Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn

The Good
Here's a game with a tough act to follow: Baldur's Gate 1 was a super-mega-hit, made D&D cool again and became one of the biggest names in the rpg revolution so... How can you make a good sequel to that? The answer is twofold.

For starters the designers took the effective but not that revolutionary "brute force" approach to making a sequel which means they just jammed down your throat 10 times as much features. The new gameworld (moved south of Baldur's Gate around the city of Amn) is 4534536 times bigger with much more varied locations including underwater cities, elven citadels, planar spheres and even the Underdark among the collection of usual temples, dungeons and cities that populate Faerûn. The adventure has also been moved up level-wise, with +3 weapons being now a common occurrence and with enemies such as Beholders, Demi-Lyches and even dragons to fight against instead of the same old lvl 2 kobolds, the spell book has been upgraded to around 300 spells, and the character classes now support character "kits" which work like subclasses with special skills and weaknesses that add a lot of neat twists to the game.

All that plus new features like double-weapon wielding, interface fixes and a more accurate gameplay balance, for instance: thievery is now much more of a requirement and it even awards exp. points when successful. Mages can now cast spell triggers and contigencies making them much more resourceful in combat, in BG1 mages where useless fodder that could be dispossed of easily, now mages are devastating powerhouses that require equally skilled party members capable of casting spell turnings and stuff like that! And that's without mentioning the magical creatures like the vampires, beholders or dragons! Result? It's not enough to have a group of head-crushing fighters anymore, and true variety is much more necessary when considering party development. And speaking of party members, that's the only figure that seems to have dropped: 16 against the 32 or so of the original. But the drop in quantity is acceptable considering that much more dedication has been placed on each character and his/her particular background and storyline. Don't worry tough, along with the new party members you can still find your favorite BG1 characters back: Imoen (much more mature and with a dark secret and all), Jaheira (now single!), Edwyn and my personal favorites: the dimwitted Minsc and bad grrrrrrl Viconia. The characters have dropped that annoying tendency to come in pairs but they still converse with each other and can get into heated arguments and fights if they don't see eye to eye.

In short it's BG bigger, badder, with better graphics (there are even some polygonal elements here and there plus higher resolution options!) and more hours (upwards of 200) of gameplay. Enough to make a cool sequel right? But as I said the answer from the designers was twofold, and the other big improvement they made was really simple: Scripting.

Taking a lot of cues from previous Black Isle games like Torment and Fallout, BG2 forgave to a degree the freeform element of the original and crafted a much tighter world where no enemy is randomly spawned (aside from the obligatory but scarce chance encounters), each NPC has custom dialogues, each quest is meticulously crafted and every possible party member comes with their own scripted events and gets tied to the storyline appropiately. And the most impressive thing is that all these rather ambitious goals are kept for the entire adventure! It still boggles my mind that at no point in the game the quests fall in quality and every little nuance seems controlled by small scripted events, be it a run-in with some spies, a need for money, or some of the miriads of character-related quests that develop each party member Final Fantasy-style and tells us more about their backgrounds; or the class-related quests that provide you with a unique base of operations, quests, sub-plots and steady income depending on your character class; or the romance-scripted events and sub-plots; or the consideration provided by the designers to include small fandom-related touches such as self-parody, D&D cameos by Elminster, Dritz, the kids from the D&D show and enough self-references to the original to satisfy the most jaded fanatic (ever wondered what happened to that character? Practically every character from the original can be found in some form or another here!) ; or the optional challenges like hunting the pieces of a super-powerful hammer, defeating the dragons, assembling a sinister armor made of flesh, destroying Kangaxx, etc,etc,etc,etc,etc....

And still I repeat: at no time does the quality nor the quantity of the game take a dive. One might also think that with such priorities the storyline would decay and end up an inconsistent mess with little to no direction and with as much development as a Street Fighter storyline, but the fact is that the storyline benefits from the tighter scripting and actually soars above the original, exploring further the consequences of your demonic heritage and weaving a larger and more complex plot that interweaves most major players in Faerûn as well as most of the characters you meet in the game instead of being a series of subplots holding up a basic storyline like in other games. Granted, it's not as story-driven as Torment or some console rpgs, but it's still way up there.

The Bad
The ending is blatantly shitty, made for the exact purpose of leaving you with pretty much no answers and prompting you to buy the expansion... and some of the features that everyone wanted (such as knowing what the hell happened to each party member) got kicked over to said expansion...oh well, more BG can't be so bad....

Oh yeah and the final fight with Irenicus was a joke. Quite odd considering there are plenty of difficult challenges in the game and that the final showdown with Sarevok on the original was a veritable nightmare.

And what the hell happened to the spell effects? After Torment and it's screen-shaking, over the top spell effects I expected BG2 to be a super spectacle of magic spells!! Yet....

The Bottom Line
This is one bad ass rpg, one would expect such a massive game to be simply a freeform mess (Morrowind) or such a tightly written and scripted game to be a linear interactive movie (insert any console rpg here) but only Baldur's Gate 2 manages to reach both goals and remain solid.

Required gaming for any crpg wanna-be and gaming enthusiast, Baldur's Gate 2 is simply a masterpiece of videogaming.

The Good
Graphics went up to 800x600. Quests were easier to follow and track. You practically start out fighting. Some new character classes and abilities. You got to start out at a higher level, with more abilities to play with. The story was still engrossing, the music was still good, and there are still characters to pick up along the way - each with his/her own goals.

You get to play truly evil parties, and it isn't impossible! In fact, Vicconia actually likes you this way... .

The Bad
The entire series seems to suffer from ADD (Attention Deficeit Disorder). You simply cannot complete one quest without being offered four or five more along the way.

Another thing this series of games suffers from is mage-overkill. At the end of every quest there's a spell caster with some spell which is going to make your life miserable.

I found the graphics to be distracting. They were sharper and clearer, but something about them just didn't work for me. Maybe it was too many of the same hue.

Magic items seemed to abound in this game. Arguably, that's the way it should be for higher-level games, but other than my party and the people we were trying to kill, everyone was low-level. If Bob the salesman had +4 armor and weapons, why wouldn't he be out adventuring?

The Bottom Line
Overall, it's a good game. It will probably go down as one of the greats, but for me, it was too much. Part of that may be because I played the original, then immediately started playing this one.

Still, it's challenging (in a good way), and the story is really good. Just stay away from some unnecessary side quests and you should be OK.

The Good
I loved the first Baldur's Gate. It was a beautifully crafted game that pulled AD&D out of stagnation and helped revitalize the entire RPG genre. It was one of those rare games that become classics the moment they are released. Baldur's Gate II is, technically speaking, a very similar game, using the same engine, battle system, and continuing the same story - but it also greatly improves upon many of the predecessor's features.

Baldur's Gate II is a perfect example of how to make a sequel to a great game. Basically, it takes its well-working formula and refines it, expanding possibilities and ironing out rough edges. Undeniably, the single most impressive aspect of the game - and one that instantly propelled its creators to stardom - is the way it manages to combine freedom of decision and exploration with high-quality scripted material. In a way, it is to the first game what Serpent Isle was to Black Gate - but it feels even more independent, more confident in the path it has chosen.

Baldur's Gate II brilliantly turns familiar filler material into meaningful content: it takes purely gameplay-related concepts and weaves them into the narrative, thus making the game world more credible and greatly enhancing our immersion in it. It is the zenith of BioWare's quest design. Instead of "I forgot my purse on the table, can you bring it to me?" type of missions, there is a stunning variety of interesting and exciting tasks. You'll solve personal dramas, plunge into political conspiracies, side with religious orders, make tough choices in questionable moral disputes, manage a castle, investigate crimes, and much more. You'll get attached to certain characters and hate others. Everything in this game is hand-crafted, and while it cannot compete with the likes of Elder Scrolls in quantity, it more than makes up for it in quality.

That is not to say that Baldur's Gate II is too small or too linear. Quite on the contrary: it offers a large, generously designed world with a great variety of locations. Much of the content here is purely optional - you can choose yourself which quests to tackle and which not. A good example is the first major task in the game - collecting a certain sum of money. While the goal itself is clearly set, the game doesn't in the least tell you how to achieve it. It gives you a few hints and then, after a bit of investigation, you are faced with several highly divergent options for completing the task. All of those have their ups and downs, but none is dull and you'll want to explore them all. Or, you can just try to steal the money somewhere or gain it by selling loot - but that's anything but easy, since the sum is large. Though a few sections in the middle of the game are fairly straightforward, you'll be given this kind of freedom most of the time.

Baldur's Gate II is colorful, with exotic locations hidden underneath the European medieval world. You'll travel to enchanted forests, catacombs of the undead, celestial abode of the elves, mysterious drow dwellings, and picturesque city of a strange sentient reptile race. What's great about those areas is not just their aesthetic appeal, but their design: they are tight and busy, teeming with places of interest, items, people, and activities. There is something to discover in every corner. There are quests waiting for you when you least expect it.

Already in the first game you could recruit interesting companions who would travel with you. The sequel improves and builds upon this feature, presenting more characters who could join the party and fleshing out their personalities quite a bit more. Companions would comment on your actions, talk to each other, and develop feelings for you depending on how you treat them. My protagonist was in a pretty good position trying to capture the heart of a charming innocent elf, but at a certain point he couldn't refuse a tempting offer from a certain female drow, and the elf couldn't forgive him this infidelity. This kind of detail enriches the game even more. Well-written, witty conversations are a pleasure to read or (when the occasional voice acting kicks in) listen to.

On top of that, there is so much traditional RPG goodness that you'll have fun even without all those other possibilities. Since everybody are at higher levels now, you start actually feeling some power behind your party, especially the mages. Combat is more satisfying than ever, with the excellent real-time-with-pause system carried over with more options, classes, races, weapons, proficiencies, spells, and what not. You'll destroy huge iron golems and slay dragons, outsmart sly spell-casting beholders and mind flayers with psychic powers. And when you've had enough of combat, you can always return to being a greedy owner of an estate and repress the population with high taxes to get more money, or engage on a chivalrous quest of saving your beloved one from turning into a vampire.

The Bad
There is less than a handful of minor issues, such as the absence of music in most locations - I wish the magnificent track that plays during character creation would be actually heard in-game. A few humorous elements and anachronisms ruining the strict medieval atmosphere may not be everyone's cup of tea. The overarching story is not particularly dynamic and somewhat lacks the initial emotional attachment we had in the first game.

My only real complaint is the lack of a continuous world. Much of the action takes place in a large city divided into several districts, but you can't simply exit it and walk in all directions. Once quests start piling up, locations will appear on your map; there are quite a few, and many of them are optional. But I really missed the traveling aspect of the first Baldur's Gate. I liked just going somewhere way before I was supposed to be there, wandering through the wilderness in search of loot and outposts of civilization. I've never had any sympathy to the kind of disjointed and immersion-breaking map design the sequel uses, and I think it's a pity the first game's more seamless exploration was not carried over.

The Bottom Line
Baldur's Gate II is a gem of an RPG. It is BioWare at the top of their game - full of creative power channeled into the most important design components, inventive and magnanimous at once. There is so much to do here, and all of it feels right - fighting, questing, romancing, and living an exciting adventure in a brilliantly crafted virtual world.