Baldur's Great is Gate (whoops!) (Baldur's Gate (PC))

Member Name: R_Easton

Product:	Baldur's Gate (PC)
Date:	04/10/01 (148 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: un-linear game

Disadvantages: Characters not very detailed

Balder’s Gate is a great Role Playing Game. It has a very free-structured story unlike Japanese style RPGs (like final fantasy), which have a lot less choices. You also have a lot of choice about your character. These mean that you can play the game through 2 or more times and it will be different every time. In the game you control Gomrath, an orphan raised by the monks in Candlekeep. One day without any warning you are told to get all your belongings and leave Candlekeep for you are in grave danger. What danger this is, isn’t revealed until later in the game (I won’t spoil this for you). In your adventures around the sword coast you meet many friends like Imeon, a young friend of yours and an expert thief, and Minsc, everybody’s favourite ‘nutter’ (and Boo the miniature giant space hamster). You only have room in your group of heroes for 6 people though, and so the 21 ‘playable characters’ cannot all join your group. You will have to make choices about which ones you want with you.

At the start of the game you must choose your character statistics. You first choose gender and species. The 6 different races that you can choose (human, dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling and half-elf) all have their own advantages and disadvantages. You then choose one of the many character classes including warrior, wizard (and specialist mage – specialises in one type of magic), thief, priest (two types) and the bard (who is a specialist thief/pickpocket). There are 26 classes in total including multi- and dual- classed characters. You also choose alignment, weapon proveniences, ability levels and, with some characters, special abilities like magical spells and thief abilities.

This system is based on AD&D (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) rules, first used in the Dungeons and Dragons games. This system is used throughout the entire game in battles and to calculate health. Health is lost in battles and i
f all your characters health is gone they die (unless you have a reincarnation spell). As your characters level up they will have more health, strength etc. Your characters level up by winning battles. When a battle is won your party gain a certain amount of experience points, which are divided between the party. When a character reachs a certain number of experience points, they ‘level up’.

Another thing you will get for winning many fights is money. With money you can by new weapons to make your characters fighting abilities better. There are 25 normal weapons in the game (and many other rare/magical ones). They are split into the categories bows, spiked weapons, small swords, large swords, axes, blunt weapons, missile weapons and polearms. Not all weapons can be used by all characters, wizards can only daggers, staffs, darts and slings.

Another way of increasing your health/defence is wearing armour. Each character has an armour class, which goes down when they put on better armour. A lower armour class is better and means you are hurt less by attacks. Other items you can use to lower your armour class are things like shields, cloaks, helmets and magic spells. Magic is a significant part of the game, being the main ‘weapon’ of wizards, priests and druids. There are 5 levels of magic, with different kinds for wizards and priests. Your character learns 2 or 3 spells at the start of the game and can learn more as you progress through the game.

You will learn many surprising things along your way around the sword coast and fight many side-quests, finally ending in Baldur’s Gate a huge port city. The 6 CDs (with the add-on pack) and the re-playability means there over a hundred hours play time, which is worth the £15-20 you’ll pay for the game. Baldur’s Gate 2 has been released now but as that continues from where Baldur’s Gate 1 finishes, it is worth playing the series from t
he start. This is definitely one I recommend.


More tales and more swords, but do we need them? – Tales of the Sword Coast Add-On pack for Baldur's Gate
Tales of the Sword Coast is an add-on pack for Baldur’s Gate. It adds three extra areas to the ‘Sword Coast’ where your adventures take place. This makes the game even bigger than before. It also corrected some bugs from Baldur's Gate and changed the interface slightly. I enjoyed Baldur's Gate a lot as you can see from my Dooyoo review (I gave it 5/5) so this ad on pack should be a good thing but I’m not sure. The game is already so big that it isn’t needed much.

‘Three new areas are added to the Baldur's Gate map the town Ulgoth’s beard (A strange town name, even for Baldur's Gate), Durlag’s tower and a mysterious island (this place is horribly difficult)!’ says the back of the box. The advantage of the extra areas is you can gain more experience points for later on in the game.

Summary: