Charging another $10 for a game that is not historically a stand alone expansion, that can be brought boxed with its main game for half the price rather easily, is insulting. While it would not surprise me to learn this is publisher enforced rather than GoG's idea, its still pretty poor. The game itself is a competent RPG / Strategy hybrid with a terribly generic fantasy story of which you'll remember nothing the moment you stop playing, but which is made up for by genuinely solid gameplay and mechanics. None the less, they feel stripped down and simplified in this, compared to the original Spellforce, or did so in my memory, and thus you've the trade off of depth for graphical improvement.
I own the original game disk, but when GoG announced this, I thought "Aha! Finally a chance to pick up Alien Crossfire after all these years!". ...It would seem I was wrong. Legendary game though, but no sale from me.
Total Annhilation: Kingdoms was a move that surprised many fans of the original TA, with its fantasy setting, I believe, with many such fans expecting more mech based destruction. None the less, expectations were high, and the game was met with very mixed reviews, much because of its campaign structure, which eschewed multiple faction (The base game had four) based campaigns in favour of jumping from faction to faction in order to weave some kind of single storyline. For many, the effect of this was jarring, but I found it refreshing, both in the way it stopped me from playing with the same units mission after mission, but also in the way I felt it give a sense of scale that can go missing from a single faction campaign. Flitting about the globe with "meanwhiles" and so on gave a sense of a genuine world at war. The four factions are suitably different, particularly the beast-like Zhon, who do not make use of structures at all. Like Total Annhilation before it, it also has a strong skirmish mode, and makes use of that games crude, but moderately effective, early physics engine, a big part of what helps to seperate it from similar RTS's of the time. The other positive similarity is the resource system, even more simplified from TA, with Mana points replacing metal deposits, and no equivilent of energy. The game is not perfect however, by any means. Sometimes the games physics seem to defy logical explaination, when projectiles are stopped short by cover that does not appear to impede them in any way. The AI is reasonable for the time, but in todays gaming world, frustrates. Interface and unit options are a cut above many RTS's of the day, but feel slightly less fluid than the original TA, or at least my memory of it. This could of course be nostalgia. All in all, this is a fine game however, that deserves far more praise than it recieves.
Icewind Dale 2, essentially does what anyone who played the first game would expect it to do, but grander. Its combat is more interesting due to the greater number of abilities, skills and spells at your disposal, and the larger number of creatures assailing you at times. Its dungeons are more varied and better designed. It's story is not exactly deep stuff, but it's by no means bad either, and again, more to my tastes than the first game. The adventure pack is new to me, however, and I mean to ask what it adds exactly, and if its enough to make this worth buying again when I have the disks.
As the title says, just forget the main campaign. It is essentially built to show you what you can do with the toolset. And that my friends, is what you buy with NWN. The toolset lets you create campaigns, arenas and collossal persistant worlds that are practically an MMO. I dont know how many such worlds are still played on, but I had fantastic times on these long before the likes of WoW. It also includes a dungeon masters mode, to allow you to run storylines for other players, spawning triggers, events, monsters and granting experiance and items and such as you wish with wonderous ease. The user created content is at times incredible, and I recall an utterly brilliant Planescape creation with hundreds of new unique models. The expensions serve to grant specialist classes and epic levels to the mix. In short, if you enter NWN with the right expectations, you will find it well worth your money. It isnt the next Baldurs Gate. It never tried to be. As a community tool it remains unsurpassed.
It remains in my opinion the best RPG of all time. Utterly unique and original in setting and style. Its characters engaging, its story the discovery of its lead characters past actions. Combat is rewarded secondary to dialogue and exploration, knowledge always more valuable than a few more bodiees. I've yet to test this dowload version of the game, will update when I can.
