When cRPGs Touched The Sky

Baldur's Gate II was the longest the most fun games I have ever played!

The original Baldur's Gate was excellent in all of storyline, gameplay, music and stability. Now, nowadays, sequels usually mean a graphically-improved expansion (at best). Baldur's Gate II is a rare exception of the sequel clearly surpassing the original. And in the case of such great original, this means a lot!

Words fail to describe the perfect harmony of brilliant ideas, emerging story-line and detailed coding that makes this game an unsurpassed classic! Do not let the slightly outdated graphics discourage you. They were cutting edge only some years ago - and you will be able to unleash their full potential even on mid-range PCs!

I have yet to meet anyone who has played it and not raved about it! Hard-core D&D fans will find the character building, fighting checks and balances and overall experience very close to the actual pen-&-paper games.

Casual computer gamers will notice none of the tedious stuff of other cRPGs as the gameplay runs smooth and beautifully.

You even have the choice to turn it into either a turn-based or an action game by tweaking the auto-pause options! I am telling you: this is how computers games should be!

You will let yourself get lost in the deep dungeons of the labyrinthic story; you will be laughing out loud to the humorous dialog; you will be surprised as to who is a double and triple-agent.

There is an evil beyond imagining unleashed and only you with your party can stand in its way.

Party members offer a multitude of unpredictable balancing points and diverging story-lines of their own: side quests, conflicts and love affairs enrich the story in so many original ways!

An unsurpassed classic!

The (Almost) Complete NeverWinter Nights Saga

NeverWinter Nights must had been the most anticipated RPG ever. Following in the wake of Baldur's Gate games' artistic and financial success, our appetite was whetted for a third-person cRPG set in the Sword Coast of Faerûn. Because there are tons of reviews on the individual games (links provided), I shall focus mainly on this NWN Collection itself.

NWN SAGA: This collection contains the original NWN game together with its two expansions, Hordes of the UnderDark and Shadow of UnderTide as well as Kingmaker a collection of Premium Modules, (namely Kingmaker, ShadowGuard and Witch's Wake).

Note that the Premium Modules collection is not complete. Three are missing: Infinite Dungeons, Pirates of the Sword Coast, and Wyvern Crown of Cormyr. They are probably missing because they came with DRM that required ...always OnLine authentication (they have been pushing this for years!) - and EA took the servers down once they had been hacked at least once. Still, one would expect, after almost a decade, that the missing modules could be included in a DRM-free version. Disappointing.

NWN II SAGA: This collection contains the original NWN2 game together with its two expansions, Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir as well as its adventure Pack, Mysteries of Westgate (previously only available via digital download).

NWN2 was initially released with a number of problems, the camera being one of the most annoying, and it was not until the release of the Storm of Zehir that most of them were addressed.

These are all great games and, even if they series did not quite meet the expectations, I would recommend this Collection to any gamer. Completionists, however, should keep in mind that the collection is almost complete.

The Heir That Lost The Kingdom

The original Dragon Age: Origins was a true masterpiece that marked gaming history forever. It was an epic cRPG that not only absorbed you into a world of scheming nobles, romantic witches and invading darkspawn but it was also an exercise in morality choices and balancing the clashing personalities of your companions. Following in its success, everyone and their grandmother is waiting to play the sequel (for some reason, the grandmother usually opts for a handsome rogue character). However, the question is this: does the sequel prove worthy of the original?

Well, like an embellished Varric's tale, Dragon Age II seems to be a mix of good-news and bad-news.

LEVELING UP THAT MAKES SENSE

In most cRPGs, leveling up involves adding points to strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, charisma, what have you - which, in turn, have an effect on health points, dialogue options, defending ability, damage dealt and so on. By reading the manual you know what affects what, however, in most games, you cannot readily see those effects as you level up. Not so with  Dragon Age II. Every point added to an attribute will increase the derived statistics on the same screen.Seasoned RPGers may not need it but younger players will find this quite helpful.

COME FOR THE LOOT. STAY FOR THE STORY

Your hero, Hawk, lives during the times of the last blight, fleeing Lothering as it is burned to the ground. Your decade-long story is narrated by Varric Tethras, a companion of yours. How the story will twist and turn is supposed to be dependent on your actions and choices. The story will absorb you the first time around and it may even impress you with its bifurcation points. Sadly, though, it makes little difference in the end. It feels like you are told a story in which you are allowed to finish a number of phrases. 

THE FREE MARCHES COULD LOOK BEAUTIFUL

In a nutshell: you are never actually playing the promo CGI video but the graphics are beautiful.

The armor and clothes could use some more work in depth and texturing but the environments, the warrior moves and the spells look spectacular (keep in mind that said moves and spells will also start to look familiar after a while, especially since they look much more impressive than the actual damage they inflict - and have to be repeated again and again in every battle).

What I truly missed though was the isometric tactics perspective! The camera does zoom in and out and it pans around but it is no longer possible to get a bird's eye view of the battlefield and plan your attacks accordingly. And this was not the only thing I found missing.

FEWER OPTIONS ARE HARDLY EVER AN IMPROVEMENT IN AN RPG

In Dragon Age: Origins I favored a dual-wielding warrior, building up both strength and dexterity, equipping him with both Maric's blade and Starfag and giving him all the cool moves of double-yielding. Well, although Dragon Age II is hardly short in cool moves, it offers less specialization options in order to make warriors and rogues visibly distinct on the battlefield - hence a warrior in DA2 cannot dual-wield.

Do you find being human in a fantasy game trivial and prefer to play the role of an elf or a dwarf? Sorry, Flemeth did not see that in your cards: EA decreed you can only play a human in DA2 (and I am laying the blame on EA simply because something tells me it was a cost-cutting decision).

Personal preferences aside, the number of abilities and skills has also decreased - and some, like coercion, I outright missed.

WHAT'S NEXT, RPGs WITH EMOTICONS OVER THE NPCs' HEADS?

What I also missed was real dialogue options. If, like me, you found DA:O laconic, you will sure find Dragon Age II almost, well,...illiterate. Sure, your hero now has a voice but did the dialogue options have to consist of such short summary-phrases that give you only the gist of what is to be said? And why did those options have to be presented on a (Mass Effect!?) dialogue wheel with...visual hints on the attitude of the responses available? More often than not, you end up saying a completely different thing than what you intended...

Give some credit to your customers BioWare: we can read!

WHEN WAS I BEAMED ONTO THE BRIDGE OF NORMANDY?

This is the first thing that hits you actually. Playing, and enjoying, a fantasy cRPG requires immersion - and the graphical interface plays an essential role in this. It was not by mistake that Baldur's Gate had menus designed as if chiseled in stone, whereas Icewind Dale's were as if carved out of dark wood. The interface sets the mood of the game. Now, can someone please explain to me what are ...SciFi (again, read Mass Effect) menus doing in a medieval fantasy game?

Not only does one expect to find himself in a spaceship whenever the skills-tree or inventory menu is closed, but the in-game information is now displayed in smaller portraits with horizontal bars for health-&-stamina/mana. The portraits have moved from the upper to the lower left side of the screen; however, if opening up the screen for gameplay was the aim, well, they now seem to take up more space than before. Not to mention that they are harder to see.

WHAT GAME AM I PLAYING AGAIN?

Watch a gameplay video of Dungeon Siege III and Diablo III and try to answer this: can you really tell a difference in the gameplay? Sure, their stories and graphical styles are bound to be somewhat different but action games, hack&slashers and RPGs seem to have merged into a single hybrid-genre of quick cinematic moves, looting, bartering, re-equipping and leveling. And Dragon Age II did not escape this.

Whereas Dragon Age: Origins had lots and lots of character, its sequel appears to have clearly favored style. I am sure it tested better on the teenage (console-seasoned) target groups - but I am also sure that said target groups did not include any RPG purists.

(ALMOST) REASONABLE DRM ADDS EXTRA POINT TO FEALTY

EA dropped the ball with the recently released and over-DRMed Dragon Age: Origins (Ultimate edition) so, hopefully, they learned a valuable lesson. Going the draconian way of UBIOSFT & 2K GAMES only manages to shoot your own sales on the foot. Surprisingly, Dragon Age II, although not perfect, sports a reasonable DRM scheme.

The game requires initial activation and it will re-authenticate every time it is run and it has access to internet connection - but it will not require to do so in order to run. In other words, once activated at installation you can block its internet access and it will run fine. Moreover, it contains neither disc-checks nor any form of SecuROM - at least not according to the official EA/BioWare announcements. Let's only hope this customer-friendl(ier) trend holds when the DLCs start rolling out...

Dragon Age II is a good-looking game that relies more on its stylish hacking&slashing than any uniqueness of character and on the appeal of giving the impression of forging a personal story rather than following a deeper preset one. Because of how much I had enjoyed the series overall, I was very eager to like this game. However, as I progressed I realized that I could not honestly recommend it to anyone.Without any hesitation, I would choose the original game over the sequel. 

Nevertheless, Dragon Age II is still a game fans of the series would want to experience at least once. It is just that, after the last blade has been swung and the last spell cast, there is very little that stays with you.

Fighting More Bugs Than Darkspawn

I recently completed yet another run in the Dragon Age Universe and I realized that I had never reviewed this expansion by itself. Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening certainly deserves its own review. Even if for the wrong reasons.

ONLY THE DARKSPAWN HOLD THE STORY TOGETHER

You can either start with a fresh character or import your hero from Dragon Age: Origins (for issues with this, please read on). The problem is that of all the characters from the the original game only...Oghren is available as a companion, you are roaming a completely different map and the story feels like an afterthought. The expansion takes place in a completely different map and the red thread that holds the story together, quite ironically, are the ...darkspawn.

The original game had a solid story with twists and turns and interesting characters. Don't get me wrong, I was eager to experience more Dragon Age too, however, neither the story nor the companions meet the high standards of the original game. I mean, you get an apostate mage, the rogue son of your father's murderer, a warrior spirit incarnated into the wrong body, a murderous elf who is constantly angry (I am guessing extra chromosomes), a dwarf with a death-wish - and Oghren.

CONTINUITY ISSUES

As mentioned above, you can import your character from the original Dragon Age. Disappointingly, this does not include any DLC items(?!). So, say goodbye to your Starfang sword and beautiful Warden Commander armor set among other things. You will get even more powerful equipment in the expansion (although I still think the Sentinel armor set makes my hero look like Darth Vader!).

My advice: do a few test-runs to see what is or not imported and then sell everything you cannot bring into the expansion. You will need the money. Trust me.

BUGS. BUGS. AND MORE BUGS

Armor sets that do not complete because crates do not spawn or spawn empty. Equipment that is downgraded if left in your personal storage trunk. And you better enter the Silverite Mines...naked because most often than not all of your Hero's equipment will disappear - forever. And, no, neither the Ultimate edition nor the latest patch fixed most of these bugs. Save often (new saves, not quick ones) to avoid the grief of having to start over.

GRANDMASTER RUNE OF ANNOYANCE

Runes gain two extra levels, Masterpiece and Paragon and, besides weapons, they can now be slotted into armor as well. There is also a new skill, Runecrafting, to go with this. However, either the required ingredients are too rare or you have to decide to strip your weapons in order to augment your armor. I ended up slotting only the runes I looted and kept everything I brought from the original game.

Come to think of it, by importing a level-25 warrior (with a well-stocked...potion-cellar) I rarely had to craft any potions either.

NEW SKILLS & TALENTS

Almost every talent group gets a new tier of talents. So do Specializations and Skills. The talents are the most important as they offer new spells or warrior and rogue attacks and defenses. There seem to be more Tactics slots as well, a good idea, to accommodate the increased number of talents.

Most of the talents are well thought, useful in battle and beautifully realized on screen.

The original Dragon Age: Origins was a masterpiece of a game so if you played and enjoyed it I know you just have to play the expansion as well. However, if you don't, you are not missing much.

Keep your expectations low in order to enjoy the extra leg of the ride and to avoid being disappointed.

The Return To The Age Of The Classics

First things first: in the past I have chastised EA a number of times for its release of cookie-cutter games, crippled with atrocious DRM schemes. So, in all fairness, I now have to say this: Dragon Age: Origins is a Gamer's Dream! It is an excellent game - and it comes free of any DRM madness (well, try to avoid Origin).

This is one of those games that are easy to control, a joy to roam through and fun to play at no end.

I am a huge cRPG fan and cannot remember such a great companion/squad cRPG ever since the Baldur's Gate Saga. And to tell you the truth, this is the game I was dreaming of being able to play one day while playing BG (yeah, by now we all know that NeverWinter Nights was too late in deliviering).

There are about a dozen gender/race/class/background choices and a great many combinations in forming your party. The armor and the weapons are exceptionally made and everything shows on your characters. And the graphics are truly beautiful! You have to see the rendering of flames to believe them.

Nevertheless, what really stands out is the gameplay. Every battle is a puzzle to be solved, pausing ever so often to reallocate enemies to the best suited party members (a feature I loved in BG!). Of course one can always turn off the autopause feature and let the AI take over the rest of your party and turn the game into an hack&slash action RPG (not exactly my cup of tea but, hey, it's still nice to know it's there).

Finally, this is a game made just like the classics in many ways, including duration. I am now playing the game for over 20 hours and I feel that I barely scraped the surface! Dragon Age: Origins one satisfying RPG!

My only gripe is this: I did not appreciate such short dialogue options. Most fit a single line and more often than not they consist of a couple of words. I like my RPGs to be wordy and challenging to my verbal imagination as well - and I want my characters to participate in the humor, not just provoke it or react to it. Remember the long dialogue options in BG? Well, expect to find Dragon Age: Origins much more laconic. I guess 10 years of fast-paced FPS and blitzkrieging RTS games do take their toll...

The blood sprays, the swords clang and the spells explode. The animations are beautifully made and add a lot to both enjoyment and immersion. There is a verse in Homer's Iliad I love: "the warrior fell and his armor echoed around him" - and I was reminded of it many a times throughout the game.

This game will stay with you. Do not miss on it.

Gaming Heaven!

Dungeons & Dragons Anthology is the ultimate RPG collection. It contains only masterpieces and (if you move fast) for a great price one can own six of the greatest cRPGs ever released!

All six are isometric Role-Playing games and (with the exception of Temple of Elemental Evil) they are built on variations of the Infinity Engine. They also share similar gameplay mechanics. They are story driven (prepare to do a lot of reading when faced with dialogue options - something I missed in their latest successor, Dragon Age: Origins), and they offer almost an infinite number of customizations for your hero and his companions.

If you are hooked on graphics you should know that these games are no eye-candy anymore. However, we have all played or rather tried to play bad games with impressive graphics and know that a game does not have to offer the latest graphics to grab you, immerse you into its world and offer endless hours of escapist fun.

Because there are tons of reviews on the individual games (links provided), I shall only give brief descriptions of them.

BALDUR's GATE Saga: The Stone years. This includes Baldur's Gate I & Baldur's Gate II, each with its own expansion (this is how it is done, good games are followed by a single solid expansion - not a endless string of DLCs!).

ICEWIND DALE Saga: The Wood years. This includes Icewind Dale with its expansion and Icewind Dale 2. These games are very similar to Baldur's Gate and, although shorter, they are harder and require even more tactical thinking.

TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL: The Metal years. Although this game sports the best graphics of the collection, it will require some patience because it is both built as an older Turn-Based RPG (although one can turn it to real-time) and introduces the first version of the character-action wheel (we would later come to see in the NeverWinter Nights games). It is an acquired taste but it does reward climbing the learning curve.

PLANESCAPE - TORMENT: The Bone Years. I consider this to be the best game of the collection - and I am a huge fan of the BG Saga. Planescape is dark and deep and bittersweet and beautiful. It is intelligent and imaginative and the music will enchant you. For ever. If I were to choose one game to play for the rest of my life, this would be it.

A collection of masterpieces not to be missed.