Icewind Dale

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!

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:

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!

The Good
The entire reason that I bought this game in the first was that when I looked at the system requirements, I saw that it would not take up my entire hard drive and could be played on my computer rather well, which is more than I can say for most fun-looking RPGs that I find in the computer stores. Such factors led me to severe disappointment with games such as "Ultima IX" and American McGee's "Alice." Also, the fact that it has traditionally gotten good reviews, such as by the cashier who approvingly stated: "Icewind Dale." as I handed him the box. When I got around to actually playing the game, I was impressed with the sharpness and customizability of the graphics (i.e. you characters look different which each different item you equip on them). Also, the combat system, though it may seem rather confusing at first, was to my enjoyment because it is simple enough to get the hand of after a few battles while being complex enough to avoid the monotony of games like "Diablo." The challenge appealed to me as well. This game is a bit more difficult than most other modern RPGs, with enemy ambushes, cleverly placed traps and the like. On a more personal note, I find the game's isometric graphic interface easier to play on.

The Bad
This game, as good as it is, comes with one major catch. It takes FREAKIN' FOREVER to figure out how to play it. It took me nearly 2 hours to read the instruction manual, and starting a new game can take up to an hour as well, which beginners will find themselves doing quite often in order to find a good balance in character creation. Those unfamiliar with Dungeons and Dragons style games (i.e. me) will need a while to get used to it. But hey, if you've got the patience and the time then go for it.

The Bottom Line
While Icewind Dale uses a Dungeons and Dragons style of play, it is not a requirement that you have played D&D before to be able to play Icewind Dale. Players take a highly customizable party (six characters, the player sets everything from gender to occupation to personality) into a cold, icy, northern environment filled with a diverse assortment of locations, characters and enemy creatures. The game will test the player's wit and imagination as well as combat skills, so you won't just go around clicking on stuff (I'm not a big fan of Diablo, in case you can't tell). I definite must-play for the RPG fan.