While some features I wanted to carry over from the first game didn't, this game is fantastic in it's own right. The story for the game and all of it's expansions are much better than any D&D game after, especially the Dragon Age games. The quick cast spell menu is a great addition though issuing voice commands can interrupt and fizzle a spell you are casting if you don't time it right. The expansions are magnificent adding many great features and Mask of the Betrayer is an outstanding addition with a marvelous and ominous story introducing mystical locations such as the Astral and Shadow Planes, and the ability to define party AI with a relatively straightforward radio button menu so that you don't have to constantly micromanage all party members and can run a party more efficiently. It also includes an extremely fun feature known as The Hunger which compels you to feed on spirit energy from your enemies or be consumed by Hunger. Storm of Zehir adds even more features and entirely new play modes. It lets you build a custom party from the start including previous exported characters, and introduces an overland travel map with random but visible monster parties which spawn battle maps a la JRPGs. Also NPC mobile parties which appear on the map and of course locations of interest. Robust and active modding community with many add ons and persistent world servers for MMO style play. DMing features also available for table top style games. Character export features available though restricted from the first game and if you aren't careful you can run into some bugs like quest items you can't drop stacking in your inventory. Otherwise, a fine game and very fun and compelling to play.

A really nice game with many new features in comparison to the prequel. Graphics are pretty for the games age, new races, few new classes and an amazing (by my book) campaign that brought back some memories from old cRPG games where you could really roam the map. Official campaign is bland and uninspiring: bandits/monsters/outsiders/undead. Especially late game, the bad design of the campaign renders some characters mostly useless. On the other hand the other campaign - mask of the betrayer is a truly great experience. Finally, the Storm of Zehir is in fact, the best campaign I've played in quite a while - and I honestly wish it would last much longer with many more locations! The only bad thing is stability. The game seems to develop irrecoverable map problems as you play the official campaign making it impossible to play if it happens.

Played this back in the day and now just finished replaying it, never got round to any of the expansions so looking forward to them. Game runs fine now and no issues with bugs etc.

I've had this game in the boxed version since 2008, it's still my favorite game and I consider it much better than 90% of the nextgens of the same type. Unfortunately that version has stopped releasing updates and no dlc exist. The GOG version would seem to be the answer to all doubts but I have a question: given that the original boxed version was completely translated and dubbed into Italian as well, why does the GOG version not include that language, neither written nor dubbed? Would it be possible to add it?

Definitely my fav RPG in the last years, and i am VERY hard to impress. I tried Morrowind, oblivion and Fallout 3 and I liked neither. I only play a really good game, to me just 'good' doesn't cut it. Fantastic orchestral music, atmosphere, optional sarcastic / humour replies (VERY important, I don't like characters that are always serious) and great graphics!