Five new adventurers are journeying to Baldur’s Gate after the defeat of Eldrith the Betrayer. Each has a mysterious background to explore, and allies waiting within the city. After rescuing an endangered caravan, they are told there is no work for adventurers at Baldur's Gate. Despite this, when they arrive in the city they quickly find themselves sent on quests by many residents and eventually recruited by Jherek, the Harper, to take on a new evil.

Overall Baldur's Gate 2 is a strong action game, with some major flaws that stand out sharply as the game is otherwise so good. It follows on directly from the first game, but it is a shame you can't carry characters across from the first game. The opening sequence is immediately disappointing if you liked your characters from BG1 and wanted to retain them. (A quote from another player says it best: ”But those odds never stopped me before.”) The levels are more complex, the equipment range is expanded and there have been attempts made to give the characters' detailed backgrounds.

The graphics and sound are excellent, and the water effects spectacular. The game is rendered in 3D throughout and gives a top-down view of the action, zooming in to characters faces when you speak to them. Positioning and collision detection is usually good, and the characters and enemies are well-drawn. However, there are some major glitches you can encounter - during a game we had a character actually get stuck in a terrain feature and be unable to move, and another was resurrected at a save point only to appear trapped under the floor. Both forced us to restart the section. The cut sequences are good, and look excellent, but later in the game some of them develop odd timing issues with long pauses in conversations and between changed camera angles.

The controls are simple and intuitive, the combat mechanics are basic but keep you involved, and the trading menus are easy to use. Most players will get to grips with them very quickly. Unfortunately there are issues with consistancy in the gameplay - normally you can't run off edges, but on one level the game suddenly changes to characters dying if they run off an edge. Also, the gameplay is almost pure hack'n'slash even when the character may not suggest it - as the cleric I went through the entire game using two spells, and hitting enemies.

The new characters themselves are interesting. However, although there are five characters, there are no archer or basic warrior types and, to be honest, none of the characters really appealed to me. The individual characters have backgrounds and are defined as individuals with personal goals e.g. the cleric is donating to her church and the necromancer is trying to find out his past.

Usually characters increase their skills by gaining experience - either by killing enemies or accomplishing objectives. The characters also gain experience awards each time they discover more about their personal objective, but as the NPCs who can help all want money it is an expensive way to level up. These experience awards translate into points the characters can allocate to their preset skills to improve them. Characters can also improve their equipment to increase their abilities, usually by buying items from merchants or finding them in the field. There are levels of equipment including “fine” “remarkable” etc, which affect how good an item is and how far it can be upgraded. These items can also be created and customised, which expands the range of options available to equip characters significantly. A nice addition is the ability to make magic items in the workshop, but this is a two edged issue. By the time we started Chapter 3, the characters had better items than any that were available in the shop.

The level design is complex, with many hidden areas, different levels, and a world map feature, designed to add replay value. Unfortunately some of the areas are surprisingly small which can lead to disappointment when it takes longer for an area to load than for the player to finish it. Overall loading times throughout are generally very good, and the loading screens have enough content to keep players interested. However it can begin to repeat as players will see it often.

The problem with the game is that the gameplay can get very repetitive. Each level is effectively straight hack'n'slash, running around and killing the monsters, but there is little variation, the puzzles are very basic, and the plot does not progress quickly enough to keep RPG fans intrigued. That said, some of the boss monsters are challenging, the game stays true to its source material, and graphically it is excellent.

A feature that needs to be highlighted is the excellent multiplayer mode. Rather than split screen, there is a limit to how far characters can roam from each other, but this is rarely constricting, and allows the characters to team up against the same enemies with a wide view of the battleground. When playing multiplayer, either party member can automatically resurrect fallen characters at any save point , simply by moving up to it. The only real issues we found with it were that because of the structure of some sections if your character dies you may be sitting out for some time, and there are sections which are easier with only one character. In one case we deliberately killed a character off in the boss battle so only the faster character had to escape the traps which followed.

When you complete the game it unlocks additional characters. Unfortunately the plot doesn't change, so you find yourself doing the same things you did on the first runthrough over again. This game has surprisingly little replay value for a single player, especially as the optional dungeons are not randomly generated, but provide the same map with different enemies each chapter, and this does not change on replay. As a multiplayer game, it may be replayed several times, as the co-operative gameplay provides scope for variations in tactics and new approaches to old levels.

Baldur's Gate 2 is a good action game, with strong gameplay, and definitely of interest to action, fantasy and D&D fans. Its flaws are so apparent only because the majority of the game is so well done. Overall it is a good game with good graphics and sound, and an excellent multiplayer mode, offering about 20 hours gameplay but with surprisingly little replay value. Suitable and enjoyable for most gamers, particularly action fans, and most age ranges, this game should be worth a look by most gamers.