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A Diary of Videogames - Baldur's Gate

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DRTnOOber New Zealand476 Posts June 01 2012 06:32 GMT #1 Baldur's Gate Game: Baldur's Gate Platform: PC Release Year: 1998 Stephen's Rating: 9/10 Box art from Baldur's Gate. Black Isle's Baldur's Gate is an RPG adventure game based on the Forgotten Realms universe. Released at a similar time to Blizzard's Diablo, it had some stiff competition. As it turned out, the two games had vastly different appeal and both have their own place in video game history. Basic Plot Some time prior to the beginning of the game, Bhaal, the Lord of Murder is killed. He ensures his immortality by spreading his essence across hundreds of mortal souls. The main protagonist (you) is one of the "Bhaalspawn". At the start of the game however, you have no idea any of this has happened. The game begins with gathering your belongings and following your caretaker Gorion out of the small town of Candlekeep. In transit you are ambushed and Gorion is slain. The rest of the game is about unearthing the reasons why Gorion died and unraveling the nature of your true identity. Gameplay The view is top down on the action. The game is divided into areas. Each area is ultimately a square shape and is initialy "blacked out" until you explore it. There is a world map which is used to travel from area to area. World map. Each icon on the map is a unique area that can be explored in the game. Before starting you get to choose the characteristics of your character including race, class, alignment, and how they look. This vastly impacts how you play the game. These characteristics are based on the D&D universe. Combat occurs either in real time (there are "turns" which play out in real time) you are able to pause the action at any time and re-assign activities to each member of your party. This is critical to surviving in the game and allows you to take the time to truly strategise each moment of combat and then sit back and enjoy how it pans out. Entangle spell and combat. Party portraits are on the right hand side. There is a vast horde of enchanted weapons and armour scattered around the world, many dozens of spells that different character classes can learn, non-magical abilities for other classes, an alignment system which impacts some of the story aspects of the game as well as how non-player characters interact with you. Positives The game is beautiful to look at and the music provides a fitting ambience. Unlike Diablo each map is hand crafted and drawn from scratch. You may not be getting a new experience each time you re-play the game, but each corner of each map is uniquely designed and special in its own way. The game is challenging. Boss fights are few and far between but sometimes require significant preparation in terms of levelling up, studying the fight, and collecting equipment. If, however, you are finding the game too tough you can drop the difficulty slider in the game options. Character inventory screen. The story is fantastic. Right to the very end of the series I find the whole scenario intriguing. The world is open ended and you have free will to explore wherever you want to go. There are entire areas of the game with no plot purpose other than providing you an area to explore or perhaps to find a new weapon or piece of armour. A vast game in all meanings of the word. Negatives In comparison to Ultima VII I found the characters less memorable (with the exception of Minsc). Likewise there is a lot of text which is required if you want to follow the story, but it quickly becomes tiresome reading page after page of it. Memorable Moments Minsc. He is hilarious. If you start the game as a caster class such as a wizard the game is exceptionally difficult at first. I'll never forget going back to this game after playing through the sequel, and casting magic missile. One tiny ball of 1d4 damage emerged, whereas before I was firing dozens of them at a time.

Anomek Poland152 Posts June 01 2012 11:39 GMT #2 Great game. It has a lot of replayability. There are many quests you miss on first playthrou. Also you may want to set up different party, play quests differently, etc. Bhaal was actually Lord of Murder (I know, little difference ). Manually designed areas are something that really stand out in this game. Ignoring low resolution, it looks better then many younger 3D games. The best thinng about Baldur's Gate (and it's sequel) is how party works. You create only protagonist (which is most boring character in party with it's godspawn drama). All other members have solid background, develop interesting relationship with protagonist and other party members. Most of them I still remember... Viconia had nice love-hate relationship with some ranger (forgot his name). Edwin just hated us, and was most powerful wizard in the world. Minsc and Boo were... Minsc and Boo, you can't forget this couple. Tiax is also pretty nice character . Yeah, that's what modern games are missing. 6-man party of unique characters You picked characters to party based on their personality, not how overpowered were Cheers! BTW, D&D = ruleset, Forgotten Realms = Universe. There is something wrong with "D&D universe". Or maybe i'm just too much into details?

Teoita Italy12247 Posts June 01 2012 11:51 GMT #3 Bloody hell starting as an arcane caster in EVERY d&d based game. I always do it, and it's goddamn painful every time. The whole FROST RAY! ARCANE MISSILE! SHIT NOW IM USELESS part is kind of addicting in its own way :D Well written, Baldur's Gate is truly a piece of gaming history!

MaxSteel 78 Posts June 01 2012 12:40 GMT #4 Oh, I remember that game. Think I passed it like 3/4 times throught the years, and even own two copies (one is the collection of all the Bg's, one is the original from 1998). Was around 8 when i first got it lol, sucked so hard at it back then =D

iPlaY.NettleS Australia4428 Posts June 01 2012 14:04 GMT #5 about the only thing bad about it is the lack of quill for arrows , meaning the average ranger needs to carry almost half his inventory of just arrows if you are going on a long adventure or quest.rangers are also probably a little strong , in BG2 however they are a little underpowered.All in all one of the best games ever.

DRTnOOber New Zealand476 Posts June 01 2012 19:43 GMT #6 Thanks for the corrections Anomek, I've updated the blog post Yes I miss RPG's with a good party of characters. Ultima VII had it as well but was even older, and I felt something of a connection with my party from Neverwinter Nights 2 but that's about it. I found the sequel even better, I absolutely loved it.

DRTsorak New Zealand97 Posts June 02 2012 20:34 GMT #7 I loved this game. In recent years I tried soloing the game with just one character, pretty intense.

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