August 28th, 2002, 02:11 PM
Icewind Dale hit the role-playing scene of 2000 at what turned out to be exactly the wrong moment. Sandwiched uncomfortably between quick-click blast-em-up Diablo II, and D&D stablemate Baldur’s Gate II, it sank into restless obscurity while the hordes of players enjoyed games that outsold, and frankly, out-played it. The situation was somewhat redressed by the release of a too-short expansion and downloadable free add-on, but still, you can’t help feeling that the Icewind Dale franchise still has something to add to the gaming world. It’s time to say hello to the culmination of that potential -- Icewind Dale II is every bit as good as you’d hope.
Before we begin, you’d better understand that down in the Games Domain dungeon, we’ve been playing a lot of Neverwinter Nights. A LOT of it. That’s a great role-playing game, based on the 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, which is frankly gorgeous to look at. Yummy. Spot the differences - we boot up Icewind Dale II, a role-playing game based on the 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, and it felt like we'd been jabbed in the eyeballs. What was wrong with us? Icewind Dale looked good! Didn't it? What about the Baldur's Gate series? Blinded by the pretty pretty, it was time to shape up. The fact is, after a few hours of play, sensibility returned, and it dawns on us that, you know, the Infinity Engine may well be ageing, but damn sister, it's ageing well.
2D gaming has been fiercely underrated by the gaming populace at large, and terrifyingly, we were sucked into the maw of popular opinion. When it comes down to it, the 2D graphics scene still has a lot to offer. It helps that Black Isle clearly has some obscenely talented artists on the team, and if the stunning backdrops and scenery don't draw you in, the luscious character portraits and general spiffiness of the graphical quality will. In fact, the only complaint with the graphics is that thanks to the isometric nature of the view, close-packed combat can get cruelly confusing. Picking out your guys, and the corresponding enemy to whack is a task in itself. At least the interface has been improved, with the space-hogging sidebars dropped altogether for a subtler bottom menu, and the whole game is available in resolutions of 1024x768 and upwards, a very welcome change.
The gameplay remains similar to the original, with its mix of quests, exploration, occasional puzzle-solving, and pause-heavy strategic combat. Your party of up to six players begins a wimpy level one, poorly equipped (sticks all round) and inexperienced. The game heralds the climb up the levels to godlike status, with the accompanying mess of skills and abilities. You can either take one of the ready-rolled character parties provided, or (and hell, you'd be mad not to have fun with it) create your own. A passing familiarity with traditional role-playing character sheets is required, and knowledge of D&D is definitely a bonus, as you sort through skills, stats, character classes, and the newly added feats for the 3rd edition ruleset.
There's no 'recommended' button here for the less-experienced, so beware dangerous choices. There's a pleasantly increased variety on Icewind Dale's choices, with new classes, races and sub-races, from half-orc to tiefling. Thankfully, early mistakes can be rectified through the levelling process -- as normal, assignation of skills and statistics continues all the way through the game. We bizarrely and utterly failed to recruit a rogue class at the beginning of the game, forcing us to multi-class a fighter into rogue skills. It provided a more rounded character with an interesting background, but did reduce his combat effectiveness for a while.
What's superb is that even if you're not inclined to role-play, the game practically forces you into it. Responses to NPC inquiries are handled through the usual selection of choices, generally of a friendly, neutral and hostile nature. But your character's alignment and class also play a role. We chose the monk to lead our party for a while (he was handsome and charming, not based on anyone in, ahem, particular), and the blasted lunatic kept refusing quest rewards since helping people was reward enough. Honestly! At another point, talking to an NPC with a particular character proved the key to a puzzle, since that particular race (deep gnomes) had a familiarity with the goblin language, and could translate a cryptic message.
The story is compelling, with goblin attacks on the port town of Targos heralding the beginning of something altogether more sinister (don't they always?). The survival of the Ten Towns is at stake as the greatest threat the Spine of the World has ever faced comes to bear. Handy you came along really, isn't it? The story is set about a generation after the events of Icewind Dale (if you're not familiar with said events, you can catch up thanks to handy books and scrolls littered in libraries throughout), but still before the birth of Drizzt -- the hero of the original Icewind Dale books. As the story progresses, you adventure through a variety of landscapes, again increased on the original's choice.
While the visuals take a little getting used to in this largely polygon-driven age (shame, shame on us), you'd be a fool or a lunatic to fault the audio. The soundtrack is both magnificent and appropriate, tailored carefully to the different sections of the game. Even the voices failed to grate on our tender ears, a marvel that took us entirely by surprise. It's not hard to get involved in the story when it's told so well, drawing you in slowly and unsuspectingly through the early stages until you can't help but want to know more.
If any criticism can be found with Icewind Dale II, it's that it may be more than a little inaccessible to the non-"hardcore" role-player. The 3rd edition ruleset is a ton easier to understand than its predecessor (did anyone ever really understand THAC0?), but there's still a lot of data to sort through, and the range of skills, abilities, spells and items can get mind-boggling even a little way into the game. The story does quite a bit of work towards making up for that difficulty, but given how quickly you're thrown into really quite complex combat situations, players new to this style of game may well find themselves reloading multiple times to find a solution.
Once you're into it though, there's plenty of reward to be had. The game does veer a little towards the hordes of difficult enemies the original was plagued by, with some sections feeling a bit more like a slog than an adventure. But with more hours of gameplay than the original and its expansion put together, there's more than enough to keep anyone going here for quite some time. As a last hurrah for the Infinity Engine, lesser RPGs should take heed and follow.
Icewind Dale hit the role-playing scene of 2000 at what turned out to be exactly the wrong moment. Sandwiched uncomfortably between quick-click blast-em-up Diablo II, and D&D stablemate Baldur’s Gate II, it sank into restless obscurity while the hordes of players enjoyed games that outsold, and frankly, out-played it. The situation was somewhat redressed by the release of a too-short expansion and downloadable free add-on, but still, you can’t help feeling that the Icewind Dale franchise still has something to add to the gaming world. It’s time to say hello to the culmination of that potential -- Icewind Dale II is every bit as good as you’d hope.
Before we begin, you’d better understand that down in the Games Domain dungeon, we’ve been playing a lot of Neverwinter Nights. A LOT of it. That’s a great role-playing game, based on the 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, which is frankly gorgeous to look at. Yummy. Spot the differences - we boot up Icewind Dale II, a role-playing game based on the 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, and it felt like we'd been jabbed in the eyeballs. What was wrong with us? Icewind Dale looked good! Didn't it? What about the Baldur's Gate series? Blinded by the pretty pretty, it was time to shape up. The fact is, after a few hours of play, sensibility returned, and it dawns on us that, you know, the Infinity Engine may well be ageing, but damn sister, it's ageing well.
2D gaming has been fiercely underrated by the gaming populace at large, and terrifyingly, we were sucked into the maw of popular opinion. When it comes down to it, the 2D graphics scene still has a lot to offer. It helps that Black Isle clearly has some obscenely talented artists on the team, and if the stunning backdrops and scenery don't draw you in, the luscious character portraits and general spiffiness of the graphical quality will. In fact, the only complaint with the graphics is that thanks to the isometric nature of the view, close-packed combat can get cruelly confusing. Picking out your guys, and the corresponding enemy to whack is a task in itself. At least the interface has been improved, with the space-hogging sidebars dropped altogether for a subtler bottom menu, and the whole game is available in resolutions of 1024x768 and upwards, a very welcome change.
The gameplay remains similar to the original, with its mix of quests, exploration, occasional puzzle-solving, and pause-heavy strategic combat. Your party of up to six players begins a wimpy level one, poorly equipped (sticks all round) and inexperienced. The game heralds the climb up the levels to godlike status, with the accompanying mess of skills and abilities. You can either take one of the ready-rolled character parties provided, or (and hell, you'd be mad not to have fun with it) create your own. A passing familiarity with traditional role-playing character sheets is required, and knowledge of D&D is definitely a bonus, as you sort through skills, stats, character classes, and the newly added feats for the 3rd edition ruleset.
There's no 'recommended' button here for the less-experienced, so beware dangerous choices. There's a pleasantly increased variety on Icewind Dale's choices, with new classes, races and sub-races, from half-orc to tiefling. Thankfully, early mistakes can be rectified through the levelling process -- as normal, assignation of skills and statistics continues all the way through the game. We bizarrely and utterly failed to recruit a rogue class at the beginning of the game, forcing us to multi-class a fighter into rogue skills. It provided a more rounded character with an interesting background, but did reduce his combat effectiveness for a while.
What's superb is that even if you're not inclined to role-play, the game practically forces you into it. Responses to NPC inquiries are handled through the usual selection of choices, generally of a friendly, neutral and hostile nature. But your character's alignment and class also play a role. We chose the monk to lead our party for a while (he was handsome and charming, not based on anyone in, ahem, particular), and the blasted lunatic kept refusing quest rewards since helping people was reward enough. Honestly! At another point, talking to an NPC with a particular character proved the key to a puzzle, since that particular race (deep gnomes) had a familiarity with the goblin language, and could translate a cryptic message.
The story is compelling, with goblin attacks on the port town of Targos heralding the beginning of something altogether more sinister (don't they always?). The survival of the Ten Towns is at stake as the greatest threat the Spine of the World has ever faced comes to bear. Handy you came along really, isn't it? The story is set about a generation after the events of Icewind Dale (if you're not familiar with said events, you can catch up thanks to handy books and scrolls littered in libraries throughout), but still before the birth of Drizzt -- the hero of the original Icewind Dale books. As the story progresses, you adventure through a variety of landscapes, again increased on the original's choice.
While the visuals take a little getting used to in this largely polygon-driven age (shame, shame on us), you'd be a fool or a lunatic to fault the audio. The soundtrack is both magnificent and appropriate, tailored carefully to the different sections of the game. Even the voices failed to grate on our tender ears, a marvel that took us entirely by surprise. It's not hard to get involved in the story when it's told so well, drawing you in slowly and unsuspectingly through the early stages until you can't help but want to know more.
If any criticism can be found with Icewind Dale II, it's that it may be more than a little inaccessible to the non-"hardcore" role-player. The 3rd edition ruleset is a ton easier to understand than its predecessor (did anyone ever really understand THAC0?), but there's still a lot of data to sort through, and the range of skills, abilities, spells and items can get mind-boggling even a little way into the game. The story does quite a bit of work towards making up for that difficulty, but given how quickly you're thrown into really quite complex combat situations, players new to this style of game may well find themselves reloading multiple times to find a solution.
Once you're into it though, there's plenty of reward to be had. The game does veer a little towards the hordes of difficult enemies the original was plagued by, with some sections feeling a bit more like a slog than an adventure. But with more hours of gameplay than the original and its expansion put together, there's more than enough to keep anyone going here for quite some time. As a last hurrah for the Infinity Engine, lesser RPGs should take heed and follow.
