Icewind Dale 2 Complete

Though this game is light on story, it captures the sense of fantasy adventure perfectly, with a wide variety of locations, tons of neat items to find, and numerous TOUGH, but entertaining battles to be fought that require you have a strong grasp of your party's strengths and weakness. While all chapters are solid, my favorite is the first by far, as you go from no-name sell sword to heroic warriors taking the fight to the goblin horde themselves. It's a classic scenario, told many times over, but it's done so well here. And the victory doesn't come easy, but when you've finally taken down the big bad and you're rifling through the piles of loot, you can't help but think back to the moment you first got off that boat and were scrounging for discarded leather armor. It's a feeling of elation these IE games always captured very well and especially so here. Another moment of mention, is the battle to acquire one of the more powerful swords in the game. As far as the classic IE party v. party battles go, it don't get much more epic (and hectic) than this. So maybe the story is there after all, it's the story of your rag-tag group of nobodies clawing their way to find their place among the heroes of legend, and when it comes to nerdy fantasy games, what more could you ask for?

Although the plot and RPG element is less than BG, the game rules are far more complete and balanced in this than almost any other similar game either in the infinity or other later engines. The RPG element in BG and the fact that by BG2 you were already a demi-god ruined most of the balance element of the DnD rule, this one won't , you start from level 1 and pretty much all class and race are useful and fairly balanced. The plot is actually quite nice , especially if you know the onces from the first installation, it's just that compare to the epic saga of BG it obviously falls a bit short. My favorite party typically revolved around a plot I try to insert myself into the game, where the main 2 char are a barbarian / cleric Human (a young shaman in training from the north) who thought to find help from the south after seeing vision of the coming events, and with the help of a half/elf bard they manage to put together a strong party for this adventure (halfing rogue, paladin, drow wizard, dwarf druid.)

"Icewind Dale 2 Complete" does some things very well. The combat was great, and I enjoyed the way dialogue options and NPC reactions frequently differed depending on the race/alignment/class of the party leader. Unfortunately, even more than in the first "Icewind Dale," the story is tiring. At one point you've just fought five mini-bosses to get the tokens to let you get to the boss, but he's actually just the area boss; the real bosses are higher up, accessible only by passing through more area bosses protected by mini-bosses with accompanying minions. (Not that at any point you know how many area bosses you have left to go...) If you're trying to keep track of the stitched-together episodes that make up the overall story, good luck: the journal records all quest details mixed together in the order in which you trigger them. (Luckily?) you never need to remember much at all; any of chapters one through five could easily be cut from the game. "Icewind Dale 2" eventually felt like hacking my way through a grocery list, and near the end of the fifth chapter I gave up on it. If you like an engrossing story, forget this one. Buy "Planescape: Torment" or "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic."

One of the beloved games of my childhood, but all I remember then was how difficult it was. Now that I've played it again, I remember why I loved it so much. The combat is fun and exciting, and you'll really feel stronger as your characters level up and get another attack per round, or a fresh set of spells. The storyline is very well done, too. Icewind Dale is known for being more combat-oriented than, say, Planescape Torment or Baldur's Gate, but this one's story is definitely very interesting, and thought provoking all the same. You feel empathy for the villains and understand why they made the decisions they made, and you feel genuine sadness for those they've hurt in their single-minded pursuit of their deeds. Icewind Dale II is surprisingly emotional, and its storytelling is fantastic. I loved the item descriptions, and you can tell a lot of thought went into each of them. Tthere are some very nice sidequests that really pull at your heartstrings, and it can be fairly easy to miss them if you're just rushing through. Character building is incredibly fun. You can play with a party of six that the game made for you, or create your party entirely yourself. You can solo the game if you choose, play with only two heroes, or any number in between. There is a huge selection of spells and character builds that it's quite easy to have multiple characters perform differently, regardless if they all share the same class. The game isn't without its faults, though. Some areas are incredibly tedious and frustrating, and they definitely seem to drag on far more than they should, but they are thankfully far-between. Icewind Dale II is a true masterpiece, a wonderful story mixed with fast paced combat and interesting character building. You will be saddened as you near the end, remember how your characters were when you started, and be thankful that they've grown so much. Icewind Dale II is a worthy choice if you love the Forgotten Realms and Dungeons & Dragons games.

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.