pavona21's Full Review: Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance for GameCube
Story: Dusting Off Old Ideas
Last holiday season, Interplay released an installment of their immensely popular computer series, Baldur’s Gate, to the PS2. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, as it was called, quickly become one of the late year’s stellar hits. The title spent a year collecting dust before Interplay and Black Isle Studios decided to resurrect it and enable Xbox and Gamecube gamers to enjoy the textbook Hack and Slash with RPG elements. A short while ago, Baldur’s Gate was also released for the big black box, where it recieved much acclaim for being a fantastic, true port. Will the Dungeon and Dragons like RPG adventure see the same success for the Nintendo Gamecube? Or will Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance suffer the same mediocre fate many other Gamecube ports have seen? Read in to find out…
Gameplay: 8/10-Need a little help carrying that flaming mace?
Directly after turning the game on, I would recommend that all newbies to the series play through the quick tutorial mode. This 10-minute lesson based mode will teach you how to move, jump, pick up items, attack, and use potions. When you’ve completed that though, or if you decide to skip it, you’re next objective will be to play through the story mode. First off, you’ll have to select your difficulty level, ranging from easy to hard. Easy has smaller number of enemies, while hard has the most, and medium is somewhere in between. Then, you’ll select your character class. Here, you can choose between a Dwarf, a Human Archer, or a Sorceress. The Dwarf specializes in close range attack, and is best for novices, the Human takes advantage of long range ballistics, and the Sorceress is best at magic. After all of this selecting is complete, you will then be treated to a short cinematic that shows your character entering Baldur’s Gate, and being attacked by thieves on the streets. You will then be taken through a plethora of mini missions, from cleaning rats out of a cellar, to helping dwarfs take over a mine. All of this will lead to you finding out who took your goods in the beginning of game, and what is behind this group of thieves.
Baldur’s Gate is very experience and item driven, and in this sense it plays similar to Diablo. Throughout your journey, you will be awarded experience points for completing small missions and killing enemies. You can eventually use these points to upgrade a few of your statistics,(Strength, ect) and also hone your skills. Along with that though, you will also spend much of your time hacking through the areas searching for items and gold. These items, ranging from potions, to armor, to clubs, to swords can be either be equipped, or sold at any of the shops. As a matter of fact, the sheer exhilaration of collecting the full chain mail 2 and the great bastard sword is almost worth the price of admission. And, realizing that you have 300,000 gold to spend on anything that you want is quite a feeling.
The reply value of Baldur’s Gate, on the other hand, is a mixed bag. Being as though this title is a complete story game with only one main mode, you have to be able to get a lot out of what you have to work with. Playing through the story mode on Normal difficulty should only take gamers a total of about 6 hours, which isn’t very bulky. Luckily though, Interplay has also added a multiplayer story mode, which allows a gamer and his or her friend to play together. This feature can easily add another 5 or 6 hours to the reply value, and is actually much more fun than the single player story mode. The only problem is that you have to have a friend around that is willing to start and finish the game with you. The other feature that saves the multiplayer value is the “import a character” option. If you’ve already completed the story mode on Normal and would like to tackle the hard mode, but don’t want to start from square one, you can quickly import a past character. In short, if you’re only looking to complete the story mode once, the reply value could be smaller than my nuts in cold water. On the other hand, if you have a friend that enjoys this type of game, and have the need to kill walking horses and the undead, you could get well over 25 hours out of this one.
Controls: 8/10-Killing, as usual, feels damn good
Control wise, Baldur’s Gate is a precise, yet easy game to master. The people behind this title did a fine job porting the already perfect PS2 controls over to the Gamecube, especially considering the differences. Obviously, the Dual Analog PS2 controller contains quite a few more “action” buttons than its Nintendo counterpart. So, its safe to say that they had to cut a few of the hot buttons to make everything important fit. What you end up with is a great default scheme which uses the A button for attacking, the B button for magic, the C-stick for camera controls, the X button for picking up items, the Y button for jumping, and the trigger buttons for using mana and health potions, respectively. The casualties to this scheme are the quick Map feature, which is very useful when you’re stuck looking for an exit or a portal, and the Inventory screen, which you’ll need to change weapons and armor. Instead of having a quick button to access these menus, Gamecube players will have to press start to access the in game menu, and scroll down to find these options.
Graphics: 6/10-It now comes stock with manditory slow motion!
Last year, Baldur’s Gate was viewed by many as one of the finest graphical achievements available for the PS2. Snowblind studios did a marvelous job with the vast lighting, great texturing, sweet special effects, and completely destructible surroundings. An entire year later though, they just couldn’t get it running near as smoothly for the Nintendo Gamecube. All of the fine textures, effects, and lighting features are still present and in tact, albeit a year removed, but the frame rate suffers from complete choppiness and tremendous slowdown. Its quite a shame too, considering that the sight of Baldur’s Gate running smoothly at 60 FPS would have been near orgasmic. Instead of the joyous sight of a smooth running game though, what we end up with a slight downgrade from the PS2 version. As I stated, the stunning effects such as the rippling water and the grand sight of an fiery explosion can still be seen, and do look quite nice, but it just isn’t the same in slow motion. These mediocre graphics don’t do this concept justice, and I greatly hope that Snowblind can get fix their problems for future Gamecube endeavors.
Audio: 8/10-Are you SURE that you can't do that here?
Luckily, the audio featured in Baldur’s Gate saw a smoother port than did the graphics. There just isn’t much that is more satisfying than the clanks of medieval weaponry, the “zip” of a fast paced moving arrow, or the squish of a sharp blade hitting open flesh. The background music is also a fine achievement. It won’t ever take the game over, but the moody music will act as a great foil to sound of ruthless brutality. The voice acting is also top notch. You’ll only hear voice acting in the few parts of the title where plot actually unfolds, but when you do, you’ll appreciate the fact that Interplay hired experienced actors for their game. Your character, on the other hand, is less serious. Chances are good that you won’t even hear your character until the middle of the game, where he may mutter “stay down” and other words of trash talk. The only other time he’ll say anything is either when you’re carrying too much weight(“I can’t carry anymore”), or when you’re trying to attack your friends or civilians(“I can’t do that here”). It’s quite humorous actually hearing “I can’t do that here” over and over again in succession until you tire of it, but it doesn’t really add or take away from the experience.
Fun Factor: 8/10-I put this here mainly because I forgot to mention the 2-player story mode!
Single player or otherwise, Baldur’s Gate is one of the most entertaining and addicting games of its kind. Although the story mode is quite short, the satisfaction and excitement of this fast paced, old school killing machine will leave you salivating for more. Also, the addition of a multiplayer story mode adds even more amusement to this title, and in some cases, makes it one of the most exciting 2 player story based experiences yet. To put into perspective, any of the millions of PC gamers who enjoyed Diablo or Baldur’s Gate for their computer will love every second of Dark Alliance. BG is everything a Gauntlet game wishes it could be and so much more. If you’re looking for fun, you’ve come to the right place.
Overall: 7.5/10
Even though it has been a full year since it was released for the PS2, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance is still one of the finest action RPGs on the market. The story is enchanting, the controls are rock solid, and the audio is impressive. Sadly though, the framerate was completely butchered en route to porting this one over the Gamecube. So, although the game is great in many respects, its graphics lack the same quality that you would see in the PS2 or Xbox versions. If you’re stuck only owning a Gamecube and have yet to play this title for the PS2, I would recommend it. But, if you own a Gamecube and another console, look for it on PS2 or Xbox before settling for the Gamecube version.
Thanks for reading,
-Pav
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