The best RPG ever made and quite possibly the best videogame ever made.
The basis of this game is the city of Amn. An absolutely huge city thats split into 6 or 7 districts each one containing numerous buildings to explore, hundreds of quests to undertake and countless characters to interact with. The strength of this game is this City. I've never experienced a location quite like this. Its so well thought out, its an experience not to be missed.
You can make your own character at the start of the game and choose from a plethora of classes. Fighters, barbarians, spellcasters, paladins, clerics, monks, rangers, bards etc... There such a big variety to choose from each with their own strengths and weaknesses which dramatically increase replay value. Playing through with a fighter is vastly different to playing with a spellcaster.
Spellcasting in this game is unique as well. There are 9 levels of spells, 9 being the strongest and 1 being the weakest. At low levels your characters has mainly weak level spells. But as you get to the higher levels you will eventually receive level 9 spells. Your ability to spellcast is determined by slots. You have a maximum of 6 slots in each level and generally as you increase in level you gain a slot in a certain level. Now when you cast a spell you use up one slot in that particular level of spell. Rest your party for 8 hours or more and you refresh every spell slot. So its imperative to enter each battle with a fully rested party so your spellcasters are at maximum power. Resting can't happen whilst enemies are around. Again this all adds to the strategic element of this game, are there loads of enemies in the next room, if so shall i rest now and risk getting attacked by monster during my rest or should i hope for the best and rush that room now. I've never had to think so much in any game but this is not a bad thing, on the contrary i loved every minute of it.
The characters are split into two types. NPC's and PC's. The NPC's are vibrant, varied and each has their own personality and agendas. Play your cards right and you'll receive quests from the more notable NPC's and when completed you'll be richly rewarded. There are over 10 PC's in the game all appearing at various times. These characters are absolutely fantastic. They appear to be living and breathing, each with their own strengths, weaknesses and alignment. You can choose 5 of these PC's to join your party but carefull planning is required, lawful good characters will clash with lawful evil characters. Also you need a mix of character, having 5 melee combat oriented characters is not recomended. Enemies are extremely varied, fighters, spellcasters, bow users. In order to maximize your chance of success you need to consider which characters would be the strongest to fit into your party. I can't go any further than that because the beauty of this game is forming your own party, and replaying this game is very appealing as you can all sorts of different parties.
As i said battles are very varied in this game. Its all about constant stategic thought. You can pause the game whenever you like and this is very advantageous during battles. When you see an enemy you can simply pause the game, give each of your characters an order and unpause the game, its as if the game was never paused. This can lead to all sorts of effective methods: have your spellcaster immediately buff up your fighters, send the fighters straight in to attack, pummel the enemy with a barrage of arrows from your bow users. If you plan it right and know the weaknesses of enemies before hand you can finish most battles with ease, every time you manage this there is a tremedous sense of achievement, not to mention the experience point. The start of the game throws releatively easy enemies at you but as you progress in levels so does the difficulty of enemies. Soon you'll be facing vampires, mind flayers, dragons, golems, spellcasters, beholders and the drow. This game never feels repetitive with all these varied enemies and the numerous quests that can be undertaken.
The leveling up element of this game is truly one of a kind. Never has a game been so addictive to level up to the next level. Finish a quest and you'll receive a massive experience bonus, kill enemies and you'll receive minor experience. Either way its only a matter of time before you level and each level up sees a dramatic increase in ability. Be it 10 hit points for a fighter, an extra spell slot for a spellcaster or excellent fist attacks for monks. This game is so diverse, its very difficult to include everything in this review, its an incredible gaming experience.
The graphics aren't extraordinary but then aren't dreadful. The game engine has seen a massive overhaul since baldurs gate. Resolutions can be increased, textures look a whole lot better and of course character models look great. This game proves single handedly that game do not need fancy graphics to be a great game, get the storyline and gameplay right and you needn't worry about anything else.
The sound is incredible. Walking around the vast city of amn with incredible background music is breath taking. The same can be said for battles, the music is heart pounding. But the best moment is when you encounter a dragon, the music will make your hair stand on end and the fact that you enemy fills the entire screen doesn't ease the tension.
Gameplay is without doubt the best and most balanced i've seen. You have a main quest to complete which is to gather 20,000 gold. Thats all the information you get, how you get that gold is entirely up to you. Quests, selling items or even mugging people. The choice is entirely up to you, there are hundreds of quests to undertake. So whilst the game appears to be linear it infact is tremendously open ended. Finishing every single quest in the game makes it over 100 hours long, not to mention all the different party combinations you can make. Also there is a great mod community on the web and there have been some fantastic mods made, the most notable ones are the romances packs which add depth to party interaction. The replay value of this game is unbelievable if you are prepared to make the effort.
All in all this game cannot be described by mere mortal words. Its truly something else. If have no time for RPGs then i urge you to play this, you will be an RPG fan in less than 30 minutes. Its the best, most complete game i've ever had the satifaction to play and so should you.