Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition

graphics 5/10 art and style 10/10 music and atmosphere 11/10 gameplay 8/10

Character creation is overwhelming at the beginning. First two dungeons are bland. After that, the game is a 12/10!!!! I've beaten this game twice and I am loving it AGAIN on my third playthrough. If you love CRPGs then pick this up 4 shure!!!

Some 20 years ago my first PC (133 mhz, 1.2 gb hdd, 32 MB ram) wasn't good enough to run Baldur's Gate properly and i was sad, until a friend of mine gave me the CD of the original Icewind Dale - and i fell in love with it! The game is great, giving good overview of the D&D system, and in the same time being more combat oriented and fast paced than BG - less quests, no decisions, no annoying struggles between the party members -and while i prefer BG 1&2, Icewind Dale found a place in my heart. Now about the Enhanced Edition - it looks better than the original, have the class kits added for more character creation options, so i was happy to buy it and play it again. Pros: - A lot of action - Game runs great on solid gaming PC, doesn't look that older compared to the modern isometric RPG's (Pillars of Eternity or Pathfinder:Kingmaker to name a few) - More character creation options than the vanilla version - All (two) DLC's included - Great sound and music - Even if the story is bland and gameplay - linear, there is some good writing in the quests and books you can find in game - User interface feels better than the original Cons: - A bit buggy. I had a lot of troubles going from one place to another, as often the game is saying that you "have to gather your party", even if all of them are already gathered on the exit. - Also one of the last fights seems to be not coded quite right, but it's still doable - The game feels somehow easier than the original. If i remember correctly 20 years ago my party wasn't literally swarmed with good magic items - The story is really linear, so absolutely no replayability

It's so frustrating trying to get a nice multiplayer experience with icewind dale ee. But from the start: My wife and I wanted to play icewind dale ee multiplayer, so we started the game and everything was fine till we made the first quicksave. Everytime I make a quicksave she get's kicked out of the game, so I have to reload, she has to rejoin, we have to assign the characters and so on. We're encounting huge lags of 3 to 5 seconds at start of conversation or change of location. At this point I should mention, we're playing via LAN. So long story short, if you're thinking about getting the EE of Icewind Dale for multiplayer sessions, save your nerves, get the original Icewind Dale, patch it and enjoy, because with the EE you're not even going to think about joy. Oh and by the way, Beamdog promised they would patch this, that was 6 months ago.

Seriously, I think the amount of undead are excessive in this game. I'm still fairly new to the Infinity Engine games. I started with BG, then played BGSOD, BG2, and now this. Like everyone says, the play control is basically the same. Except you don't get xp for picking locks, disarming traps, or learning spells from scrolls like you do in BG. It kind of seems the programmers tried to make this game challenging to a fault; the dungeons can be obnoxiously long, and you might find yourself in a jam where you need to start the game all over because for some reason, your saves don't go very far back in time. Then there's the problem of containers not transferring from the first installment to Heart of Winter (the second installment of the game). I read that I could do this if I had just waited to the end of the credits after beating the end boss for part 1, but that took me a long time, and repeating that sort of thing can be boring. That's another thing: the ice theme makes this game rather sleepy and less-than-exciting at times. It's by far not the worst RPG I've ever played, but unless you have BG nostalgia, I suggest you buy something else. I think this game may have killed that nostalgia for me.