I have been an avid player of Dungeons and Dragons for over a decade. Playing the Czech mutation, called Dragon’s Lair (to avoid copyright issues, it was not exactly D&D), I realized this was the first real multiplayer game. Later, I have been an avid fan of the heavily underrated Realms of Arkania trilogy, which has been the best D&D conversion to the computer (or for its German mutation, Das Schwarze Auge), especially for its great single player capacity Naturally, I have been very interested in Baldur’s Gate.
Using Christmas as an excuse, I loaded the game again and played it again, exclusively for this opinion. However, as much as I tried to be objective, I could not help myself, but to rip this game apart. Even though the story is captivating and the gaming system the best D&D conversion I have ever seen, the technical problems, real-time combat and poor balancing hurts the game.
The good Story - The story is very captivating, and will you hold in your seat for long hours. The strongest point of the story is that you don’t know what’s your ultimate goal until the very end. Only slowly you will progress from one chapter to the next, getting some hints about why you are so important and what’s your ultimate goal, but they serve just as teasers to make the story more captivating.
Gaming system - “wow,” I said after playing the game for a couple of hours. The game changes from an introductory go-there-fetch-that style to a full-blown D&D game in no time. Once again, it will e not enough to roll over your enemies, or simply rush them and retreat once you are too hurt. You will have to send out scouts, plan your way though a hostile environment, or even sneak through enemy lines. All this adds a new dimension to the game, which could not be found even in the Realms of Arkania trilogy.
Graphics and sound - while not top-notch, the graphics will still amaze you, especially during special effects, such as spell casting. Otherwise, the graphics are on the Diablo II level, even though sometimes they remind me on the freeware game D!nk Smallwood. The sound, especially the music are adding nicely to the atmosphere of the game.
The bad Technical difficulties - Running the game on the same computer I used to play almost al the other games I reviewed here, I faced serious technical difficulties. First, the game always crashed when I inserted the disk while the computer was running, and I suspect a corrupt autorun program, which has problems with a DVD drive. I always had to restart the computer with the disk in. Second, sometimes when starting the game, the map tended to scroll down all the time, and only restarting the computer helped. I understand that there is a DVD version of the game, but even the regular version should not have problems with a DVD drive.
Technical support difficulties - You can use the tech support only when you register, but the only way to register is on-line. This was the first time I faced a box without a mail-in registration card, which I dutifully fill out and send to the publisher. I cannot help myself, but I am very angry with the game’s publisher, as the computer I use for gaming does not have an Internet connection.
Combat - this game screams for turn based combat, Realms of Arkania style. In that series, you got a rather large tactical playing field, and every character had a certain movement rate, attacking according to his/hers/its speed. It was easy to handle; while easy for a single player to control all the characters, following the D&D combat rules. In Baldur’s Gate, however, real-time combat is on the order of the day. While multiple players are able to control the party with little or no problems, for a single player the game transforms into a real-time strategy nightmare. For a while, I even looked at this game as a very long real-time strategy campaign with some adventure features.
Yes, you can use a script on how a character would behave in a combat. However, these scripts proved to be useless. For example, I made my main character to be a defensive ranger. According to the script description, he should attack every monster that attacks one of my party members. He did not, however, and for every single attack, I had to click on the enemy.
Balancing problems - as much as the game follows the D&D rules, it deviates from these rules once, but in a major way. The game gives too much power to missile weapons, especially bows. An arrow will hit every time, no matter if a character moves or not, and only then the damage will be assessed. However, this gives too much power to low-level creatures. For example, a party of three cobolds routinely killed two or three of my party members (all at level 1), before I could take them out. Even though the resurrection costs are very low, I would rather see higher resurrection costs and less power to the missile weapons.
Overall, the game is unique in its D&D approach, and its strategic element. You should play it if you are a D&D fan. However, due to the problems with real-time combat, technical difficulties you may face and experience and the weak balancing of the game, you would be better off spending 10-15 dollars and getting the whole Realms of Arkania trilogy.
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