Alright, so every so often I need to let my inner nerd out of the closet. Baldur's Gate is one of those occurences. (No, not that Dark Alliance crap, I'm talking about the REAL ****ING DEAL.)

Baldur's Gate is a game by Bioware that plays similar to Dragon Age. And by "similar to Dragon Age" I mean EVERY BIOWARE GAME THERE'S EVER BEEN. But I digress.

Baldur's Gate is based off of the Dungeons and Dragons Roleplaying game, to the extent that it even uses the D&D rules. The game is heavily text and story based and can get a bit confusing at times if you don't pay attention, but luckily you have a handy journal in which your character writes down every little detail he hears. However, the journal has practically no interface, so it can be difficult to find "the goblins are south of beregost" in between the useless entries like " Bandits on the road" or "Iron Shortage" or "Clowns burn down orphanage."

Moving on... The combat is a bit lacking. It's pretty much "click this, click that, then fight, then kill, then win. Then cake." (cookie for reference. Though it is paraphrased.) I haven't quite figured out the magic system yet, though it seems to work like this: Go into the magic menu, choose what spells you want, then use them ONCE. Now you have to camp for the night or find an inn, then go into the magic menu and choose what spells you want again. WHY?! Why do I have to do all that?! Can't I just use my spell, nuke the enemy, then move on so I can immediately nuke the next enemy? It doesn't help either when I run out of nuke spells and my frail mage is exposed to the cold steel of the enemy's swords.

Gold seems to be hard to come by. But that's ok, because the many people in Baldur's gate are willing to part with their hard earned money in exchange for a trivial task, like unclogging their gutter, or running an errand, or ramming your blade up yet another troll's ass. Unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact that the best equipment you can buy costs about the same as a summer home in Prague. It doesn't really matter though, as the equipment you find in your travels will greatly outclass the stuff in the shops to the point where you'll eventually have enough gold to buy every health potion in the district and still have enough left over to buy up every room at the inn.

I haven't gotten too far into the story yet, what with all the sidequests, but I've gathered this much so far: You're a young man or woman, about 20 years old, and have been raised by a mage your whole life. When assassins start showing up at your doorstep, your foster father decides it's time to hit the old dusty trail. Then an armored figure shows up and slays your father like he was a snowman in Hell. You escape and meet up with your father's friends and you embark on an epic adventure that I can only assume will lead to you finding out the world is in danger and you just so happen to be the savior of all mankind. No pressure there.

All in all, Baldur's Gate is by no means bad. It's just average. Other's would say differently, but that's just me. So if you're the type of person that's into all the dragon slaying and trivial task fulfilling, go right ahead. Personally, I'll stick to my Assassin's Creed and Castlevania.