The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Ahhh, the child of Bhaal has awoken. It is time for more experiments.
Charles Kinbote
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Shit!!
This is a thread about Baldur's Gate II, which is the second video game (after Heroes of Might & Magic III) that I ever really played all the way through.
It is an RPG with a sort of hilarious combat system and an absolutely fantastic plot, and isn't it about time that you played through it (again)? Are you really sure that you did all the quests in Chapter 2?
You awaken in a dungeon, and you are face to face with this man:
JONOLETH IRENICUS
He is a man with impeccable fashion sense and even more impeccable torture sense. But his golem tells him more intruders have entered the complex! They act sooner than he had anticipated, but no matter, they will only prove a slight delay.
You go through a dungeon and meet up with a girl you have known for hell of days
and also another girl who is a little too into trees, if you catch my drift (she bangs trees)
and a dude with a miniature giant space hamster that everyone loves, a lot
and a jerk
and then you are outside in the world!! Quickly, I hope, because jeez, that dungeon.
You can meet some new friends who smell funny
or surround yourself with jerks
or knock an elf up.
You can even just totally screw a dude's life up.
There's a lot you can do!
What is this really?
This is an old-ish RPG from Bioware, why haven't you heard of it? It's run on 2nd ed DnD, I think, so it has a lot of goofiness (like THAC0) but that sort of just makes it better.
It's old and ugly. What's the appeal?
It has an incredible plot. Not just in terms of the storyline, either. The characters are deep and interact with one another, the scriptwriting is aces, a lot of the voice acting is golden, and you can actually get pretty invested in the dudes you draft into your party. It is funny, and great, and gosh.
Now, I like a good plot, but that isn't enough to keep me playing a game that I wouldn't otherwise enjoy.
This isn't one of those games. The specifics can seem a little unintuitive to people that have played modern RPGs (or haven't played any RPGs at all) but the basic mechanics are the same, and the gameplay is legitimately fun. The only real thing to keep in mind is that this game doesn't have feats, so making your main character a plain fighter is a pretty good way to be bored. Casters for life. Also, monks.
Also, somewhat as a function of the plot, the growth of your character across this game (and its expansion, Throne of Bhaal) is wondrous. The first game somewhat suffered because you started at level 1 and went to level, uh, 8 or 9 I think, which isn't really "all-powerful" in 2nd ed terms. In this one, though, you start off flinging some arrows and you end up instagibbing swarms of enemies. It's one of very few games that I feel really makes you earn your power.
I want to play this (again) but the opening dungeon STINKS.
Yeah, it can be a little tiresome. I've never skipped it myself, but I know a lot of people want to. Luckily, there's a mod! Check it out.
http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=98&Itemid=79
Great! Where do I buy it, though.
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/baldurs_gate_2_complete
The entire thing is on gog.com for $10. Yeehaw.
I'm not a big gamer guy, but I love this game. I recommend it to people like I recommend restaurants or books. It is fantastic and great and please play it, and let's talk about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U88zyFLzIXQ
Charles Kinbote on
0
Posts
So desu ne.
agghh lmao
it's just that more people should be playing it, and I am installing wine to play it right now
we can also talk about, like, birds
or ducks
So fucking good
people in Athkatla sure have a lot of piercings/stuff in their hair
Aerie was my waifu
(Viconia for real tho)
Follow me on Twitter??
from some shmuck to a god
My first course of action was to get that drunken guard's sword that he left at the barracks for him and gut him like a fish with it.
Call me lazy and blame me for all your troubles... I'll show ye. I'LL SHOW YE GOOD
Boys becoming men. Men becoming wolves.
I did Aerie my first time through. I think I had a pretty standard "good" comp. It was:
Me (conjurer--you could really summon stupid amounts of guys in this game)
Jan
Aerie
Keldorn
Minsc
Anomen
If I can get it running now, I think I want to try a neutral/evil comp? I'm not totally sure what that would look like
Me (Wild Mage, gotta try it)
Korgan
Edwin
Viconia
maybe...Jan
and Yoshimo? I have no clue
halp
Will I help you? Yes, but I'm raising money to save my friend so I'll need payment. Will I be a dick to someone unduly? No, because I am not an asshole, but I might if they have messed with me our my pals in some way. Good in that game is fun though, Evil is just boring and a waste of time. All the quests just become "go and kill x, y then z," which isn't that interesting.
I remember that going the really good path meant going all the way down the quest lines and then getting extra exp for turning down rewards and stuff
I am a little concerned that the evil path will just be like "fuck you gimme money ok quest over"
hum
Basically. I tried evil, got bored so quickly. Essentially the good aspect of quests involves finding other solutions rather than just killing, and that is a lot mroe fun usually.
I never played this
was it really? I'd be interested to give that a shot
also, how was NWN2?
buy Planescape now. Now. Now. Now. Bought it yet? No? Buy it now.
and NWN2 was basically 3/4 of a game. Still playable, still enjoyable, but you can see where the rest of the game should go and it's infuriating.
You get to kill more shit so it sort of evens out.
Oh dude you gotta play Planescape
You just gotta
I barely remember playing through NWN1--like, I remember the plague thing at the beginning of the game, and a weird maze in the bottom of an inn? and a, uh, forest. and Aribeth. and that's it.
I basically hear that Planescape has a better story but that the gameplay itself isn't as good.
I am not the video game king
but the best black isle game is icewind dale 2
and thehttp://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16497 mod:
If you like one of those you are almost always going to like the others, too.
Basically you should play it like an adventure game.
I'll try PS:T but I want to play through BG2 first and romance some Viconias
I hope I can mod it with Wine? I have never tried modding BG2 before
I should go back and play Planescape. The first time I only got past the little intro zone and then my CD has some kind of scratch on it and I couldn't load the next area.
The second time through was with a laptop that overheated every 40 minutes of playing or so. I actually managed to get about ~10 ish hours into the game before (the Nameless One's Maze) before the game finally crashed as I was saving the game, and managed to corrupt my saved games folder.
It's falls kinda like this
Icewind Dale 2 - great gameplay- poor plot
Baldur's Gate 2- good gameplay - good plot
Planescape- poor gameplay - great plot
but the whole "make every member of your party" thing didn't really jive with me
also it seemed like the whole plot was "there's this dungeon"
Really I haven't enjoyed any of Bioware's games as much as I've liked the Infinity Engine series... Dragon Age is particularly disappointing as a "spiritual successor".
It really depends on what you look for in a game.
Some people play Planescape and see an interesting and unique story, memorable characters, morality that's about as complex as you can get from D&D alignment, and really emotionally engaging moments. These people love the game, and they are right.
Other people play Planescape and see that you can't pick your race, gender, or appearance, that even your class options are locked unless you do some quest work to unlock things beyond "fighter", and that a lot of the game is very linear and combat is kind of broken. These people are kind of meh on the game, and they are also right.
It is, I think, the epitome of storytelling (at least for its time, and arguably forever), and if you are someone who can be moved by storytelling and can put up with some wonkiness to get there, then you will really enjoy it. It would probably be just about as good, if not better, as a text adventure, though, and if you're someone who really loved the complexity (and brokenness) of D&D combat, this could feel like a letdown.
Can't speak much to NWN2. It felt decent for me up to the trial, and then I stalled out, as I wasn't interested in "do a longer version of the trial quest on that water planet from KotOR or the 'hold torches for innocent and swords for guilty' trial from NWN or the John Cleese conversation puzzle in Jade Empire or, you know, every other BioWare/Obsidian game ever."