Icewind Dale

aka: Bingfeng zhi Gu, IWD
Moby ID: 1898
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

In the Northern parts of Faerûn the winter never ends. In this harsh realm of ice only a few tough survivors live, and nowadays even those hardy few find the conditions a tad tougher. A party of adventurers has just arrived at the small fishing town of Easthaven. Its leader Hrothgar organizes an expedition to help a troubled nearby tree-village, Kuldahar. The party joins the expedition, but an ambush by frost giants causes an avalanche, killing everyone but the heroes themselves. Now they must continue Hrothgar's quest and discover the source of the evil that threatens the land.

Icewind Dale is a party-based role-playing game with real-time combat, very similar in visual style and basic gameplay mechanics to Baldur's Gate. The game utilizes the second edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules. As opposed to Baldur's Gate (and similarly to older AD&D RPGs), the player is free to create a party of up to six characters belonging to various races and classes; no characters inhabiting the game world are able to join the party afterwards. Compared to Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment by the same developers, Icewind Dale is more combat-oriented; it has a linear plot advancement and focuses on extensive exploration of hostile areas rather than conversations with characters and quests.

Spellings

  • 冰風之谷 - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 冰风之谷 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

210 People (153 developers, 57 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 47 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 123 ratings with 6 reviews)

Superb RPG - But it lacks the soul of AD&D

The Good
For players that have been around since the first AD&D rpg's, a dream come true is when you actually see what those spells are good for in battle. This game is one of the long lists of that made that happen (finally burning touch has its uses..hehehe).

The real-time combat was excellent, fast and rough (you'll discover later that there are some real-time combat of of future AD&D stink...ehem...like the 3D Pool of Radiance).

The graphics were astounding, although I don't recall there was a very good intro, like Diablo? Then again, who can compare the graphics of Diablo...HA!

The Bad
There was something that I was EXTREMELY disturbed about the game, which is probably the only reason I bothered to review this game anyway.

THE LANGUAGE! My God, I do recall some kind nasty lines (although optional), that some of the characters (your) leader could say, if you chose that. Hey, I know, your characters could be chaotic evil, but this is a GAME, where KIDS play, and this is not something a AD&D game should introduce: Foul Language, its bad for the morals, mate. An -E grade for "Soul" for the creators of this game!

The Bottom Line
Nice, if you don't mind the language...

Windows · by Indra was here (20760) · 2002

Excellent break from the Baldur's Gate series.

The Good
The first thing I noticed about this game was that there is much more fighting and much less talking going on. I thought it might just be part of the beginning of the game but I was wrong, its basically an all-out hack-n-slash fest through the whole game. Its packed with tons of magical weapons, armors and items to aid you in battle, which you almost always seem to be in. It was a nice break from the 2000 page novel that you basically read by the time you finished Baldur's Gate 2. It had a decent story line where it basically left you chasing evil through out Icewind Dale searching for the source of the evil consuming the region. Lots of weird twists and turns, allows you to play an evil character with a fair degree of accuracy. Some choices such as allowing the girl-thief to escape the ice salamander lair with the slaves results in a large amount of EXP but if you side with the salamanders and kill her and the slaves, you can get a ton more EXP. Lots of good choices to keep the replay value high. Many good spells, allows you to advance your mages from 1st to 9th level casting.

The Bad
The fact that it was an all out kill fest meant that there wasn't going to be many towns. Even near the end of the game you found yourself having to wander 8 days back to Kuldahar to buy weapons that were barely good at first level. There is a good weapons dealer near Upper Dorns Deep but you have to walk through many screens to get there, it takes too long. The shops always sell the same thing and eventually become useless except for a place to get rid of junk. I hate the way in Kuldahar (which is basically the only town besides Easthaven) you have to wander from shop to shop because each shop only buys specific items. It becomes a hassle, I started just dropping equipment just to save myself the hassle of trying to sell the junk.

A thief is a must in these games, I can't stand the way that this game doesn't give your thief EXP for disarming traps. Of Course a thief should get EXP for it.

Like all of the Infinity-Engine games from Black Isle, the AI makes your characters border-line retarded. Sometimes they walk in to each other, even obvious paths to a destination cause them to get confused and end up walking a completely longer path. It gets a little better if you find a few boots of speed to separate them a little bit but the AI is still pretty bad. The scripting is a joke, I set my cleric to a Passive-Fighter and my cleric just stood there and casted bless over and over and over. I don't like the scripting. Gold is basically worthless in the game, except you spend so long saving for 1 really expensive item thats not that good anyways. You find pretty much everything that is good in the game. No resolution adjustment either, crappy 640X480 only. I couldn't figure out how to reassign the "SELECT ALL" key which is the Plus key, out of all the keys you could reassign, it won't let you reassign the most important hotkey in my opinion.
The game is fairly short compared to Baldur's Gate 2 but its still long enough though.

The Bottom Line
Definitely worth a try if you like the BG series. A great buy for only about 20 bucks not days too!

Windows · by OlSkool_Gamer (88) · 2004

Ooohh … now I remember this! An adventure gal revisits the RPG genre

The Good
Reading the other reviews here on Moby influenced me to pick this particular game as my first attempt to return to the RPG genre. So, this review of the single-player game is not biased by comparisons to other recent games in its class or genre since I haven’t played any of them … yet!

I haven’t played a “real” role playing game since my old DOS days. Back in the ‘80s, I enjoyed playing AD&Ds during adventure game “dry spells”, usually while waiting for Sierra’s next release. But during the past decade or so, my games of choice have been “adventure” games, thinking that I couldn’t hack it (pardon the pun!) in the role playing genre or that I’d be disappointed because of lack of story. Playing more recent “cross-over” titles like Outcast and Omikron made me braver to try “true” RPGs once more. That said, here’s what this adventure girl discovered …

Icewind Dale has some great features, including:

  • No 3D Video Accelerator required. A really good thing ‘cause I don’t have one.
  • Easy Save and Load. Ample room to type in Saved Game Descriptions; Quick Save and Load hotkeys; Auto Save at predesignated spots.
  • No Disk Swapping. 1 CD is for install only; the other for all gameplay.
  • Well-written, in-depth manual (which I read from cover to cover).
  • Character Creation is intuitive and comprehensive. 9 Races; 18 Classes; Character Import/Export; Attractive Picture choices (and Image Import option); Voice Choices and Biography scripts, etc.
  • Music – Turn up the volume – it’s absolutely wonderful!
  • Voices – The most important NPCs speak out loud. David Ogden Stiers (“Mash”) does a marvelous job as Narrator. Subtitles on or off option.
  • Sound Effects – footsteps, fire crackling, monster roars, bubbling brews
  • Graphics – Atmospheric; enhancements can be adjusted for your system.
  • Maps – self-mapping; An easy travel “World Map”
  • Descriptions of inventory items are very well written and complete. They even tell you what races or classes cannot use a particular piece of equipment.
  • Journal – Written as you play for easy reference.
  • Last but by all means not least – An Actual Story with an engaging plot, interesting conversations and numerous characters.
  • Relearning the Genre (it’s been a long, long time):
    It didn’t take me long to realize just how rusty I was. Two hours into the game and I was still setting up my party! I had forgotten everything about the races and classes, their special abilities as well as limitations. That finally done, I spent the next full day exploring the town of East Haven, where the game starts. (Yes – I sat here in front of this monitor glued to my computer, so engrossed I couldn’t move, all day and half into the night!) I found the overhead view reminiscent of the Ultima games from my past. I had fun poking my Thief into places he shouldn’t be, talking to the townsfolk and filling out the map. I was pleased to discover my Bard was not forgotten with specialized, high class musical objects and NPCs only he could understand. My characters equipped as best I could afford, it was time to see what they were made of.

    Attack!
    My first battle took me several hours and numerous reloads until victory was finally mine. (Whew! And those were little, bitsy goblins!) There are so many choices! Party member order and position, weapons and spell selection, enemy targeting and learning the iconology of the game screen. According to the manual, it’s a mix of both real-time and turn-based combat. Whatever it is, I liked it and got accustomed to the interface pretty quickly. My second conflicts took place inside winding caves full of fearsome giant Orcs. These combat sequences helped me perfect my strategies and I felt triumphant when I emerged from the caves victorious. My confidence high and my appetite sufficiently whetted, I was ready for whatever lie ahead. (Gulp!)

    Onward ho!
    There are so many great spells, scrolls, equipment and magical objects. Somehow or other I must figure out how to spend my money more wisely. At this rate, I’ll never be able to afford the Bardic Horn of Valhalla! Must find more gold … must increase levels … must fight and pilfer … must … must – er, um – I guess I’m hooked. Why have I stayed away so long?

    The Bad
    It would have been nice to have close-up views of NPCs when you meet them, at least the most important ones. When you meet a minor NPC, a member of the town for instance, the majority of them have the same, identical things to say as the previous person you talked to. This could have been varied for more interest and personality.

    While shopping, you can’t switch to and from a character’s inventory screen to see what he/she has already equipped. I found it cumbersome to exit the “buy/sell” screen and then to open the inventory to look at each character’s equipment. I don’t know if this is a common trait of other RPGs.

    The Bottom Line
    Now I remember … This is fun stuff! Since I am so out of practice, I’m sure this will take a long while to finish. Good! Why rush a good thing? The story is leading me along, unfolding a bit at a time, just the way I like it. I’m having a jolly good time combating the various (and numerous) evil meanies, collecting booty and raising my party’s experience levels. I’m glad I picked Icewind Dale for my return to the genre. RPGs .. this adventure girl is back!

    Windows · by Jeanne (75959) · 2011

    [ View all 6 player reviews ]

    Discussion

    Subject By Date
    Icewind Dale + Heart of Winter Edwin Drost (9288) Apr 28, 2017

    Trivia

    Preview version

    In the preview version distributed to gaming magazines the end boss had special dialogue (mostly threats), e.g. "I slaughtered many editors and their families."

    Sales

    Icewind Dale hit the shelves the exact same time as Blizzard's Diablo 2. Despite selling numbers that were below the "Big D", Icewind Dale was a good commercial success.

    Analytics

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    • MobyGames ID: 1898
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    Contributors to this Entry

    Game added by Plix.

    Macintosh added by Kabushi.

    Additional contributors: Xantheous, j. jones, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Zolansilverspear, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Cavalary.

    Game added September 16, 2000. Last modified March 14, 2024.