Posted July 03, 2011
Just thought i'ld share my experience with this game so far with everyone here.
I got Baldur's Gate 2 (that one that has the expansion and bonus cd, the re-release that came out in 04 i believe?) in 2004, having come straight from Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance and it's sequel on the PS2, i was both amazed and overwhelmed at the type of game that BGII on the PC was, but mass sending my little virtual people against the monsters seemed to work until about halfway through where i encountered an Umber Hulk (if i mispelled that, i was too lazy to go look up the correct spelling) that i couldn't get through, so i eventually quit playing and never went back to the game. A couple years later i tried playing again, but nothing serious.
Fast forward to early 2011 when i decided to return to GOG and saw they had all the BG and Icewind Dale games, after much debate (i was considering whether to order the physical, big box copy and expansion over eBay which would have cost me $40+ combined or go for the GOG version which would only cost me a mere $10 and would have a 99.9% chance of running without any problems on my Win 7 systems) i finally caved for the GOG version of the game, bought it, downloaded, installed and went to play ASAP. About 8-10hrs later spread throughout 3-4 days, i was like "meh, wasted $10, glad i didn't waste more on it". I was just not having fun with the game, the story didn't hook me (i found the books to be more fun) and the gameplay was downright annoying, i terribly detested having to micromanage my small group of adventurers.
Now a few weeks ago, me and my friend started talking about D&D games in general and inevitably, landed on the subject of BG, my friend asked me to rephrase why i was unhappy with the game and so i did. For the second time he touched the subject of playing the game together. I reluctantly agreed, expecting to just quit on him before we even finished out first session, i was extremely skeptical as to how a game with so much RP elements could be enjoyed by two people at the same time, i've always viewed the BG games as games you play on your own, not Co-Op or Multiplayer. So last Thursday, my friend finishes an exam or some such he had in collage and he was ready to start playing, after running into some troubles (game froze whenever we tried starting a multiplayer game, finally we found a solution in switching to Windowed Mode until we got in-game) we started playing.
Several dozen save game reloads and a complete restart later, we're both having a blast with the game. Sure, requiring each other's presence to buy and sell stuff at merchants is annoying, making each other sit through dialogue sequences with NPCs when we're not even in the same area is annoying. But on the bright side, exploring the game world is exciting, fighting the creatures of BG is fun, ESPECIALLY when we fail and then return with a strategy that backfires in our face which in turn makes us return again and refine it even more until it finally succeeds, overcoming seemingly impossible odds (like the village of blue skinned little people west of Nashkal which immediately seemed like an impossible feat, but eventually turned into the genocide of these blue skinned dudes and us coming out of the fight with some nice loot) and simply laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all (seriously...how the *bleep* did that bear get right behind my Mage's ass without me noticing it? O.O Now i'm screwed...).
So with that said, me and my friend are highly enjoing this game, wasted literally the entire Saturday yesterday playing this game from 4PM to 2AM. And you know what? Best. Saturday. EVER.
TY for making this game Bioware and TY for releasing this game again GOG :)
I got Baldur's Gate 2 (that one that has the expansion and bonus cd, the re-release that came out in 04 i believe?) in 2004, having come straight from Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance and it's sequel on the PS2, i was both amazed and overwhelmed at the type of game that BGII on the PC was, but mass sending my little virtual people against the monsters seemed to work until about halfway through where i encountered an Umber Hulk (if i mispelled that, i was too lazy to go look up the correct spelling) that i couldn't get through, so i eventually quit playing and never went back to the game. A couple years later i tried playing again, but nothing serious.
Fast forward to early 2011 when i decided to return to GOG and saw they had all the BG and Icewind Dale games, after much debate (i was considering whether to order the physical, big box copy and expansion over eBay which would have cost me $40+ combined or go for the GOG version which would only cost me a mere $10 and would have a 99.9% chance of running without any problems on my Win 7 systems) i finally caved for the GOG version of the game, bought it, downloaded, installed and went to play ASAP. About 8-10hrs later spread throughout 3-4 days, i was like "meh, wasted $10, glad i didn't waste more on it". I was just not having fun with the game, the story didn't hook me (i found the books to be more fun) and the gameplay was downright annoying, i terribly detested having to micromanage my small group of adventurers.
Now a few weeks ago, me and my friend started talking about D&D games in general and inevitably, landed on the subject of BG, my friend asked me to rephrase why i was unhappy with the game and so i did. For the second time he touched the subject of playing the game together. I reluctantly agreed, expecting to just quit on him before we even finished out first session, i was extremely skeptical as to how a game with so much RP elements could be enjoyed by two people at the same time, i've always viewed the BG games as games you play on your own, not Co-Op or Multiplayer. So last Thursday, my friend finishes an exam or some such he had in collage and he was ready to start playing, after running into some troubles (game froze whenever we tried starting a multiplayer game, finally we found a solution in switching to Windowed Mode until we got in-game) we started playing.
Several dozen save game reloads and a complete restart later, we're both having a blast with the game. Sure, requiring each other's presence to buy and sell stuff at merchants is annoying, making each other sit through dialogue sequences with NPCs when we're not even in the same area is annoying. But on the bright side, exploring the game world is exciting, fighting the creatures of BG is fun, ESPECIALLY when we fail and then return with a strategy that backfires in our face which in turn makes us return again and refine it even more until it finally succeeds, overcoming seemingly impossible odds (like the village of blue skinned little people west of Nashkal which immediately seemed like an impossible feat, but eventually turned into the genocide of these blue skinned dudes and us coming out of the fight with some nice loot) and simply laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all (seriously...how the *bleep* did that bear get right behind my Mage's ass without me noticing it? O.O Now i'm screwed...).
So with that said, me and my friend are highly enjoing this game, wasted literally the entire Saturday yesterday playing this game from 4PM to 2AM. And you know what? Best. Saturday. EVER.
TY for making this game Bioware and TY for releasing this game again GOG :)
