Icewind Dale 2 Complete

This game is pure love for me. I got into RA Salvatore because his books carried the Icewind Dale name. This is how you make a book into a game/ game into a book. Place the characters into the universe and play the game. It doesn't have to be his characters which makes this amazing. This is still just as much fun today as it was when I first played it.

Playing this game again after many years, and am finding that that rose-tinted lens of nostalgia had blinded me to the games many faults. Biggest buggy area: Dragon's eye lvl 4: very buggy. Make a safe save at each lvl and do not override it! Weird "slowdown" bug: I run windows 7, and have a graphics card way over spec for a game from 97. When there is an ongoing spell effect going off like Cloudkill, alot of spell effects going off at once, or even just too many guys on screen, the game slows down to a near standstill. It make the game just painful to play, which is as you'd image, the very opposite of fun. I remember a specific fight where the game flat off stopped being fun for me due to this issue; the "Guardian" fight in the Far south; I also seem to recall this being a very nasty issue in the last fight in the game; from my last play though of this game many years ago. Also, I had forgotten just how bad the pathfinding AI is in this game, so be prepared to handhold your party around. Too lineal: You have no choice which areas you progress through, nor do you have a choice in the order you progress through said areas. These areas are usually cleared by killing everything that threatens you; red = dead. Areas usually have some blues; Blue = talk to. These sometimes provide a quest to do or not (do you want exp or not), sell stuff, or just provide info. The lineal nature of the game extends to the puzzles present in the game. Yes they are there, and they are almost always non optional (I only recall a few that grant extra treasure, the rest are necessary to proceed to the next area). The areas: Sometimes, you have a choice of how to clear an area, like using a lighting gun to blast the halls clear (more trouble than it's worth; also grants no exp), takeout drums to prevent spawns (not doing so provides more exp and gold, but eventually you will because the spawns are endless) or sneaking in to steal a key (as opposed to just killing the guys and causing a side effect). Verdict: 3 stars; -1 for bugs, -1 for lineal nature; would have been 2 stars if those 2 major issues of the game prevented me from finishing it, but they did not.

This game is all about combat. It doesn't have a complex story and important choices (though there are some that change the game in a way) as seen in Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, however, the story of Icewind Dale 2 is far from bad, rather it's linear. That being said, the game is awesome! Much like the first Icewind Dale you get to create 6 characters and start off your journey as a band of mercenaries hired to defend the town of Targos, only to realize there is far more to it than a simple Goblin attack. Not to spoil anything, the story is honestly good, and what amazed me the most is that it was written in 2 days only, because of the horrible crunch time, as was said by Josh Sawyer, Lead Designer. So hats of to the Black Isle team for making this game this good in under a year! As opposed to the other Infinity Engine games, this one is the only game that has Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition Ruleset, which in my opinion is way better due to different mechanics and new spells. Not to mention the Drow as a playable race. I would say that Icewind Dale 2 has the most beautiful art out of all Infinity Engine games, except Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear which was released in 2016 by Beamdog. As for Beamdog, I'm sorry to hear that the source code for IWD2 is lost and we'll probably never get to have it enhanced like other games. However, there are a couple of mods you can install to enhance it yourself per se. These are Almateria's IWD2 Fixpack (game fixes and restored content), Widescreen mod, GUI Fix, and maybe Bigger Fonts mod (for resolutions above 1080p). After that, I honestly never had any problems playing this game, and I'm playing on a modern PC with the latest Windows 10 Pro x64 build (2004 at the time of writing this review). So, in the end, I'd definitely recommend IWD2 to any D&D and old school RPG lover, but I'd recommend you play Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition first cause of all the references about it in the second game. Cheers!

Icewind Dale was one of the first D&D CRPG's that I ever played and I enjoyed every minute of it - in fact, together with Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale got me hooked on a whole new genre of computer games. It is a must try for anyone with a love for well crafted story telling, exciting action and intriguing strategy.

I've only played 80% of the game so far, but IMHO it is fairly tedious and unimaginative in comparison with Baldur's Gate, Planescape, Fallout, and even Arcanum. The story is just a thin pretext for more grinding - to the point that it at one stage sends you back to a level you have already completed, and asks you to re-clear it on an entirely unrelated pretext. Only one or two of the battles are really entertaining. Most of your time will be spent in the inventory screen!