Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition

The only new feature is the "Zoom"-function. They didnt remove the old bug and added a lot new ones instead. Finally they removed the original Games from GoG!

Italian translation was ready one year ago, but they only promise to release it when SoD expansion was ready. Today they release SoD expansion with BG EE and BG EE II patch, but they decide to not include the ready italian translation (that was already ready one year ago). They have no respect for the free work of the translators (yes it was a free translation), that's why they don't deserve any more money. I will not buy any games from beamdog again. Italiano la traduzione italiana era pronta già un anno fa, sul forum ufficiale hanno promesso che l'avrebbero rilasciata con l'espansione SoD. Oggi hanno rilasciato quell'espansione e le patch per BG EE 1 e 2, ma della traduzione italiana di BG EE 2 non c'è alcuna traccia. Non hanno avuto alcun rispetto per il lavoro gratuito dei traduttori (avete capito bene, hanno avuto le traduzioni in italiano gratuitamente) quindi non meritano neanche un centesimo. Mi sono pentito di aver acquistato queste EE, ma sicuramente da me beamdog non vedrà più niente. Invito la communità italiana a ribellarsi a questa assurdità

The most important thing first: The game is practically bugfree now. It might not have been shortly after release, but it is now. I played the orignal version (both modded and unmodded) a lot over the years and here is what I think about EE: The game simply looks more beautiful now. That goes for both the game itself, the local maps and the worldmap. Game elements, like character creation and level up screens have been impoved. Also, it is much easier to get the informations about your characters that you want now, as the chacter screen has benn completely overhauled and restructered. All of that helps a great deal and actually makes a huge difference. You can now choose to automatically highlight all interactable items such as tables, doors and chests automatically plus you can now finally abort cutscenes. Both features are very useful especially when you intend to play the game more than once. There are now several new companions, new romance options, new locations and new items. All of this blends very well into the world of Baldur's Gate and stays true to D&D. One last thing: It is true that some of the improvements were previously available as mods, but many of those are not easily accessible any longer (especially with the download section of gibberlings being broken for months now and shs being down eintirely). Also, with the EE you don't have to spend hours of finding mods, installing them and checking compatibility just in order to have a bugfree game. You can ceratainly still mod EE, if you want though. There are tons of mods available for the EE. Overall I do easily prefer the EE over the original version, and after reading all those negative reviews, that was a true surprise. To be fair, a lot of those things might have changed during the last few years, but Baldur's Gate 2 EE is certainly a great game now and a truly impoved version of the original game.

To be brief: BG2 Complete + widescreen is all you need for playing BG and BG2. I played only BG: EE (this means BG + TotSC) and I didn't find any bugs, but the additional value to the original games was so poor (in comparison to the big big world), that it was not worth the price. There is no reason to polish something that doesn't need it (except the widescreen resolution :)).

If you don't own the original title, or lost your discs, go but this right now: http://www.gog.com/game/baldurs_gate_2_complete You can get it as part of the D&D collections which they seem to have a sale for every winter and spring. Find it at a sale time and you get it for about 4 bucks. Even at retail, it's only 10 bucks. No point in spending more on this "enhanced version" which essentially just does the things that numerous modders have already done over the past 14 years the game has existed. There are retexturing packs, new quests, characters, complete immersion mods, you name it, already out there. Most of them far less buggy than the new features in the "enhanced" version. Sure, it takes some time to figure out the installs, and there's the potential to break things if you don't do it right, but in the end it's worth it. Just keep a "clean" install on drive at all times, and make sure you back up before you add new pieces. In the end, you'll be far happier going this route, than the buggy mess the "enhanced" version is. Maybe someday it'll be worth the price, but for now, it's not even close.