Summary
Technically good, but lacking depth and content
The Good
There are many things to like about "Icewind Dale". First of all, it has great production values. It is nice to play a game that is so finely crafted. You can clearly see this polished product was brought to us by the same guys who created the immortal
Baldur's Gate series and the incomparable
Planescape: Torment. The locations are atmospheric, the spells awesome, the monsters couldn't be cooler, and the music is simply wonderful. Music was one of the things I enjoyed the most in this game - beautiful Nordic melodies à la Edward Grieg... I heard this game won a special music award - well, it definitely deserves it.
The character creation was one of the best parts of the game, it is simply fun to create a whole party, and it was a relief after all those wimps you had to recruit in
Baldur's Gate, those silly dual-class characters... who the hell needs them? If you want a challenge, you also can experiment and create a fancy party in "Icewind Dale", but I had three fighters, a thief, a priest, and a wizard, and my party was stronger than anything I had either in "Baldur's Gate" games or in
Planescape: Torment. You can also give names to your characters, choose their outfits etc.
The action part of the game was quite exciting, if you think
Diablo has cool action, you ain't seen nothing. The action is "Diablo" is boring and repetitive and involves only clicking on monsters until they decide to die; in "Icewind Dale", you fight all the time, but if you don't use strategy in those fights, you are dead meat. The Infinity Engine is simply the best of all, it cleverly combines turn-based and real-time battle styles, without making the battles either boring mouse-clicking orgies like the first type or tedious command-assigning like the second... This is as good as party-based action can get.
There are few dialogues, but those few ones are nicely written, and not without humor. There are a few memorable encounters with characters which are not important for the plot, but who still say interesting or funny things. There are some options to choose in dialogues, you can be extremely nice or extremely rude... unfortunately, it's more a gimmick than a real part of gameplay or plot, like for example in
Fallout.
The interface is simply perfect. Whether using a keyboard or controlling everything with the mouse, you are sure to make your characters perform everything you want in no time at all.
The Bad
"Icewind Dale" pales in comparison to both
Baldur's Gate series and
Planescape: Torment.
If you expect a rich story, plenty of choices, interaction with many NPCs - you won't find any of that here. This is a dungeon crawler and not much more. As such, it is excellent, but for a fan of deep role-playing it is a big disappointment. It reminded me of those very old AD&D-based RPGs from the early nineties. Some say this is closer to the actual spirit of AD&D, but if it so, then I'm afraid I don't like this spirit. The game is all about going to huge dungeons and killing the enemies. There is nothing to do outside of the dungeons - it's as basic as it gets.
The game is very linear, the main quests are always the same and you have very few sub-quests - actually, no sub-quests worth mentioning. The NPCs in towns lack the color and the originality of both "Baldur's Gate" and "Planescape: Torment". They are simple signposts who will provide you with supplies or guide you to the next mission. All you do in the game is get a major quest, go into a dungeon, kill everything, go back, receive the next quest, repeat until the game ends...
The story of "Icewind Dale" is paper-thin. There were a couple of nice plot twists, but the story line itself was not very involving and slow-moving. You can't decide almost anything during the game, you'll have to kill everybody you are supposed to kill, and you can't kill anybody you are not supposed to kill. Compared to games like
Arcanum it's not really an RPG. In a story-driven Japanese-style RPG such a linearity would be no problem, since the story would take the main place. But here, where the story is hardly worth mentioning, it becomes a very serious flaw.
The AD&D can get a bit disturbing. The leveling up is even more automatic than in Japanese RPGs. All you can choose is to raise some abilities for the thief or some weapon skills for the others - and even that not always. There are no skills or abilities to upgrade. Of course, you get THAC0 (To Hit Armor Class 0) bonuses (boni?), but they are hard to appreciate, since the term is rather vague for anyone unfamiliar with AD&D rules. And there are not enough side quests to get more experience, so chances are you'll get stuck on a pretty low level.
The Bottom Line
+ Excellent production values
+ Great battle system
- Nothing to do except dungeon crawling
- The story line is thin
- Too linear
It's a very good dungeon crawler that will challenge your brain more than
Diablo, but don't expect an engrossing story-driven experience as in other
Bioware games. It can be recommended mostly to those who want a classic AD&D experience in modern form, without caring for enhancements such as a good story, non-linear gameplay, or real role-playing.
