, after four 2nd edition IE games, I thought it was a refreshing change and an interesting experiment.