SUMMARY: If you like role playing games, games that play very close to D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) rules, like creating your own character and seeing them grow, or just want to forget about the world for a while, this game is for you.
If you prefer action games (e.g., racing, fighting games etc.) or don't like to read much, this game isn't for you. There is action in the game of course, but it is not as constant as say Street Fighter II or Spy Hunter, as examples.
What exactly is being reviewed? This is a review of Baldur's Gate I with the latest patch for the game. The expansion Tales of the Sword Coast was NOT installed and therefore is not included in this review.
Why did I buy this product? When I saw in the store, I never heard of it before. But was ready for another game for my PC, so looked at this and the summary on the box looked interesting. I took a gamble and it paid off. In terms of value, I received much more than the $50.00 dollars that I paid for it (you can get it lot cheaper now since the game came out in 1998), so the gamble paid off well for me.
What do I love about this game? I really liked the artwork. I also liked the fact that you weren't forced to go anywhere or do anything. You weren't forced into a storyline, which is quite unlike Final Fantasy VII. Thanks to the music, weather, and ambient sounds, when I explore for a while and suddenly hear the monsters attacking me, sometimes it startles me. No other game in my collection (have more than 100 game titles) does that, not even Everquest.
What did I dislike about this game? The default pathing stinks, quite frankly. What I mean is when you tell your characters to go from one point to another if there is obstacles in the way they will automatically go around. This is usually not too much a problem when in open area, but big problem in dungeons as invariably it's your weak mage that is by himself and he gets murdered by archers. Not fun. Fortunately, if you install the latest patch for the game, and edit the baldurs.ini file to increase the search nodes up quite a bit say like 10000, then the pathing improves dramatically. You can see details for this in the readme.txt file in the Baldur's Gate Program directory (after you've installed latest patch for it).
Systems this program was reviewed on These are the systems that I installed Baldur's Gate on as basis for my review:
Pentium III 800 mhz 768 MB of RAM Radeon 9600 All in Wonder video card Windows 98
Athlon 3.3 ghz 1.25 GB of RAM Nvidia 9200 video card Windows XP Home Edition
Note that both these systems are far above the minimum system requirements, and in fact I have run BG1 ok on Pentium 200 mhz with 64 MB of RAM. Like nearly every game in existence, the more RAM your system has, the better your gaming experience will be.
Both systems would eventually crash, even with the latest patch. However, they would usually last several hours or more so had minimal impact. Also, I always save after winning a hard battle, etc., so was easy to get back close to where I was.
What IS Baldur's Gate? In Baldur's gate you create a character. You choose appearance in game, character portrait, sounds for the character, character attributes (STR, DEX, STA, etc), alignment, race, and class. You then use this character to do various quests, and can have 5 NPC (non player characters) to join your party to help you. There are many more than 5 NPC's who can join your party, so this is part of your strategy, which to keep and who to kick out. Baldur's gate is a role playing game based on D&D (Dungeon & Dragons) 2nd edition rules. It is not necessary to know these rules to play or enjoy this game, the game handles them all behind the scenes.
What are the game details? The game world is isometric. That is, a bird's eye view, top down, but at an angle. This works well most of the time, however I won't deceive you. Sometimes a party member will die, and they died behind trees. The only way to find their stuff is to slowly search the area with the mouse until the cursor changes. I have had my wife help me a few times to find it, she was better than I was.
At the bottom of the screen are the quick buttons, used to select most common spells, or weapons you want to use, or special ability. Also orders, such as halt, attack or talk. Can also change the formation of your party, although due to space constraints in buildings and dungeons, I would just use the 2x3 rectangle formation for the whole game.
There's an inventory screen, where you'll put all your loot. Expect to be here a lot. It's intuitive, but they made this screen a lot better in Baldur's Gate II. I didn't mind the inventory management, but some people might.
There's information screen where you can see a party member's statistics and where you'll level up. Can also see short description of icons that affect party members (such as cursed).
To the right on the main screen are your character portraits. You use these to select whichever character you want to give orders to. You can actually create your own picture and sounds for your character. I did this, and the enjoyment of the game went up quite a bit for me. You need to look at the readme.txt file for details on how to do this.
There's a journal screen. This is helpful, but not as well organized as it could be. Sometimes you have to look at a previous chapter to find details of a quest you started. Would have been much better if you could sort by date.
The characters move around the world at a brisk walk pace. Even so, when traveling from one end of a map to another this can get slow. I didn't mind, as this gave me time to react should one of my party members get attacked. However, some people do mind this.
I enjoyed finding all the items in the game, especially the magical ones which makes your characters much stronger with them.
Characters don't interact with other characters much, but there is some. Sometimes, one NPC likes another and they say so. However, if you put evil and good characters in the same party there could be friction -- enough friction where they might even start attacking each other. Not what you need if deep in a dungeon. So keep that in mind.
Combat - this happen in Baldur's Gate? Somehow I didn't mention combat in my initial review -- the following fixes that. Not all quests or events in the game require combat. But many do. In combat, you'll first pause when you see an enemy, or in my case I heard the enemy often before seeing them, this was very helpful. Then you'll give orders to your party. If the enemy was weak, often just telling the fighters of your party to attack with their melee weapons and weaker characters firing their missile weapons in back will kill the enemies. If enemy is stronger, then may give orders to the spell casters. Then unpause and let the action happen. Keep in mind that BG1 is based on D&D, which in itself is actually turn based. So if you just used a heal potion, and need to use another immediately on the same character, there WILL be a delay. There isn't anything wrong, your character just has to wait until the next turn. After combat is over, you will then loot, and try to identify any magical items that may have been on the enemies. If someone dies, you will loot their stuff then resurrect them at a temple for a fee.
STORY (non-spoilers) The intro movie informs you that you are the son/daughter of your foster father, Gorion, a powerful mage. You have lived in Candlekeep, a city/fortress, all your life that you remember, and suddenly he says you must get yourself ready for a journey, for reasons that Gorion won't divulge. This area serves as a tutorial, and easy way to get experience and loot to start off. NOTE: won't say why, but important to go to inn and talk to Winthrop and get a weapon (1st), then the best armor that you can afford (and use). If you don't do this, might not be much fun later. I liked the story, and was quite interesting for me.
Is this game challenging? The game is absolutely challenging. However, it wasn't too challenging, and I found if I read carefully all spells/items available to me, I could find a way to win the battle. Lot of good walkthroughs on Internet if you get stuck. However, it should be noted, that if you get somewhere and you are being killed quickly, it might be because you are too low level. For this and many other reasons, its helpful to have saves at various points. For myself, I would always have a save when starting a new area, quick-save while exploring it, then save in major slot again when done. Also, if doing a major event (like say kicking someone out but wasn't sure about it), sometimes would keep a save just for that in case I wanted to go back. Key thing is to save often, and have at least different saves you can go back to. Never only use 1 save slot for entire game.
In conclusion, the game does have it flaws, but I enjoyed the game overall because I found for me, the things it does well more than compensated for its weaknesses.
BALDURS GATE 4 IN 1 COLLECTION PC XP/VISTA DVD-ROM BRAND NEW FACTORY SEALED DVD CASE Publisher: Interplay Platform: Windows xp/vista ESRB/Age: (T) Mat...More at eBay
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