Baldur's Gate II

[Saxon1974]

Playing Eschalon gave me a hankering for playing Baldur's Gate and BGII again.

I never did finish BGII so I decided to go back and play that one for the first time since it came out.

Really a pretty good game, I only have maybe 2 complaints about it.

1) They removed some of the exploration aspect from BGI by using quick travel markers for all travel from city to city or city to location....It was better in BGI where you left town and explored the wilderness until you found something else.

2) A few too many epic battles. These can be fun, but many occur frequently in one quest after another, so I have spent a decent amount of time reloading.

Positives...

- Very nicely detailed Forgotten Realms world, love the atmosphere
- Dialog and story and very good
- You can play good or evil path
- Big world with lots to do

Still not a big fan of the RTWP combat, but at least its pretty strategic in this game.

I remember thinking these games were decent, but with going back and playing again I think I appreciate them more now...really pretty good stuff.....I would prefer Bioware making more games like these than the 3D games they make now.

Hopefully they will entertain me long enough until Eschalon Book II comes out.

[Toxic]

You should really look into the mods for BGII. Whatever problem you may have with the game, was probably tweaked by someone else.

[Saxon1974]

You should really look into the mods for BGII. Whatever problem you may have with the game, was probably tweaked by someone else.

I looked at a few of them, I would seriously doubt anyone designed additional content for the wilderness to remove the quick travel option.

I also doubt they removed many of the major epic battles.

But I might add a couple of them.

[denisvj]

mmmmm I finished BGII and is one of my favorites rpgs but I never finish BGI , maybe is time to start playing it again and try to finish

[Feidb]

I tried BG1 but got bored with it fast. Still, I tried BG2 and it was the same. I just hate the isometric view, in this case, because of the crappy AI. I much prefer first person party based. Yeah, I know, Eschalon is third person. However, it is simple and not too annoying to move around and play. I liked it because of the old school feel, which the Baldur's Gate series definitely is not.

In fact, I almost blew off Eschalon as soon as I saw that **$&&# 3rd person isometric view, but it had other redeeming qualities and got me curious. Now I love the game, but sincerely hope they don't decide to get fancy and throw in AI and 3-D etc.

Wish I could get into the BG's again as I still have both games. However, there is just not enough there for me to go back and waste my time. Kudos to those of you that like this type of game. Same for Neverwinter Nights which to me, is the same thing with just another setting. I also have that one and will likely not bother with it for the same reasons.

[Jude]

One of the nice things about the "real-time" Baldur's Gate games is that you could set the options to pause the game whenever just about anything happened, and then think and choose what to do, so it was more like a turn-based game.

Jude

[Horace2]

One of the nice things about the "real-time" Baldur's Gate games is that you could set the options to pause the game whenever just about anything happened, and then think and choose what to do, so it was more like a turn-based game.

Jude

That was an awfully unfun way to play though, since it lacked the 'instant feedback' of a true turn based model. Thinking about and choosing an action is made greatly more rewarding if you can see the results immediately. But often in BG2 you'd choose an action, hit 'resume', and the game would pause again for a different character's action before the prior action executed. By the time it actually did execute, you might not even notice and thus the feedback was not only delayed but entirely lost. The real time with pause model is really quite broken IMO.

[Jude]

You had the option to choose which actions paused the game, which I really liked. I thought it worked well.

Jude

[Saxon1974]

One of the nice things about the "real-time" Baldur's Gate games is that you could set the options to pause the game whenever just about anything happened, and then think and choose what to do, so it was more like a turn-based game.

Jude

That was an awfully unfun way to play though, since it lacked the 'instant feedback' of a true turn based model. Thinking about and choosing an action is made greatly more rewarding if you can see the results immediately. But often in BG2 you'd choose an action, hit 'resume', and the game would pause again for a different character's action before the prior action executed. By the time it actually did execute, you might not even notice and thus the feedback was not only delayed but entirely lost. The real time with pause model is really quite broken IMO.

I agree it doesn't really work as turn based combat. I use a couple of the options but as you said it still does not work that well. It's just not possible to follow 4 or 5 fights all happening at the same time not matter what pause options you turn on. I wanna see how many points my fighter hit the orc for, and most of the time you have to go back and scroll backwards after the fight already happened for stuff like that.

I do have one other thing that i dont like in BGII, it throws almost too many quests at you, you can't finish one it seems before another is given and they usually say time is important so you feel pulled all over the place. But then again, I guess lots of quests are better than not enough.

All in all though, its a very good game and a good representation of the Forgotten Realms.

I personally don't think real time combat will ever be able to do a very good job of recreating the pen and paper role playing game experience.

[Jude]

I personally don't think real time combat will ever be able to do a very good job of recreating the pen and paper role playing game experience.

I agree with that. I don't think even computer turn-based combat comes close.

Jude

[Horace2]

I personally don't think real time combat will ever be able to do a very good job of recreating the pen and paper role playing game experience.

I agree with that. I don't think even computer turn-based combat comes close.

Jude

In PnP rpgs, a player only plays one character so it's a much more personal experience as well as a group tactical process which is much more engaging. But at least the mechanics of play in ToEE are the same as PnP, which I guess is the best that could be said for a d&d based cRPG.

[Jude]

In PnP rpgs, a player only plays one character so it's a much more personal experience as well as a group tactical process which is much more engaging. But at least the mechanics of play in ToEE are the same as PnP, which I guess is the best that could be said for a d&d based cRPG.

You do realize that most people wouldn't understand what you just wrote?

Jude

[Horace2]

In PnP rpgs, a player only plays one character so it's a much more personal experience as well as a group tactical process which is much more engaging. But at least the mechanics of play in ToEE are the same as PnP, which I guess is the best that could be said for a d&d based cRPG.

You do realize that most people wouldn't understand what you just wrote?

Jude

Haha! Well if i'd used no acronyms the post would have been over the length limit surely.

[Saxon1974]

I understood it and I agree! I really liked the combat in TOEE except for the fact that many battles were against like 20 enemies and took like a half hour to complete. I can handle some of that, but it seemed like there were a few too many of those for my taste.

I did like the game though, but wish there would have been more to it then just mostly a big temple.