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Baldur's Gate Mod Lets You Play Original On Sequel
Anthony Boyd writes "The Baldur's Gate series has seen a lot of official expansions and unofficial mods. The latest one is fairly impressive: in about 750k, the BG1tutu team has delivered a file that completely moves your Baldur's Gate 1 games over to the Baldur's Gate 2 engine. According to the readme, it means you can play BG1 with screen sizes of 1024x768 or larger, you get more auto-pause options, and all spells and creatures have been converted to the updated BG2 rules. Best mod ever!"
Just downloaded this and been trying it out for a while. My impressions so far:
:/ I am unsure about in game movies - I was able to skip the Friendly Arm Inn movie, but not the Beregost one, weird. Having NPCs with kits is cool (provided you choose what you want upon installation).
The installer is nice and clean, the readme covers everything and there were no problems. Character creation is ala BG2 - this is both good and bad. Kits are available, but be careful with weapon proficiencies - no stores have been changed (e.g. no katanas or other BG2 weapons). Rules for proficiencies are broken - a fighter can put all of their points into one weapon (wasn't a problem in BG2 due to the starting at level 7 or above). Mages should grab Find Familiar in their spells as the extra HP is nice, and you can't buy it.
In game, the graphics look sweet at a higher res. Spell effects, armor, avatars etc all use BG2 models. Use of the BG2 engine fixes any DirectX problems (playing BG1 under DX9 was prone to crashing - it was written for DX6). The 1.5x walk speed is in. So is the enemy ability to follow you between areas - old tactics don't always work anymore
After a few hours of playing, I have come to the conclusion that this is a good thing for BG1. It breathes some life back into an RPG classic. If you enjoyed playing BG1, enjoy it again.