Review RPG Codex Review: Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear

[TigerKnee]

Casters are awesome in baldurs gate but final fantasy tactics they are shit especially if you make ramza a mage the game completely fucks you in the ass later on with boss fights where having ramza as a black mage your dealt bullshit with your pitiful hp and damage.

You really need to get good at FFT, considering Math Skill and Draw Out exists.

 

[Mortmal]

The baldur's gate 1, 2 enhanced editions, icewind dale enhanced editions, well pretty much everything beamdog produces have been suddendly and simultaneously added to the curator list . However i noticed siege of dragonspear wasnt! You cant even do advertisement and company cocksucking properly codex, you missed their last release...

 

[Infinitron]

The baldur's gate 1, 2 enhanced editions, icewind dale enhanced editions, well pretty much everything beamdog produces have been suddendly and simultaneously added to the curator list . However i noticed siege of dragonspear wasnt! You cant even do advertisement and company cocksucking properly codex, you missed their last release...

I was waiting for you to notice that!

Siege of Dragonspear is a DLC. It cannot be curated.

 

[Mortmal]

The baldur's gate 1, 2 enhanced editions, icewind dale enhanced editions, well pretty much everything beamdog produces have been suddendly and simultaneously added to the curator list . However i noticed siege of dragonspear wasnt! You cant even do advertisement and company cocksucking properly codex, you missed their last release...

I was waiting for you to notice that!

Siege of Dragonspear is a DLC. It cannot be curated.

Ah my bad, but be sure to include deltarius quote on both curator sum up !

"The magical world outside the RPG Codex has always praised Baldur's Gate for its writing and memorable characters and disregarded everything else. I'm here to disagree with some of the reviews out there that insist that the Infinity Engine interface is archaic or that it's silly to expect people to learn their saving throws in 2016. It's sad that people are unable to appreciate the virtues of those classics - how reliable and powerful their controls feel, the sheer breadth of content that they have to offer. That's what I think this expansion is really about. It's a final farewell to that wonky, broken ruleset filled with personality. A farewell to facing off against everything the Monster Manuals can throw at you. A farewell to the greatest Monty Haul campaign ever. A whole era of game development has passed us by, and that's something that even crowdfunding can't bring back.

The story of a videogame is more than just an Irenicus voiced by David Warner or a Minsc and Boo. It's what you, the player, make of it. The Bhaalspawn Saga is about an adventurer of divine heritage surviving against all odds from one battle to the next. Much more than in any scripted dialogue sequence, you live through that narrative as you play the game. Because of that, the next time I play through the Baldur's Gate trilogy, I'll be sure to add a few hours more with Siege of Dragonspear."



Also, you should play a bit the game, cause if you dont have a minimum of hours on it that doesnt look to professionnal. Adding the key and never playing , come on, it cant be that horrible.You can do it like for POE, launching the game and go watch TV.

 

[Manmower]

Dunno how anyone finds SoD tolerable. It's not so much the dearth of new features or the mangled interface that gets me, it's mostly the writing. Not only did they not manage to raise the bar, they've actively lowered it. And even that could be glossed over if their maps weren't blurry as fuck. To be fair, the AI definitely is better than before, and the fights are more dynamic.

Overall, a 5/10 meh, and that's on a good day.

Pity. Could've been so much more.

 

[ROARRR]

It's sad that people are unable to appreciate the virtues of those classics - how reliable and powerful their controls feel, the sheer breadth of content that they have to offer. That's what I think this expansion is really about. It's a final farewell to that wonky, broken ruleset filled with personality. A farewell to facing off against everything the Monster Manuals can throw at you. A farewell to the greatest Monty Haul campaign ever. A whole era of game development has passed us by, and that's something that even crowdfunding can't bring back.

Do you mean that such games ar not made anymore? If so I have to disagree, because:
AoD
Underrail
SitS
Knights of Chalice
and I am pretty sure there are more such games I don´t know or can´t remember at the moment

 

[duanth123]

I have high hopes for this thread.

It's a testament to this SoD's *actual* quality and the expectations that the Codex has for Beamdog in general that, despite eager lips, even a poorly plotted curate-bait review such as the above inspires not hate, but overwhelming apathy.

Such that most posters, myself included, can hardly be arsed to point out the *ahem* generosities of this piece towards its subject matter.

Compare, to PoE, where everyone had their pound of flesh from Obsidian by multiple reviews' end.

Hell, even Bioware and Bethesda are still hate-fucked by the Codex.

Maybe next game Amber Scott can include an underappreciated writer we're all forced to interact with and Delterius can relive old times by telling us all to shut the fuck up about it.


TRENT, if you're reading this, I believe Beamdog has the potential to make a good IE game, but please fire your fucking writers and invest in some actual talent.

 

[Infinitron]

the greatest Monty Haul campaign ever

AoD

I don't think you understood Delterius' point.

It's a testament to this SoD's *actual* quality and the expectations that the Codex has for Beamdog in general that, despite eager lips, even a poorly plotted curate-bait review such as the above inspires not hate, but overwhelming apathy.

More like they're burnt out after a 150 page thread about it.

Fact is, the review's basic point is unassailable from its own point of view. "It's an Infinity Engine game, I don't care about writing, so I liked it." Not much to add to that other than "B-but you should care about writing!"

 

[Trashos]

More like they're burnt out after a 150 page thread about it.

Fact is, the review's basic point is unassailable from its own point of view. "It's an Infinity Engine game, I don't care about writing, so I liked it." Not much to add to that other than "B-but you should care about writing!"

No, man. The fact is that this review reads like a paid ad, with some criticism towards the end to earn cred. If I felt like barking at paid ads that pass for reviews, I 'd be sending angry letters to the big Doritos sites all day long. Which I don't.

I am here for a different kind of experience. For example, I also disagree with Felipepe's positive review on Undertail, but that review did not read like a paid ad. It read like a fanboy's review, it was fun, and it generated the desired drama. But paid ads (or similar) are depressing, not fun.

Enjoy your positive comments at Beamdog's forums. They even banned the original poster there to look legit.

 

[Infinitron]

No, man. The fact is that this review reads like a paid ad, with some criticism towards the end to earn cred.

I'd say most of the criticism is at the beginning, ie the entire first half of the review where the game's writing is ridiculed from every direction

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Do you mean that such games ar not made anymore? If so I have to disagree, because:
AoD
Underrail
SitS
Knights of Chalice
and I am pretty sure there are more such games I don´t know or can´t remember at the moment

It's not about the quality but the design approach, all of those games are still too focused and orderly (which again, I'm not saying is a bad thing). IMO what Deiterius laments is the loss of the sort of kitchen sink design approach where devs in an unrestrained manner cram as many cool stuff they can find in the manual and remember from their PnP sessions which results in a very uneven experience which is just not acceptable today as a norm, you can't have difficulty varying that wildly or finding a secret game-changing weapon early and similar. He associates that with 2nd edition of DnD and IE games but personally I think it was just the way things worked in the 90s regardless of the specific genre, it was an era of experimental design from a bunch of weirdo geeks that had regular PnP sessions.

 

[Mrowak]

Thanks for the review Delterius . It summarizes my thoughts about it exactly. It's a decent nostalgia trip which is, so far, quite satisfying.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

No, man. The fact is that this review reads like a paid ad, with some criticism towards the end to earn cred. If I felt like barking at paid ads that pass for reviews, I 'd be sending angry letters to the big Doritos sites all day long. Which I don't.

Not really, it's just your average Codex review of a flawed game the author liked for the things it does well. It's still an opinionated piece that substantiates every claim with in-game examples which is all par for the course on Codex and which clearly differentiates it from your average paid shill/game journo style of review filled with platitudes and attempts to sound deep while speaking about the game itself in very broad terms (combat is fun, if you liked x you'll like y, I liked the writing and quests etc.).

Darth Roxor's type of review isn't really the Codex norm despite what people have come to expect.

 

[Delterius]

They even banned the original poster there to look legit.

Well, of course. I told Trent to ban the poster so that our collusion would not be too obvious.

 

[Lurker King]

Do you mean that such games ar not made anymore? If so I have to disagree, because:

AoD

Underrail

SitS

Knights of Chalice

and I am pretty sure there are more such games I don´t know or can´t remember at the moment

It's not about the quality but the design approach, all of those games are still too focused and orderly (which again, I'm not saying is a bad thing). IMO what Deiterius laments is the loss of the sort of kitchen sink design approach where devs in an unrestrained manner cram as many cool stuff they can find in the manual and remember from their PnP sessions which results in a very uneven experience which is just not acceptable today as a norm, you can't have difficulty varying that wildly or finding a secret game-changing weapon early and similar.

The problem is that when the developers cram as many cool stuff as they can, we have a completely broken game with super combos. The combos would be awesome if they didn't cause a popamole mess. 99% of the fights in BG & BG2 can be summarized like this: Just click and pause, click and pause, until every enemy is dead -> Use the rest button -> Pick the loot with overpowered items -> Proceed to the next quest to repeat the process and become even more overpowered. The hard counters are there, but most of the time they are irrelevant or easy to spot. If, let’s say, PoE had more stuff and awesome items, it would be even easier than it already is. Fans of BG combat want an uber game with awesome combos. They are popamolers who enjoy a D&D inspired, but broken game.

I think that the main reason why the few cRPG developers who play D&D nowadays don’t use a ridiculous amount of PnP campaigns in their games is not because their target audience can’t deal with a variety of stuff, but because they don’t have the resources to do this. It takes too much time, results in too much bugs, etc.

 

[Delterius]

Use the rest button

What a boring person you are.

 

[Lurker King]

Use the rest button

What a boring person you are.

The fact that you have to ignore obvious features of the game to make it more challengeable just proves how popamole it is.

 

[Delterius]

Use the rest button

What a boring person you are.

The fact that you have to ignore obvious features of the game to make it more challengeable just proves how popamole it is.

If personal handicaps is such a mindblowing concept for you then it just proves how popamole you are. Its also somewhat impressive that you think any Infinity Engine game in a no-rest spam run could be construed as 'challenging'. I see rest spamming in about the same manner as playing PoE in all but the super HP bloat mode. It is there to force you to use all of the resources at your disposal, making the most of the experience.

 

[Lurker King]

The fact that discussions about BG’s combat always degenerate in mini-debates about self-imposed challenges is telling. The only games in which personal handicaps are necessary “to make the most of the experience” are broken games. BG fans playing with self-imposing handicaps are the proof that the game is popamole beyond redemption. You could just as well play Skyrm using bare hands in order to “make the most of the experience”. This is laughable.

 

[Delterius]

But have you played Codex favorite, Arcanum? What about Fallout, Morrowind and Bloodlines? All easily broken and still beloved games. Not to mention those games where the handicap is to forgo any desire to have fun with combat such as MotB. Welcome to the RPG Codex Hipster Central where we like our gems rough and unique, be they Jagged Alliance 2 or Planetescape: Tournament. That you use the term popamole for anything but what is precisely popamole just tell us your need Lurk more.

 

[Lurker King]

That is not a good argument. Arcanum, Fallout, MotB, Planescape and Bloodlines all have broken combat systems, but they easily compensate this with writing, opportunities to role-play, skill checks, etc. With Baldur’s you also have a broken combat system, but no redeeming qualities. The writing is shitty soap opera and the game is linear. What is the point of having a billion quests to do if the game is poorly written and the RTwP combat system is a popamole mess? What is the point of having NPCs with their own personalities if they are cardboard characters? The influence of BG & BG2 only reflects how most PnP players are AD&D fanatics.

 

[Delterius]

Meh, if you actually think that Arcanum and Icewind Dale are on the same level of brokenness, you really need to Lurk Moar your Majesty.

 

[Manmower]

Icewind Dale was mostly bug-free. Arcanum, on the other hand...

And does anyone know how well SoD sold? Did Beamdog make a profit off it?

 

[Delterius]

Our last sales discussion lead us to something between underwhelming and abysmal sales with base on player achievements and playtime since SoD release. I think Infinitron gave a second pass on the numbers and the situation did not change much.

 

[felipepepe]

Sadly, SteamSpy doesn't track DLC. :/