It's one of the most dominant stats in the game. THAC0 (the dice roll required To Hit an Armor Class of 0), has become a deserved byword for the inaccessibility of the system. Today, however, much of this feels positively archaic. AD&D was the newest form of Dungeons & Dragons, and SSI's barrage of AD&D games ensured computer gamers of the era would have been familiar with THAC0, dual-classing, and Cloudkill spells. In terms of its RPG rules and mechanics, Baldur's Gate turns out to be rather narrowly aimed: it's the ultimate simulation of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition rules. A box quote might read “ Baldur's Gate is just right for everyone.” Advertisement The graphics are pleasant and functional, but they lack a sense of style beyond “generic fantasy role-playing game.” It's a Goldilocks game: neither too hot nor too cold, neither too dark nor too cheerful, neither too cool nor too square. Its music is appropriately epic, a bombastic orchestral-style collection of songs that are quite good-but could also be quite good in a dozen other fantasy epics. It lacks the history of Dragonlance, the grittiness of Dark Sun, the horror of Ravenloft, or the weirdness of Planescape. It's set in the Forgotten Realms, a D&D world that exists simply to be a fantasy world. Hell, there's even a 100 percent accurate prophecy that gives the shape of the story away 20 meters from where your character starts a new game.
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The story is a straight-up hero's journey: you play an orphan whose adopted world is suddenly torn apart, and you spend the game discovering your true heritage and power. First, its overall presentation feels designed to be not just a great role-playing game, but to be the Platonic ideal of a role-playing game. "If a tree falls in the forest, I'll kill the bastard what done it!"īaldur's Gate is built on two distinct foundations. Oh, and it could also prove there's a market for an enhanced Baldur's Gate II-even, perhaps, a newly developed Baldur's Gate III. Thus, the Enhanced Edition could serve multiple purposes: to solidify the game's reputation among fans, to convince skeptics like me of its quality, and to find a new generation of fans (and possibly to show the iPad is a workable platform for traditional RPGs, though that version has yet to be released). If this were released in 1999, we'd be calling it a Game Of The Year edition, with the expansion included and a bit of new content. It's not a remake or a reboot, it's really just Baldur's Gate all over again. The Enhanced Edition steps into this simmering not-quite-debate. And finally there's Fallout, which has become the dominant model for Western RPGs due to its morality system, constant character development, and quest hubs. Meanwhile, Daggerfall and Diablo are, in retrospect, critical in helping single-character action RPGs to stand on equal footing with the more tactical, party-based style. Icewind Dale had the best combat of any Infinity Engine game. Fellow Infinity Engine game Planescape: Torment was a dazzling burst of storytelling, surpassing Baldur's Gate and almost every other game with its creativity. Its sequel, Shadows Of Amn, was all-around more impressive. Yet despite its reputation, Baldur's Gate doesn't necessarily hold up as well as some of its contemporaries.
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No wonder, when it didn't fail in reaching those goals, that it was considered an instant classic. No wonder fans of party-based RPGs couldn't wait to play Baldur's Gate, a game specifically designed to include the best of video games with the best of D&D. Ultima went from superior to substandard seemingly overnight, Wizardry was dormant, and SSI's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons license-which it used to produce roughly 30 games over eight years-had been sold. From the beginning, Baldur's Gate was treated as the savior of a genre that suddenly and shockingly collapsed in the middle of the decade. Even Daggerfall can be seen through the continuing influence of Skyrim.įinally, to end the year, we get the recent re-release of Baldur's Gate, the dominant Western role-playing game of late '90s discourse. Diablo came back with ambitious goals and mixed results in Diablo III, while the evolutionary Torchlight II carried a more conventional flame.
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The Wasteland II and Project Eternity Kickstarters have demonstrated that fans have a clear connection with Fallout and the Infinity Engine games. Remember the '90s? They're back-in RPG form! It's been a good year for those of us who believe the late 1990s were the most fruitful time in the role-playing game genre's history.
#BALDURS GATE ENHANCED GAMEPLAY PC#
Platform: PC (iOS/Android, Mac coming soon)