Baldur's Gate

[JuntMonkey]

In another thread I mentioned old games you sort of want to play, but don't because of time constraints or the game's age or whatever. Baldur's Gate isn't all that old, but it's one of the games that fits this bill for me.

The BG series gets great reviews, and most people that play it love it. I especially love what I read about BG2 - the first city alone can take you 100+ hours if you keep taking side quests. It's ironic because while that's appealing, it's also the reason I'll likely never play it.

I own BG1 and have gotten to Chapter 3 and was underwhelmed. Has anybody played these to completion, and are they worth it?

[lastchance]

Only played BGII: SoA is awesome. You can always skip the side quests, you certainly don't need to do them.

A lot like KOTOR, except for the interface/view, and I think it's a bit more strategical and harder.

[wrschultz]

I bought Baldur's Gate the day it came out, and it was pretty much the only game I could play on my awful pc at the time... I don't think I played more than 5 hours.

[Corpsebean]

I have played nearly every FR game to come out.

If you like deep RPGs then you cannot miss it. I'd have to say BG2 is top 5 of all time ever (Games, not just RPGs), and I've played most every good PC game in the past 10 years. As far as those RPGs go I'd have to list them like this in order from most awesome to least awesome that I can think of off the top of my head.


Fallout
Fallout 2
Baldurs Gate II & Expansion
Planescape: Torment
Neverwinter Nights & Expansions
Baldurs Gate I & Expansion
Icewind Dale & Expansion
Icewind Dale II
Temple of Elemental Evil

Not a complete list but other than the Fallout series there is no RPG series I think more highly of than Baldur's Gate.

So anyhow - if you are an RPG fan, you are doing yourself an injustice by missing the entire Baldurs Gate series - Shadows of Amn most of all.

[madnak]

Baldur's Gate was amazing, but it hasn't aged very well and it was nonlinear, with a very slow rate of advancement. I would almost recommend playing through it though, just for the characters and story. Many plot elements from BG are brought up in BG2. BG2 is a great game, if you're into the genre. If KotOR and NWN don't appeal to you, it's likely BG2 won't either. But it was the very best at what it did. As for Throne of Bhaal, it's not quite as good but it's a whole lot of fun, definitely worth it if you liked BG2.

[Blarg]

Baldurs Gate the first had a rep for chugging like heck(it did on my very good computer, too, and those of friends etc.) and frequent freezeups. I also think the combat had flaws. But I liked the world.

I'd recommend Fall-Out much more. As I recall, I played and liked both of them a lot, but the first one more, unlike many people.

[clowntable]

I played and beat it. Quite good, eventhough it gets a little repetetive at times (oh, the boss isn't here but read this note he might be here).
The boss fight was quite hard because I wanted the whole party alive and maybe because I picked a wizard character and tended to die quickly [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[pokerOpus]

Fallout > Baldur's Gate

Fallout and Fallout 2 are two of my favorite games for the PC. I enjoyed the setting and gameplay in Fallout much more than Baldur's Gate and Fallout is alot shorter than Baldur's Gate.

[Dire]

Baldur's Gate 2 is a whole lot better game than part 1 but if you didn't enjoy part 1 - you probably won't enjoy part 2.

[Alex/Mugaaz]

Torment >>>>> NWN2 >> BG2 >>>>> BG1 >>>>>>>>>> NWN > ID