Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition (PC, OSX, Linux)

 

Faerun’s west coast, known as the Sword Coast, is no stranger to peril, war, and upheaval. Far from it, these things love to rear their heads like uninvited guests on a regular basis. The latest trouble is an iron shortage. No problem on its own but the situation is made worse by frequent — one might almost think scheduled– bandit raids on ore shipments. You play as the adopted child of the sage Gorion (Because they needed there to be a reason you could play any race.) living in the library/castle of Candlekeep. Gorion has become more and more agitated of late — even given his humorless and private demeanor. One day he tells you that you must leave Candlekeep behind. With some gold for your equipment you prepare to face the world outside wondering why Gorion is in such a hurry.

History

Baldur’s Gate was developed by Bioware, as a matter of fact it was THE FIRST RPG THEY EVER DEVELOPED — do you like Mass Effect? This is where it all started! And it shows. They also made the Infinity Engine for the game. At this point Bioware was 60 people and they were so green that none of them had released a game by this point. They worked together with Interplay, creators of the Fallout series, because they had experience adapting a role-playing system to a video game and were a veteran company of the time.

Fun fact: Fallout was meant to be based on the GURPS roleplaying system.

Baldur’s Gate was released on December 21st, 1998. It’s competition was Starcraft (PC and N64), Fallout 2 (PC), and Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven.

Experiences

This is a game that demands to be played correctly. It might seem like an open world but that’s an illusion, a dangerous one at that. You CAN play it your way but it’s bound to leave you destitute in the gutter without two gold pieces to rub together. At this point you’ll be pawning your equipment to rest at the inn or try to get enough cash to bring your allies back to life at the local temple. Get a guide or make a plan because it’s the only way to get the stuff you need to adventure properly so you can start taking risks. It’s an utterly merciless experience. But! The Enhanced Edition comes with the benefit of highlighting important areas of your world map. I guess your character has adventurer sense — which almost makes sense in the fiction.

No longer is a fan-made map like this NECESSARY to figure out where to go.

Gameplay

Baldur’s Gate runs on the same rules as 2nd edition Dungeons and Dragons — as such it’s a bit of a confusing mess. What you need to understand is that you want to keep your hit points high and your Armor Class low. Now the dungeon delving is pretty simple; go in to the camp/cave/ruin, kill everything that looks at you funny, and then loot the bodies. The problem is in figuring how to destroy the monsters and, oh yeah, fucking traps. There are goddam traps everywhere — I mean, there are so many traps that I seriously question who built so fucking many and who fronted the money for all these god forsaken lightning bolt spells.

Lightning Bolts are literally hell. They will kill you and your whole party in one go.

It’s your job to create a party of fighters to fight, clerics to heal, rogues to find traps, and wizards to cast spells in the right combination to handle the traps, wizards, ogres, armored thugs, and hoards of gnolls. Unfortunately your party is more likely to be made of the other adventurers that you’ll find and some of these guys don’t generally get along — I thought the paladin and the sadistic murderer would be fast friends!

The Gush

The plot is genuinely compelling, especially for the first time experiencing this sort of story, even if you know nothing about Faerun. When I was playing it as a kid I was reading books in game to figure out more about what was going and — this game got 14 year old me to read fake books. It asks a pile of questions and then drip feeds you answers IF you dig a little.

This game oozes with charming characters. Between Khalid’s anxiety, Erwin’s blatant evil, and Minsc’s pet miniature-giant-space hamster I’m more than content to interact with everyone just to see if they’re cool people. All of these important characters are marvelously voiced and if they start to grate on you just mute ’em.

Behold Minsc and, his adorable companion, Boo

The only Advanced Dungeons and Dragons based game better than Baldur’s Gate I is Baldur’s Gate 2. And it would just be untoward to play the second game before the first. It’s not just untoward, skipping this game will leave you in the dark pretty hard.

The Kvetch

Luck should have nothing to do with whether you complete a quest or not and Baldur’s Gate has got dice role quests. A 50/50 chance between 500 and 2000 experience points based on the roll of the dice is just bad design. There’s not even anything you can do to effect the outcome and it’s just lame.

Almost every fight at the higher levels include a spellcaster, usually of the arcane variety, who will typically cast all of his defensive spells before you even walk through the door. You’ve got no chance to interrupt them and they never seem to run out of spells. I don’t know what level they are but I’m level 8 and they’re casting spells I’ve never scene and that I don’t know how to avoid or overcome.

Ah yes, I remember the days when winning a boss fight meant simply summoning as many skeletons as possible.

For some, plot based but otherwise unexplained reason, if your main character dies they are dead forever and the game is over. Reload from your last save and do it better. As such it’s really fucking hard to play as a wizard or any other class that doesn’t come with buckets and buckets of hit points. It’s possible but it’s an uphill climb on a sheer cliff.

I really wasn’t a fan of the music. It felt dull, repetitive, and undynamic. I eventually started playing my own music and muting it for character dialogue or to read something.

The Verdict

If taking a trip down Second Edition based memory lane sounds like a keen way to spend your time then I recommend giving Baldur’s Gate I, enhanced or not, a look. The game may begin with the illusion of an open world but after a few chapters of linearity it DOES make good on its open world promise. The enhanced edition even has multiplayer so you can play this game with a friend if you don’t want to rely on the less optimal NPCs. I recommend Baldur’s Gate to anyone with an interest in roleplaying games and a firm knowledge of D&D.

Next Week: The Wolf Among Us.

The Bard’s Tale (2004 Release for PS2, Xbox, PC, Mac, Blackberry Playbook, Android, Linux, and Ouya)

And I think this game is the most widely available title released since Tetris.

A long time ago in that fantasy land that’s pretty accurate to actual legends and tales while still being campy and hilarious — you know the one– there lived a young boy who was tired of being hungry. He learned that travelers were paid just to sing songs at the local tavern. He dreamed of doing that someday. Having learned a magical tune that summoned a rat he stole a musical instrument and headed for the hills. He then traveled from town to town eliminating rat infestations he created with his rat summoning tune. You play as the sarcastic, pragmatic, sardonic, insufferable, kleptomaniacal, and rather roguishly handsome Bard as he uses his magical tunes and power of summoning to free a capture enchantress –seems pretty straight forward, what could possibly go wrong?

Everything probably.

History

The Bard’s Tale is a game with a pedigree that goes back to the barely graphical text adventures of the 80s. The classic games didn’t actually feature the Bard as a playable character. The stories were the stories the Bard was telling to his audience. The final game in the Bard’s Tale trilogy was released in 1991. It came as a mild surprise to people when a new Bard’s Tale game was announced to be released in 2004 — I just imagine the conversation that lead to the game’s creation. At InXile headquarters two old nerds are chatting. “Do you remember those Bard Tales games?” one game dev asks. The other looks to him and says, “Yeah. But we never did figure out what the Bard’s story was, like where he came from.” Then I imagine they both start shouting in unison like a crescendo broken only by them running to their computers, getting to work, frothing at the mouth, and shouting “Make it! Print it!” repeatedly.

The class games were real groundbreaking stuff. It had color and everything.

It was 1985 and this was state of the fucking art.

The game is a lot like Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance and that would probably be because they both run on the same engine — which seems to happen a lot with fantasy games. One fantasy game comes out with a good engine and the other developers all jump on it.

The Bard’s Tale was released October 24th, 2004. It’s competition was The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (PS2, XBox, and Gameboy advanced), Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (Gamecube), and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2).

Experiences

I can’t think of the last time I had as much fun or laughed as hard when I was playing a game. The Banter between the Narrator and The Bard is comedy gold — especially when it’s ripping on videogame tropes. It was one of the games I played where I was having so much fun I didn’t care if I found all the loot. I stopped worrying about what I had missed or what would have happened if I had acted differently. It was one of the first games where I relaxed and had a good time.

Gameplay

In the game you control the Bard as he travels and completes various quests — and argues with the narrator. The signature system of the game is the snarky vs. straight dialogue system. In conversation the game will prompt the player to make the Bard respond with a sarcastic snarky quip or to play it straight. It might seem worthwhile to spend the whole game being honest and at least a little polite but that’s not the case. It’s very important to learn when the Bard can throw his weight around or whether he should just keep his mouth relatively shut — besides, being snarky is much more fun anyway!

It’s always tempting which to choose just to see what The Bard will say.

The Bard isn’t the greatest of fighters or thinkers. Thankfully, if he upgrades his instrument, he can employ various allies to help him in and out of combat. Some summoned minions help in combat like the Mercenary who can dish out immense amounts of damage with his axe or the Witch who only ever learned healing spells. Some minions help in other situations like the elderly Explorer who can disarm traps, pick up loot, and find secret passages –if you’re going dungeon delving this guy is a necessity– or the rat who can earn you extra coin by frightening tavern keepers or frighten other enemies in combat. The Bard’s adventures will take him far and wide across the countryside so it’s important to mix up his minions to match the situation.

The Gush

The voice acting cast in this is really good. The Bard is voiced by Cary Elwes– though you might know him better as Wesley from the Princess Bride– and the Narrator is voiced by Tony Jay — though you might know him better as the Claude Frollo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Oh yeah, and all the dialogue from the lowliest NPC is great.

A game about bard’s has got to have music! And music the Bard’s Tale has. Every tavern features a new song for the Bard to perform or listen to. Every minion has a different tune that The Bard plays on instruments from the lute to the Shadow Axe — minions can even be upgraded by finding more music for their song.

The Bard’s only loyalties are to food, coin, and cleavage — not necessarily in that order– and I love that about him. Saving the world is just a means to the end of getting into the Enchantress’ pants — well it is if you’re snarky. To him, it’s not about saving the world and I’m able to connect to the character more because he doesn’t have a lofty quest.

Even the game advertisements showcased this perfectly.

Something small but I really liked how the enemies dropped sellable loot instead of money. What Trow runs around with a coinpurse? None of them. But someone would pay some silver for a Viking’s sword.

The Kvetch

The Minions actually have personality, in some situations they can offer important advice and that’s good. What’s not good is listening to the crone wail, “Be healed!” Or hearing the Mercenary talk about how much The Bard is gonna owe him for this one for the thousandth time.

That being said, they at least all look awesome.

The combat in this game is really clunky. Thankfully the minions do most of the fighting for you but in the early sections of the game The Bard will have to do the fighting himself. So it creates a weird downward difficulty curve where the game starts off more difficult that it ends… and that’s not how difficulty curves are supposed to work.

The game isn’t really great to look at. I liked the character designs but the background designs were usually stock and uninteresting.

The Verdict

This game is awesome. It’s for anyone who’s played Baldur’s Gate, Dragon Age, Icewind Dale, and Planescape Torment and needs to take a break and have a laugh. The combats a little clunky but it couldn’t kill my good mood. This is a marvelous title and if you buy it on Steam then you get the original Bard’s Tale games for free if you feel like pulling your hair out through he laughs.

Next Week: Dungeon’s of Dredmor.