It's one of the more enjoyable 4x moo type games.
I'm really impressed that this game managed to capture a fundamental aspect of life. Just how Gilgamesh had to learn to live with grief and loss, anyone who has started out in a career they loved should be able to relate to this game. The core of the game, the combat simulator, is absolutely amazing. It had me walking around like a kid pantomiming a piston like movement of firing an autocannon. The explosions, destruction, etc. The tension on the missions is just right. Who cares if all your arms got blown off, that was fun! Slowly but surely the fun gets drained away as your career advances. As the game advances you have to care that an irreplaceable Tier V burst fire autocannon was destroyed. A high reward mission might look like a lot of fun until you compare your available funds to the cost of the business trip. Eventually damage gets so expensive that you become irate at the minor incompetence of your employees. You have to really, really scout around for business because you don't want to piss of the wrong people. Really, really gave me the feeling of speedrunning a career as an independent contractor doing something you love, like software development or engineering. The DLC (Legend of the Kestrel Lancers) is why I'm rating the overall game 5 stars.
Do not purchase without the expansions. The combat is always fun. The late game outside of combat sucks so hard. Every potential step forward comes with the potential for five steps backwards in the late game. Tons of terrible, overly punitive interactions between the combat engine and the outfit management elements. Late game mechs move so slow. The way the difficulty curve works (more oppurtunity for damage), is fine for a game with a fixed campaign. It's terrible in a game where you take random missions in between fixed missions. Unless you make money or get better gear, they don't help you at all. Finishing the mission isn't enough. One of the worst is lumping all of the independent factions into a single faction. Unless you want to grind for cash or reload constantly, you'll go broke doing the plot missions. Keep good standing with independents, or prepare to go bankrupt when you do a plot mission. If you're wondering why you see 50 hour, 1 star reviews like this - it's because I've had all the fun in the game before I've beaten it. Which absolutely ruins the fun I had at the beginning. If they aren't going to fix the base game, they should stop selling it. Bundle it with the legend of the kestrel lancers. They need to fix the base game, or they need to stop selling it.
It's kind of unfortunate this is the only way to get the un-enhanced version of the game. I've experienced about a hard crash an hour with my game up to date (8/5/17). Lots of reviews say the issues have been fixed. They obviously haven't. The added content is nice - If I hadn't obsessively played the original it would fit right in. If the game liked my hardware I'd probably give it three stars. I think it speaks volumes that they had to remove the classic edition from sale in order to move copies of the bug enhanced version. I've started playing the classic version with a wide screen mod and I've had no crashes.
I quite enjoyed a second expansion to Baldur's Gate. The encounters were fun for me, the core of the story was alright. It sparked a feeling in me that I haven't felt since playing the infinity engine games in high school. It's a solid forgotten realms/infinity engine experience. You will notice quite a few of the reviews aren't commenting on the gameplay, or the core story. Instead they are focusing on an optional character you are free to ignore. My critique of that character is that in Faerun - especially knowing there is a potion to change genders in BGII - you would never know she was trans unless it was a reveal through influence/conversation. I encourage you to play the game. For a larger developer/publisher, the one star reviews would be drowned out largely by people who bought and played the game, while not irrationally fixating on one small part. Giving the game a one star review because of one or two barely significant political hot topics is bullying. The people that disagree with the direction gaming and society as a whole is going have a game popular enough, yet niche enough from a developer small enough that they can have a major negative impact on sales. Game gets three stars. I'd give it four but the bugs it had at launch were very noticeable. Beamdog has always fixed them eventually, but they would have been better off holding off another month or having a larger beta.
