Thinking of finally scratching that itch to try out some of these classics I had never spent much time with in the past.
BG2 and Torment were always on that list of titles to play sometime, and with the Torment talk going on lately, I’ve become even more sure I want to try it out. I’m more familiar with the 3rd edition rulesets in these games, but I am intrigued by the idea of creating a sole warrior and trailblazing through a grande adventure alongside pre-scripted NPC’s.
So can anyone throw out some random thoughts to help excite me. Afterthoughts, recommendations? General discussion? Kind of curious to hear anything.
Well, I like BG2 a lot. Torment is very popular, but I find the whole Planescape environment very “weird” and I prefer a more traditional background story.
If you prefer 3rd edition you might also try Icewind Dale 2 which is sort of 3rd edition. No scripted NPCs that accompany you though.
I don’t think you’ll go wrong with any of these (BG2, IWD2, or Torment).
BG2+TOB is my favorite recent CRPG. Just a well done epic RPG. Torment isn’t going to be every ones cup of tea but I liked it. One of the best stories in a RPG ever with excellent writing. Just note that while the writing is very good there is ALLOT of it.
BG2’s intra-party dialogue is one of the things that really makes the game stand out. Contrast it with IWD2, which although a nice implementation of 3rd ed. rules, is missing that sense of “character” that BG2 has. Torment is sort of an interesting case; it has a great story component and has tons of personality, but of course it uses an older version of the game engine and is missing many of the features introduced into the later Infinity Engine games (IWD, BG2, IWD2).
BG2 is my favorite CRPG ever. Hard to describe exactly why I liked it so much, but the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. It feels epic, your characters travel all over the place and the setting feel sufficiently different to add to the experience. The best part of the game though, for me, is the NPC interactions. Prior to BG2, for party based games I liked to create all the characters. The NPCs in BG2 though were great. The way they talked to the PC, and the other NPCs made them really stand out.
The achievement of BG2 made NWN all the more disappointing. Going from BG2 NPCs to NWN henchmen ought to be considered a crime against humanity.
Install the unoffical bugfixes from http://www.baldurdash.org. Even if BG2+ToB is not very buggy compared to other games, their sheer size and complexity mean that quite a lot were left unfixed by BioWare.
Be careful, Chapter 2 in BG:2 can leave you a bit overwhelmed. Fortunately, the journal system was much improved from the original. Easily 100 hours of gameplay. Best $20 you could spend, IMO.
I’d also be reiterating what everyone is saying by saying “yes, get both games with no delay”, so I’ll toss in my one major gripe with each.
Baldur’s Gate 2 goes way the fuck overboard with spells. And it doesn’t do so with “cool” spells that cause things to blow up, get sliced into ribbons, get burned into ashes or otherwise both cause damage to your enemies and rock your world at the same time - no, instead I believe 99% of the game’s repetoire consists of either spells that protect you from a very small selection of spells, or spells that negate a selection of the protective spells.
Meanwhile, Torment is too easy. For maximum challenge, play it on maximum difficulty, and the moment you can become a mage, do so and never look back.
And yeah, those are very minor complaints about what are otherwise top-notch games.
You haven’t lived until you get some NPC’s to bust into a fight with each other, right when you open a litch casket. Uh, thanks guys…really bad timing there…
BG II was amazing. Add the expansion and the ‘patch’ from the bioware guys and it is my favorite RPG on the PC ever.
Installed it last night, unfortunately my Disc 2 is scratched to high hell, so the opening movie was skipping and unwatchable about halfway through. Story seems really interesting from what I can tell, child of Bhaal and whatnot.
As far as Magic is concerned, I am personnally not at all fan of how the magic system works in these D&D CRPG’s. It’;s one thing when you sit around with some friends doing the PnP thing, but in the world of CRPG action, it doens’t translate to ‘fun’ I feel. I’ve spent a good amount of time playing IWD in the past, but my mages never really felt ‘mage-like’. Meanwhile my swordsmen are whacking away with extreme prejudice and skillful volleys of feats and hits, my mages sit back dusting foes off from a distance with whatever crude weapon they have on while I wait for that opportunity to buff, and occasionally send out a spell that can be cast so few times a day, forcing rest constantly. Like you said, the sheer variety of mage class spells is pretty offputting in a game like this. Way too much specialization considering how much management and pathfinding I have to worry about party-wide as is. I’m just lazy like that though.
The crazy mage duels were what made BG2, in my eyes. Spell triggers, various counter-spells, chained contingency spells, buffing and de-buffing - now THAT’S being a wizard. I’d whack pause to see what spell defenses an enemy mage loaded up, and then load up all the counter spells on my sorceror. Man, was it satisfying when Ruby Ray finally demolished that last spell barrier and the chained fireball threw your foe to the floor. Heh heh. Good stuff.
BG2 is absolutely outstanding and HUGE… some may feel that it doesn’t have enough focus, but the replayability is insane. Good story that is well told, plenty of quests, and add the TOB expansion to wrap up the Bhaalspawn story.
Yeah BG2 is one of the few RPGs that I have played from start to finish several times just to use different character types. Truly a wonderful game. I played one BG2 campaign on our LAN, whch was a real blast. There’sa also a lot of BG2 mods worth downloading.
The only problem with mage duels is that the AI had an extremely unfair advantage. The instant they showed up in fog of war, they had 12 types of protections up.
Oh, and make sure each of your tank characters has a non-enchanted weapon in a quick-weapon slot. Some mages cast protection from magical weapons on themselves.
Oh is it a disadvantage reeko?
I’d hear the ‘spell casting’ sounds and just stop my party and wait a couple of minutes, when I heard the woosh spell over sound…time to attack. Worked great.
