Review Baldur's Gate in GameSpy's Hall of Fame

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Baldur's Gate; BioWare

<a href=http://www.gamespy.com>GameSpy</a> has added <a href=http://www.bioware.com/games/baldurs_gate>Baldur's Gate</a> to their <b>Hall of Fame</b> thingy, and posted a <a href=http://www.gamespy.com/articles/540/540065p1.html>3-page overview</a> to remind folks how it "almost single-handedly revitalized the computer RPG genre".
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<blockquote>And finally, a stroke of brilliance: The action in the game was real-time, but could be paused with the spacebar in order to queue up your characters' actions. This combination of real-time and turn-based play meant that BioWare didn't have to muck up the core rules, but that the game would roll along smoothly. Smart! And an innovation that carried on to other hit BioWare games years later... </blockquote>
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Wow!
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[Saint_Proverbius]

An innovation that was in games before Baldur's Gate, no less.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Infidel! How dare you to doubt that holy BioWare did that first?! Didn't it say right that it was a stroke of brilliance or something?

 

[DamnElfGirl]

I still remember my first reaction to Bioware's "stroke of brilliance."

"Hey! Stop that! Don't run there! Ack, not into the fireball!"

::much grumbling and leafing through the manual to figure out how make combat as close to turn-based as possible::

 

[Transcendent One]

Just when you thought Gamebanshee went as far as any whore could possibly go, gamespy swoops down and takes the cake for themselves!

 

[Whipporowill]

"Cast the spell already! CAST IT, damn you retared wizard mofo... grumble grumble"

That's the worst beef I had with the IE games. Sometimes the game would just decide to forget you told someone to do something, or just add a delay for no good reason (and no, I'm not talking about casting time here). Wizard needs to take a piss, badly?

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

This combination of real-time and turn-based (...)

I suggest castration, or a .45 to the back of the head.

 

[Araanor]

Bioware's pausable real-time is an affront to interactivity, responsivity and feedback. Why the hell do they get praised for it?

 

[Vault Dweller]

It sells, so it must be good?

 

[Transcendent One]

Bio's rtwp is a fun system occasionally, but overall I get the feeling like in easier battles it's extremely boring and uninteractive, and in more hectic battles it just feels plain out of control.

 

[DemonKing]

Bioware's pausable real-time is an affront to interactivity, responsivity and feedback. Why the hell do they get praised for it?

Well I for one actually quite like it...when you have limited time to play games a relatively quick but viscerally pleasing system like pause n' play means you can fit in quite a bit of gameplay in a limited time frame and feel as if you are making progress.

Don't get me wrong - I like turn-based too but there is nothing more annoying than being in the middle of a tough and/or lengthy battle in TOEE, FO, JA2 or...worst of all...Wizardry 8, when the wife starts nagging you to go and do something/come to bed etc...now of course some games now allow quicksaving in the middle of battles but still, if the battle's on a knife edge it is rather annoying to have to get up and leave it to carry on with RL.

 

[Volourn]

Meh. Bio's pause n play system gets praised because quite frankly, it's damn good. Period. It, at its strongest combines the best of turn based combat with real time's best.


"Sometimes the game would just decide to forget you told someone to do something"

No. Rounds are 6 seconds long. You can't spam spells just because you click multiple times. The character has to wait 6 seconds period.I think the problem is some people here simply aren't smart enough to use the system. Half the problems mentioned simply don't exist if you half a brain minimum.

The truth hurts. deal with it.

Thankyou.

 

[Whipporowill]

If that's the case, they should have added some sort of round indicator for each character. It's not like most people would be counting seconds for several party-members in the heat of battle? Why bother calling it real time b t w? This is something I didn't know - and from what I understood they added 'casting time' to get around these issues. Maybe I'm wrong about that?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Meh. Bio's pause n play system gets praised because quite frankly, it's damn good. Period. It, at its strongest combines the best of turn based combat with real time's best.

Fascinating. So, what would be the best of TB then?

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I think the problem is not really with RTWP, but with that six-second rule.

 

[Transcendent One]

There are problems with unresponsive characters in IE. Maybe not spellcasters, but there are. I remember more than once I had to order my fighters twice before they'd move to attack a monster. However I don't remember having this in the original BG.

TB is very tactical, but it often drags on. RT is fast paced, exciting, is over quicker, but often ends up a clickfest. Bio's system is only tactical if it really provides a lot of special moves and such, and it doesn't provide the excitement of a fast paced system. Also in BG certain battles did drag on and you couldn't save in combat. Blech.

 

[Jed]

I think the real problem is the filler animations that happen in between the rounds that make the otherwise boring combat seem ACTION PACKED!. You make a command, and while that command is cued up to the next actual round, the filler action makes it appear that the character has ignored you. Poor gameplay design, but when the only interactivity your combat engine has is YOU OBSERVING IT HAPPEN, you've got to make it at least look interesting.

 

[Spazmo]

Whippo, casting times were in D&D 2nd Ed to begin with.

 

[Astromarine]

Look, one of my favorite strategy games is Total War, and that is RTWP. It is, in fact, the best implementation of RTWP that I can think of. In that game, when I tell a unit to do something, whether it is change a formation, charge into certain death, start using ranged attacks, cross the bridge, or *whatever* they do it. I didn't have the problem with the IE that a lot of people here had, simply because at the time I didn't analyse games as much. But that stupid 6 second thingy has ALWAYS annoyed me.
I see no reason at all why an RPG with RTWP can't be done that is enjoyable to a degree to this day unmatched by any Bioware or Black Isle product. It simply has to NOT be a D&D butchering job. In fact, I'm kinda hoping Dragon Age will be that. A game where a REAL RTWP system can be implemented, that is balanced to the character system chosen for the game, and not just clumsily retrofitted.

 

[Araanor]

Don't get me wrong - I like turn-based too but there is nothing more annoying than being in the middle of a tough and/or lengthy battle in TOEE, FO, JA2 or...worst of all...Wizardry 8, when the wife starts nagging you to go and do something/come to bed etc...now of course some games now allow quicksaving in the middle of battles but still, if the battle's on a knife edge it is rather annoying to have to get up and leave it to carry on with RL.

So the solution is to to not have involving combat? Yech!

 

[almondblight]

Eh...real time with pause worked pretty well in Freedom Force, in my opinion. I think the problem with the IE games was that the combat was just boring and unresponsive in general, perhaps because they were trying to fight a turn based system into a realtime system, taking the worst from both worlds in my opinion. When going into battles my thoughts weren't "how can I use my team to defeat the enemy", it was "man, I hope my people don't get themselves killed."

 

[dipdipdip]

Long after the apocalypse, there'll be roaches, Cher, and Fallout. Fuck 'em for not having Fallout in their hall-o-fame.

 

[Rat Keeng]

Hmm, 200 hours of gameplay and tons of options to customize your character... I remember it differently, but maybe it's just been too long since i played BG. I suppose you could reroll your stats for 120 hours, thereby both assuring the 200 hours of gameplay, and customizing your character indefinetely, i'm sure that's not the meaning here. Maybe a definition of "gameplay" is in order.


Completely unrelated, is the slight grammatical error on the bottom of page 3: "currently under developed for the Xbox." So true

 

[FrankHorrigan]

Look, one of my favorite strategy games is Total War, and that is RTWP. It is, in fact, the best implementation of RTWP that I can think of. In that game, when I tell a unit to do something, whether it is change a formation, charge into certain death, start using ranged attacks, cross the bridge, or *whatever* they do it. I didn't have the problem with the IE that a lot of people here had, simply because at the time I didn't analyse games as much. But that stupid 6 second thingy has ALWAYS annoyed me.
I see no reason at all why an RPG with RTWP can't be done that is enjoyable to a degree to this day unmatched by any Bioware or Black Isle product. It simply has to NOT be a D&D butchering job. In fact, I'm kinda hoping Dragon Age will be that. A game where a REAL RTWP system can be implemented, that is balanced to the character system chosen for the game, and not just clumsily retrofitted.

I think the Total War series is the best strategy series ever, period. But theirs a difference in what works for a game involving battles on a massive scale and what works for battles on a much smaller scale involving a handful of people. Do you not agree that Total War would be a much weaker game if the Global Map was real time instead of turn based? Its all about the right tools for the right situation.

Im replaying Torment & TOEE at the moment out of boredom. While Torment is a much superior game, TOEE's combat is much better. I find the combat in torment so bad, that its just something i make myself sit through so i can get to the next part of the story. TOEE's combat meanwhile is actualy enjoyable, thought its story is shit. The point is anyway, different systems for different situations, real time will never be the best way to do rpg combat, it may be the most popular, but only because most people cant be bothered/dont want to spend time playing on a TB system.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Torment sports the worst combat model out of all the Infinity Engine games, so it may not be surprising that you dislike it.