First time playing was last week. Pros: Controls are simple. If you want to button mash you can, but there are combos available as you become more familliar. The story is classic 40k and the gameplay suits it. Grimdark everywhere and you as a superpowered space marine! Proportions are almost perfect and you really get a sense of the bulk and weight of a SM as you tromp around. You get to shoot, slice and dice through orcs, and so far hasn't felt like a grind at all. There is enough variant of moves and "power ups" to keep it fresh, and they suit the theme and gameplay well. You find out almost imediately the way you heal is through ramping up your melee, which is interesting, and promotes even more carnage, which is what 40k does well. Gameplay is tight and flows well. you continue to move through the game with clear objectives, and fairly good environmental clues on where you have to go next. Cons: You can tell this was first developed for console. The feel of the game just oozes it. Limited, pre-defined paths so you don't get lost. You can't climb anywhere with more than a 1.5 ft. ledge (which is everywhere), so paths are clear. The random collectibles in each area follows the 40k theme, but are never explained in-game. You are picking up skull servitors, but why? Aiming is kinda janky. Mouse aiming is super easy as PC players know, but this game has some wierd artificial shakes at times which bounces your aiming retical to make aiming more difficult. odd, and it seems to try to justify it as situational, but again it was designed for console, so whatever. Thoughts: If you like the 40k theme, this is a top shelf example and you should get it. Animations are fantastic, character models hold up 13 years after release. It is for sure a console game, but the PC port is not only playable, but enjoyable. Open world? No, but still fun IMO. So sharpen your chainsword and get to the Thunderhawk, you are gonna have a good time.
Fantastic game series, a true classic. This game is one of my favorites despite its faults. Pros: fantastic, and mostly true to the table top (TT) game, what a fantastic game. The models are good, terrain is good, fun story line, engaging characters, enough for you to do, and waste hundreds of hours playing. If you like giant robots stomping around, this is it. Music and sound are very complimentary, fantastic. This is the quintessential Battletech game I've always wanted. Whether you are new to the game, or a veteran, there is plenty to like. Cons: The gaming is marred like others said: slow load times, stuttering, lack of code optimization, and a weird kind of "memory leak" where too many save games makes it take forever to load. At the end of 2023, it looks like a few issues were fixed by the dev, but many remain. The best thing they did is add a mod feature, which can be used to install some fan made patches that address MANY of the issues, and allow you to slightly or dramatically alter the game. Many of the mods are old, and the devs added the feature to the game in a patch, making the mod obsolete. I went the road of staying vanilla as possible to the original coded experience, but put in all the performance mods that tightened up code issues. (I DID lower pilot pay though, from 50,000/mo. To 4,800/mo. Closer to TT IMO. The game actually sets salaries at almost 20x higher than TT RPG... I guess to increase the challenge? Silly devs). By adding fix mods, this went from an almost unplayable lagfest, to about 30-60 sec. of load time depending on map. Also, for windows you MUST have at least 16GB RAM minimum. If anything goes to page file, forget it, minimum 5 min wait. I don't have a top end proc, but my video card is well above spec and I play with modest settings. Thoughts: while it can feel sluggish at times, there are many ways to shave seconds or whole minutes off load screens and battles. Well worth the effort. Just get it.
The Bioware engine used for this and other AD&D titles like it, really allowed the game to shine. Graphics were great (for the time), tons of content, engaging storylines, plenty of anything you could want. BG was originally designed to take advantage of the great storytelling abilities of the engine, so I'd say its probably 40% story, 60% action. Icewind Dale (also on gog.com) is more like 15% story, 85% action. If you don't care for the story all that well, there is plenty to be had for all the side quests, or just running around having fun. Anything living (and most of the (un)dead too) can be attacked or killed. If you fancy some carnage, wipe out a village too! Expect resistance in the form of some very heavily armed guards/military, but its fun all the same. Great game, great times, sure to keep you entertained for hundreds of hours.
I picked it up on an off chance. I read the description and reviews, and it sounds like fun! I'm never one to get the speed bonuses for completing turn-based games quickly, but I do get 100% for full exploration. This game tends to reward both, which is refreshing. You do get the option to reply any level you want, with the only penalty being it erases any progression you made after that level. This can be good if you find you don't like some of your past decisions and want to change them. Re-writing history in games is rare, and that makes this game better here also. :) I'm only part way through (just a couple levels actually, keep replying the first ones >.< ) so I'll post a more in-depth review later when I've beaten it (or come closer to).
When this first came out I was still on Baldur's Gate and it was fun. My friend told me, "Baldur's is 60% story, 40% dungeons and adventuring. Icewind is 20% story and 80% adventuring." He was correct. This is the game you should play if you wanna mix it up with the mobs. Storyline/plot: They give you a basic story, enough to give you slight motivation to get where you are going. Don't get me wrong, the story is great, but this one is really about the journey. Gameplay: Refined from BG, not quite BG2, but still excellent. RPG extravaganza. You have a good solid party system which allows a high degree of customization of your characters. You can also upload custom character portraits of which there are still literally thousands still to be found in online content packs. It follows the AD&D (2nd ed.) rules and has the infamous THACO, of which you can pretty much ignore except for two things, lower armor is better (esp. negative scores) and your THACO "to hit" is better when lower. That's it! the rest is fairly intuitive. Other: I recently found some fixes from Gibberlings 3 (google 'em, their still there) that correct many of the glitches found in the game, including hundreds of broken scripts, a graphical glitch (no effect on gameplay) and many fixes and enhancements. Just a quick comment that even though this fixes a lot of stuff that Bioware just didn't seem to want to fix, the game is fully playable without these. I've beaten it several times and only encountered a couple problems, and those were "that's odd" moments, instead of, "crap I can't complete the game!" moments. Oh, IWD, like the other games using this engine, allows you to export your character and "reuse" them in a new game. This allows you to reach very high character levels, and continue playing with a favorite character you've made. IWD is all about creating your own party, vs. Baldur's gate's emphasis on picking up characters along the way. Conclusion: Very fun game, a classic to be sure. Should be in every RPG/Strategy/Fantasy collection.
Get it. All the other reviews are correct, this game is about as good as it gets. I've kept my copy since I bought it, and it has been installed on every computer I've owned. I'm buying it here just to support it, its that good.
