Digital Trends

Baldurs Gate II - Shadows of Amn

I have a confession: I didn't much care for the first Baldur's Gate. Maybe the chemistry between us just wasn't there, maybe the spark died out. I don't know. But now I have a second confession. I've just met a girl named Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. For those of you who were forced in high school to sit through West Side Story, you should know that Baldur's Gate II looks an awful lot like Maria, except maybe for the long black hair and being a flesh and blood person and all. Let me tell you what you'll find once you step inside the magical candyland that is BGII. Once you've seen the intro to the game and design your main character, you find yourself in a dungeon being viciously tortured. If that doesn't just scream fun, I don't know what does. Eventually, your captor tires of these antics and wanders off. Then you're saved. From this point on, it's nothing but fun, fun, fun. You'll add some adventurers to your party right away, including the loveable barbarian Minsc and his miniature giant space hamster Boo. While I've enjoyed playing Icewind Dale, it really could have been helped along with the presence of a comedic character. Take note, design teams. Baldur's Gate II makes use of the second edition Dungeons and Dragons rules. I'm still looking forward to 3rd edition games, but they do the best they can with what they've got. One of my favorite events occurs during critical hits. The entire screen shakes with the fury of your attack. I thought Minsc hit the degauss button on my monitor for a minute. Instead of the simple hack and slash dungeon style I've been getting bored with in Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate 2 loads puzzles atop the action. A mysterious being poses a riddle to you. How do you reply? You find a room full of captive beings suspended in liquid. How do you free them? Minsc managed to smuggle his hamster in. Where did he hide it? As Minsc says, "Some things are better left to the sages." Eww. Sadly, my review had to end shortly after I absolutely destroyed a demon. Warning! I'm going to give you a spoiler you may not want to read! If so, divert your eyes to the next paragraph. Ready? Good. Well, before you unleash the demon using that really weird contraption, cast protective spells on three fighting characters, each with a magic weapon. Have the cleric backed away from the fighting with a cure serious spell memorized. Then cast haste. Your crew can then rush the demon and pound on him. If someone gets hurt, they can quickly run away from the demon, get healed, then pounce back to finish him. From screenshot number four, you can see that worked pretty well for me. Another tip, but not what I'd call a spoiler; the library has more books than you can feasibly carry. Save the game there and come back to read the books at your leisure. I didn't get far enough to see if you'll need any one of them in particular, but they're all long tracts. I don't mean to get all emotional, but I just gotta give props to the Black Isle team for breathing life back into the Dungeons and Dragons genre. There's really nothing about this game I didn't like. It all makes me really look forward to "Neverwinter Nights," a promising young game due next year. Imagine being able to design your own campaigns and host the games on your own server! They ought to call it "Roleplayers Heaven" if the design is as cool as Baldur's Gate II. -Irishboy