Icewind Dale 2 Complete

The overall plot of this classic game is weak, but then again you do not play it for the plot. The real joy is crafting a party of characters and seeing them progress. The developers did a decent job adapting 3rd edition rules to a video game. If you want an entertaining time-killer, then you could certianly do worse than this gem. Dated graphics and bland plotline kept me from being able to off five stars.

Finally forced myself to finished it, after 3 years after buying it on GoG, and no - fights wasn't hard for me. There are other repellers. So this is obviously a game where one creates a party and tests how do they fight, right? It would be ok if not all the annoying puzzles implemented only to make the game longer. Many are unlogic and solvable only with a guide anyway. The D&D3x system contains many social and thieving mechanics, but these are used sporadically here to make a place for mentioned puzzles. What if i would like to finish the game without a single fight using my speech skills or sneaking my way in and stealing some papers compromising my enemies? Not in this game and actually hard to point such one, maybe DeusEx1 or Fallout2 were close to it. At least it is fine debugged and more player friendly then other Infinity games - i used only XP-mod. Therefore my 50% rating - either skipp it or grab a sword and stop complaining soldier! Note: I run it under playonlinux because under Win7 it was too sloow. Additionally to switch to KDE Alt+F4 works best.

i had onlyplayed baldur's gate before i played this game, its a massive step up and much more similar to the pencil and paper game of D&D i really like the plot and the gameplay is fine, no disc switching thanks to Gog

Difficult, entertaining, memorable. D&D is a great RPG system, and Icewind Dale along Baldur's Gate is one of the best uses of the system in a video game. Icewind Dale is a lot combat oriented than Baldur's Gate. Lock your fingers onto Quick Saves and Quick Loads. Memorise your spells and unsheathe your blade. The adventure has summoned you Will you answer it's call?

When I read that this was a difficult, combat-heavy D&D Dungeon crawler with minimal story and character development, I figured there wouldn't be anything worthy of interest since I'm not particularly interested in D&D, nor dungeon crawlers. But I don't accept ignorance so I'll try it. Fast forward over a dozens hours later and I can't stop thinking about this game. First of all, the story and characters (sidequests and the like) are really well written. They are minimalistic for sure but high-quality and the game has alot of surprises along the way (i.e. a Goblin Chief you can talk to in the middle of a dungeon which might result in one-less fight to go through? That's pretty cool). Furthermore, the weapon/item descriptions are amazing and memorable (a better version of the item descriptions you see in FromSoftware's games imo). Second, the dungeon-crawling itself is phenomenal. This is because of 3 things. 1. The combat encounters are all smartly created and often challenging. You'll faces entire hordes that try to overwhelm you, more tactical battles against overpowered but few enemies, ambushes and everything else you can think of. It's one of few games I can remember where almost every battle feels impactful and meaningful. This is not one of those games where you click on an enemy and wait for them to die. 2. Atmosphere and sound design is superb. The maps themselves look good and give a great, oppressive, lonely atmosphere. 3. Briefly mentioned above but the suprises along the way from secrets to sidequests to spells/weapons. It's all done in a way to make the dungeon crawling be more than just XP grinds. I also must mention the artwork of the game (both games really) which really stands out. They are all really high-quality and look like paintings (far better character portraits than Baldur's Gate imo). All in all, an extraordinary surprise and a far better game than I had expected. Definitely worth your money and your time. Highly recommended!