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Recounting Bioware's Baldur's Gate II

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the who-doesn't-like-a-little-arr-pee-gee dept.

radicalskeptic writes "In the latest installment of Gamespot's series modestly titled 'The Greatest Games of All Time', the editors review Bioware's RPG classic from 2000: Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. The article is a broad overview of the game and touches on the game's innovations, comments on its historical significance, and includes a section devoted to BGII's romantic subplot. Gamespot concludes that 'all in all, Baldur's Gate II is a towering achievement in the history of role-playing games, giving you a huge world to explore, plenty of well-drawn NPCs to argue with or get romantic with, and an engaging story that's simultaneously epic and personal.'"

2 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Re:NPCs to warm your sleeping furs at night? by MajroMax · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Baldur's Gate II [gives] you a huge world to explore, plenty of well-drawn NPCs to argue with or get romantic with...

    *shudder*

    Not really -- it's only as "creepy" as a fantasy novel with romantic subplot. Baldur's Gate II was extremely well-written, and the overall experience was like a novel wrapped up with D&D game mechanics. Most notably, the NPC's behaved in a believable way, with inner conflicts and personality flaws.

    The sex, if it happened, was entirely "offstage", referred to only in dialogue, and occured only within the framework of a deeper romantic subplot.

    --
    "Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
  2. Re:meh... by VStrider · · Score: 4, Informative
    From what I have heard from a LOT of people, I should really give Planescape Torment a go.
    Add one more in that list of people. Planescape: Torment is the best RPG you can get on a pc. The BG series was very good, though not up to par with torment.

    The story is very original, the game is very well written. It seems they had DMs on the design team.
    You get quests, not your typical fedex quests(you know, go fetch this and bring it back then take this to this guy etc), but quests where you'll need to think. It's not like BG, you don't have to finish all quests to continue, and some you never will. Some quests you won't discover at all. The ones you'll solve, some you'll solve them right away and some after a long time. You can pick up any items you'll find, some of them might have something to do with a future quest or they might be totally useless. But you cann't carry everything with you. And you cann't be certain which items are useful. Sometimes, even garbage might be of some use.

    You don't choose an alignment for your character, it chooses you. (soviet russia comes to mind) Depending how you play your alignment will form accordingly.

    I could tell you alot more but I'll let you see the game yourself. As you probably realised, this isn't for gamers but for D&D players. ie. if you expect and demand to open every door, solve everything, collect everything and see everything there is to see, then you might be dissapointed. If on the other hand you are a D&D player and you've been dissapointed before by the rest of hack'n'slash mighty magic pseudoRPGs, then you're in for a treat with this one.

    I've talked in the past with friends who finished torment and each one's gameplay and experiences was totally different.
    --
    VStrider.