So Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale...still worth playing 11 years later?

[Toastburner B]

So I managed to grow up without ever playing Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale. These are games that I have seen held in very high regard for a long time, and are games that people still hold as a gold standard for western RPGs.

So, fairly recently, I discovered that Good Old Games had both Baldur's Gate (http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/baldurs_gate_the_original_saga) and Icewind Dale (http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/icewind_dale_complete) on their website for $10 each. This includes expansions.

So I come to you, NPF, to ask: Are these games still playable? I enjoyed Dragon Age: Origins, which was marketed as a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, but would playing the shiny and new version make the old, classic version less playable? Are they classics that hold up to the test of time, or will the lack of nostalgia render them too old to play?

Any opinions?

[Yrcrazypa]

Yes, they are still excellent, and I actually find them more fun than Dragon Age. Not just because of Nostalgia, since I played Baldur's Gate 2 only 2 years ago or so. You can find better reviews from basically anyone else but me, but I say get them. Especially get Planescape: Torment. You won't regret it.

[Azisien]

You can also get this program....argh what's it called. Baldur's Gate Tutu? It is a big overhaul that lets you run BG1 on the BG2 engine. Graphics, classes, all that. Game is still going to look like ass, but it will be a slightly less unsightly ass.

[Thadius]

The fact that I still own these games should be more than enough of an indicator that they're awesome. Old-school awesome, but awesome. I should just collect awesome games.

Oh wait I already do that.

[Yrcrazypa]

I wouldn't say that the Infinity Engine games look like ass. It will be low resolution, but the backgrounds to the games are gorgeous, and the character models are functional enough. It's not 3d, but that is a good thing if you ask me. Not being able to see something because it is on a hill, or because pillars are blocking your view is a pain in the ass, and happened to be all the time in Dragon Age. If something is attacking you in an RPG, you should be able to see it without having to alter the angle of the camera, and even then, I couldn't always see everything. Never had that problem in an Infinity Engine game.

[greed]

On really high end monitors though the lower res can actually make your eyes bleed though which is a huge downside.

Yeah EasyTutu is what you want, the one downside is that you need both BG1 and 2 to use it, as the makers didn't want to pirate the BG2 assets in order to keep it as legal as possible.

Now honestly I always thought BG1 was kinda lame honestly and hard to get into later(and I played it in 2005 so it was aged by then). 2 on the other hand is much better, Irenicus is just one of the most awesomely hateable villains in gaming history.


Icewind Dale is just pure combat with no real attempt at story or writing, with the result that it hasn't aged that well at all, most old games are fun for the writing and characters, Icewind not so much. If you really want a 2nd Ed DnD combat simulator I've heard Temple of Elemental Evil which GoG also has is the best by a wide margin. Just make sure to patch it well, Troika were horrifiyingly bad at quality control (one of their games, might actually have been the launch version of ToEE, actually overwrote Boot.ini during install).

[Yrcrazypa]

There is a mod you can download that will make it higher resolution, but if you have a very large monitor, say, 24" on up, it will make things very small. You can find it here (http://www.gibberlings3.net/widescreen/), though.

[Magus]

I'd just like to mention again that I think GOG's games are prepatched to the latest retail version so finding the patches manually on the internet and running them might actually do more harm than good.

This was only my experience with Arcanum, though.

As for high resolution options, as Yrcrazypa mentioned, there are often unofficial patches which people have made to take care of that.

[Azisien]

I wouldn't say that the Infinity Engine games look like ass. It will be low resolution, but the backgrounds to the games are gorgeous, and the character models are functional enough.

Ehhhhhh I have a 24" monitor, it looks like ass. I am glad it's not 3D because that would just age it doubly so, though.