1. Orctownorc

   9

   This game demands a SERMON from the grot: Reverance for this game is NOT nostalgia. Aside from the fact that the graphics settings do not scale properly with modern monitors, this game still earns a healthy 9/10 in 2012 on the basis of brilliant design. This game has great writing, great art, great style, great writing, and FANTASTIC character development. How many modern gamers have even played dice and pencil D&D with a good Dungeon Master? Baldur's Gate brought the core experience into the digital age. It will soon be released again, in open sale competition with Diabolo 3 and Guild Wars 2. Enough said. Newer games do it different, but very few have done it better. The real mystery is how after 14 years no team has had the ability to better this game. Maybe someone will finally realise that it is a whole lot of fun to have a class system that allows about 30 completely different builds. Maybe they will also note that when each characters can be built in 30 ways and you have 6-8 characters in a party, that the possible combinations, will naturally be LIMITLESS. Those who would fly need an open sky. Designers all, heed this profound observation and learn from it. Diversity eliminates the possibility of boredom. Simplifiying games cannot make them better, because the human mind is a bright and curious thing, that demands higher challenges. It's not perfect. It's not the best D&D based computer game. Low level D&D is not always fun. So it scores 9?10 not 10. Despite that this game holds many secrets as to how much better games could be made if designers studied here. If they learned the secrets Of Baldur's Gate and improved on them. So we pray! So may it be!… Expand

   • Helpful? 5 of 5 users said Yes.
2. KaiEkkrin

   8

   This was my first CRPG, so the rose tinted glasses are firmly on.
   
   Baldur's Gate combines an epic storyline and tactical, party-based combat with an explorable open world, in a way few future games have: most have either become more linear in their pursuit of story (future Bioware games) or focus on the open world at the story's expense (Elder Scrolls). Combined with the hand-drawn style world map full of areas that only appear on it when you walk off the edge of a zone in a funny direction, this results in a remarkable feeling of existing in a real world that's bigger than your own tale.
   
   Baldur's Gate (plus its expansion, Tales of the Sword Coast) kept me engrossed for a whole month, playing solidly, and even then I hadn't found or seen everything.
   
   It has its problems of course: being based on the D&D 2E ruleset, it has ridiculous mechanics like resting (which means you don't want to use your best magic, for fear of it being unavailable later), and I wouldn't recommend playing a pure fighter or other non-magical character: all you can do with those characters is point and click during combat, so you'll feel disconnected from your own character as a result of spending most of your time with NPC spellcasters.
   
   Save up your consumables for the end: the final encounter is a large difficulty spike.… Expand

   • Helpful? 6 of 7 users said Yes.
3. Shiki

   5

   Bioware's debut to the world of cRPGs. It has strong points, like its story, which is the main reason why I gave the game a 5 instead of 2 or 3. It is a much weaker game than its sequel, for a lot of reasons. First, low level ad&d2 is really boring and lacking in variety. There isn't much to do besides equiping the bows and using the very few useful spells available. The party NPCs are lifeless and will almost never intervene during a conversation, being more or less mute for everything but their own side quest. Most of the side quests are weak in content and lack the depth you can find in BG2 where some of them won't even come to a true resolution until you literally stumble upon the "sequel" to that quest, like the one featuring the murderer of the Bridge District. The balance between exploration and access to content itself is lousy and there are too many nearly empty maps. And in the end, the only place worth talking about is the city of Baldur's Gate itself, the rest being terribly unmemorable, in contrast to Baldur's Gate 2 underdark, trademeet, athkatla (which is the main city hub and the starting point of the game, unlike BG-city in BG1 which you can only access later in the game), umar hills.. Mediocre but promising attempt at making a RPG, which ultimately led to the greater and much stronger sequel.… Expand

   • Helpful? 1 of 15 users said Yes.
4. MathewM.

   2

   Quite possibly on the list of the worst five role playing games I have ever played. Don't think that the fact that Black Isle, developers of Fallout and Fallout 2, is on the box means that it is up to that standard. Boring, cheesy storyline that is not even half up to par with any average Dungeons & Dragons group at your local card shop, slow, redundant gameplay, poor engine, and awful graphics combine to make one of the RPG genre's greatest settings into a disaster.… Expand

   • Helpful? 2 of 38 users said Yes.

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