Review RPG Warehouse review of.. Baldur's Gate

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Baldur's Gate

Yes, you read correctly. <a href="http://www.interplay.com/bgate/">Baldur's Gate</a>, the original. The one from 1998. Anyway, <A href="http://www.rpgwh.net/">RPG Warehouse</a> has posted a <a href="http://www.rpgwh.net/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=174">review</a> of the old CRPG. Here's a sample of the love:
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<blockquote>As to date, Baldurs Gate has not been forgotten, even if its story has come to an end, the people of this industry, gamers and designers alike, look back to this example of success as a constant reminder of what to strive for, especially in ways of story line. I remember how much hype BG received throughout its birth but that hype did it no justice, and in many ways, neither does this review.</blockquote>
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Excuse me. I feel the need to vomit.
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Spotted this at <A href="http://www.rpgdot.com">RPGDot</a>.
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[Section8]

This review makes baby jesus cry.

 

[Deathy]

Time for some angry e-mail writing, boys.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I guess its the orginality speaking through, them being hand drawn and all.

Section8 pointed this part out to me.. Yet another ignorant dipshit who thinks the Infinity Engine backgrounds are hand drawn.

 

[Deathy]

I put my two cents worth on that comment thread for the review there.

They should fall over themselves apoligizing for this review to me.

 

[Mad_Dog]

You dudes are grumpy old men.:D IMO it was the second best IE game, after Planescape. I had a huge amount of fun with it.

 

[Deathy]

You dudes are grumpy old men.:D

The fun thing about being called a grumpy old man is that I'm 17 years old.

IMO it was the second best IE game, after Planescape.

That may be. But it is still a very poor game.

I had a huge amount of fun with it.

Why? What made it "fun"?
No matter how hard I try, I can never understand why people like Baldur's Gate.

 

[Mad_Dog]

You dudes are grumpy old men.:D

The fun thing about being called a grumpy old man is that I'm 17 years old.

IMO it was the second best IE game, after Planescape.

That may be. But it is still a very poor game.

I had a huge amount of fun with it.

Why? What made it "fun"?
No matter how hard I try, I can never understand why people like Baldur's Gate.

Reasons I enjoyed it....
a) Good graphics, interface, blah, blah...
b) Decent plot
c) Good NPCs
d) It's fun playing low level characters for a change.

That's all I can think up right now. It was the first D&D game I ever played, CRPG or pen and paper, so I haven't had time to get sick of the system I suppose.

 

[Deathy]

Reasons I enjoyed it....
a) Good graphics, interface, blah, blah...
b) Decent plot
c) Good NPCs
d) It's fun playing low level characters for a change.

That's all I can think up right now. It was the first D&D game I ever played, CRPG or pen and paper, so I haven't had time to get sick of the system I suppose.

a) The graphics looked rather bland and uninteresting to me.
b) The plot was cliched and not very credible. It used tiresome plot devices such as dream sequences, and the Iron Shortage keeping you out of Baldur's Gate was just idiotic.
c) Didn't you think it was fun how you controlled your NPC's (Non Player Characters)? And how dialouge never took your player character into consideration?
d) It's also fun how you pretty much double in power between level1 and 2. You're getting your ass kicked, and then, all of a sudden, you turn into an ass kicking machine.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Reasons I enjoyed it....
a) Good graphics, interface, blah, blah...

The graphics were okay, except the player sprites were fairly ugly, I thought. The landscapes were nice though.

The interface though.. Bleh. The pathfinding was awful in it for one, which makes control via the interface rather troublesome. It also took up way too much of the screen too.

b) Decent plot

Eh.. Evil sibling plots are fairly common. Toss in the whole Godhood thing.. Erk.

c) Good NPCs

Whom you could control with the interface to make go against their "personality".

d) It's fun playing low level characters for a change.

Actually, most of the D&D CRPGs start at first level. Then again, they didn't used to have level caps that made you buy an expansion pack if you wanted to advance beyond a certain point either.

That's all I can think up right now. It was the first D&D game I ever played, CRPG or pen and paper, so I haven't had time to get sick of the system I suppose.

P&P is the best way to play it. It's just too simplified for a CRPG, and D&D isn't just about combat, like the CRPGs are.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Baldur's Gate did have one good thing about it, though: the sense of 'adventure', where you had to walk across the map in order to go to the next location. It wasn't fun in those empty wilderness areas, though, but there were some fun places you had to go through, like Beregost or the Friendly Arm Inn. And the fact that some locations were different at night then they were at day, that was a nice touch.

Baldur's Gate had some pretty pathetic combat though, like all IE games. The dialogue was piss poor and the storyline was completely generic, not to mention appalling. THe characters could also used more characterization, rather than just 6-7 lines of dialogue which is what most of them had.

Baldur's Gate 2 was worse. You didn't have that sense of adventure anymore because you didn't have to actually 'traverse' to a location, and the game was entirely too easy.

Most of the areas on the map were already available for you to go to, right at the start, and the quests seemed completely disjointed from oneanother. It was like a huge hub of dungeons to choose from. At least Baldur's Gate had connectivity.

I liked Baldur's Gate, because I liked the locations. Birds flew around, day turned to night and night turned to day. That much felt really immersive. It's just too bad the storyline was utterly linear (not to mention crap) and that not much imagination was put into the game.

 

[Mad_Dog]

Baldur's Gate 2 was worse. You didn't have that sense of adventure anymore because you didn't have to actually 'traverse' to a location, and the game was entirely too easy.

Most of the areas on the map were already available for you to go to, right at the start, and the quests seemed completely disjointed from oneanother. It was like a huge hub of dungeons to choose from. At least Baldur's Gate had connectivity.

I liked Baldur's Gate, because I liked the locations. Birds flew around, day turned to night and night turned to day. That much felt really immersive. It's just too bad the storyline was utterly linear (not to mention crap) and that not much imagination was put into the game.

That is what I loved about BG1 as well... It felt lilke a big world, like Avernum. Not as big, or as open, but the feeling was still there. I was dissapointed with BG2. I bought it in June, and I still haven't finished it. I did lose 2 months in the summer when I was travelling, but it couldn't suck me in the way the first one did. I have to finish over the holidays so I can free up some HD space.

 

[Rosh]

Meh....BG and BG2 still suck ass compared to Gold and Silver boxes.

 

[chrisbeddoes]

This is only my opinion.
I loved the original Baldur's Gate .
For me it was great .
I only played it once but it left a great taste on my mouth.

Also i did not like Baldur's Gate 2 as much .

I would give 8.5/10 to Baldur's Gate 1
and 7/10 to Baldur's Gate 2
with 10/10 to Fallout 1 ,2

 

[Spazmo]

Meh....BG and BG2 still suck ass compared to Gold and Silver boxes.

I'm kinda sad I missed out on the golden (literally) age of D&D RPGs. I've tried downloading the oldies (a couple of the Draognlance games as well as Eye of the Beholder), but at a certain point, a game gets so old it's just plain inaccessible. I have to make my own maps?!

What's really weird is that I can enjoy Ultima IV perfectly well.