Introduction

Developer: Bioware
Publisher: Interplay
Baldur's Gate 2 official page: http://www.bioware.com/bgate2/
More BG2 Resources
ETA: Fall 2000

A Brief History

It's almost impossible these days to mention a modern CRPG without somehow throwing BioWare and Black Isle Studios into the conversation. They are to RPGs today what SSI and Origin were a decade ago. Fallout and Fallout 2 from BIS were amazingly deep and intricate games with an immense game world and freedom to do whatever you want in them. Your actions always had an effect on the world, as did your character traits. What might be said to you when you had 1 intelligence and a good reputation would be different from 10 intelligence and/or a bad reputation. Baldur's Gate, on the other hand, was an epic start to an epic tale. It might not have been quite as deep as Fallout, but it had a tighter story, an awesome graphics engine and most importantly for many - the AD&D license. A sequel was never in doubt and for the past two years or so, BioWare and Black Isle have been working on just that; Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.

New Character Creation screen

Weapon-specific proficiences

First Impressions

From the moment you do the pre-game setup for BG2, you'll notice the biggest graphical improvement offered, namely, the 800x600 resolution. The difference is spectacular, far more so than we suspected possible. Not only does the game look better like this, but it feels smoother and is easier to play. The extra screen space (over 50% more) makes movement and combat much more fluid with far less clicking and scrolling. To get even more room to play with, you have two more options. You can minimize parts or all of the GUI, and/or you can change to the unofficial and unsupported 1024x768 resolution.

Your captor

Stinky!

Speaking of the GUI, it remains basically the same slick and easy-to-use interface that it was in the original but gains a cosmetic makeover and also a touch more functionality. Journal entries are more informative by default and you can now edit them to add your own notes.

Other than that, at first we didn't notice anything new. Yes there are new NPCs, new art and better graphics, but "is this it?" We were ready to be disappointed by thinking this is going to be just more BG, with nothing new. Then I started another game and took more time in creating my main character.