Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

Baldur's Gate, as the first infinity engine game, obviously aged the worst compared to the others. The Enhanced Edition's primary benefit is that it 'just works', out of the box. Not that we still get games in boxes anymore. 1. No need to find and install fixpacks, tweak packs, widescreen mod, stability mods, etc. 2. Modern resolutions and UI scaling 3. Puts all of the expansion pack content together in one place 4. Adds a new arena fighting mode to test out the combat (The Black Pits) 5. Adds four (not three) new characters, who are more BG2-style characters with personal quests and full voice-acting. They clash a bit with the original game, admittedly, but it's easy enough to just ignore them if you want. While it is entirely possible to make Baldur's Gate a fully modern-feeling and modern-looking game using mods, personally I'd rather just click 'install' in GOG Galaxy and start playing. The game is more than a decade old now and any really nasty bugs that may have been in Beamdog's original release are long since fixed. I encountered nothing notable in my playthrough.

The BG series is nothing short of praise, which I will not reiterate when the real question is: why play the originals now that you could play BG3 with its final patch? The answer: it just keeps getting better since decades thanks to an ever so determined modding community. The skill and quality at which new content is created raise the whole game beyond the average ratings. What awaits is an epic journey from humble beginnings to facing gods. Which can be shaped exactly to your liking once you understand the game after one vanilla play-through. Or so people say, but I have to disagree. Despite its greatness it is not without flaw in its original state. So pick these up for your first adventure (search for BGEE + mod name): - DLC Merger [mandatory to continue if you own Siege of Dragonspear] - Dragonspear UI++ [if anything you want a modern UI or suffer inventory management] - BG1 NPC Project [to modern standards you need this to bring your companions to life or wonder where all the praise is coming from] - BG1 NPC Music [add some flavor to above mod] Final note about the buzz around the enhanced editions: they are a truly fantastic gift to the community. The enhanced engine is what enabled modders what was previously thought impossible and in that sense keeps on giving fabulous improvements to us players. However, with them came new content which many [myself included] consider badly integrated (this does not mean bad in itself). Add to this some abysmal marketing and community management, and you may see why some die-hard fans have come to peace yet. But fret not, as modders also found a remedy for this to restore the original experience: - Convenient Enhanced Edition NPCs [tone down or completely remove unfitting content] Enjoy your first run! And if you get infected like many others, it will only be the beginning to merging BG1 and BG2 together (or even IWD and NWN), push the AI to new limits with SCS, and tweak the game into perfection to last you a lifetime.

Vorab: Ich spiele das originale BG seit seinem Erscheinen und spiele es seit Jahren als "Baldur's Gate Triology" (einem kostenlosen Mod) mit der BG2-Engine. BG:EE Ich habe jahrelang gewartet, bis ich es jetzt zum ersten Mal gespielt habe. Ergebnis: Es ist schlechter als das gemoddete Original. Beispiele: - Wirklich übel sind die neuen Filmsequenzen, am schlimmsten ausgerechnet der Introfilm. Auch Jahre nach der Veröffentlichung gibt es leider weder Patch (noch Mod), die dieses Machwerk durch das Original ersetzen. - Manche NPCs, die uns ansprechen sollten, tun das leider nicht. Kein Problem für jemanden, der das Spiel seit Jahren kennt, ärgerlich für neue Spieler. - Auch die an sich positive Funktion, nach Kämpfen Gegenstände zentral einsammeln zu können, funktioniert leider auch in der aktuellen Version noch immer nicht richtig (obwohl sie in BG2:EE und IwD:EE einwandfrei funktioniert). Im Ergebnis ist der "20$-Basispreis" für die PC-Version viel zu teuer. Für Geräte, für die es vorher kein BG gab, geht er in Ordnung.

Give me original version, not this shit.

I have no idea whether that's GOG's version, or the remaster itself, but the game is just unplayable considering that it crashes on average every 15 minutes or so. I wanted to relive the good times when I played it back in the day, but it now proves to be a total chore. The crashes are well reported by users all over the and I wish sellers would stop releasing non-working games.