This is supposed to be a review. I write this grudgingly, however. Each word is put down with spite and resentment. I loathe doing this, and I curse the publisher who has driven me to this end. I will make them all pay. You see, writing about Baldur's Gate is taking precious time from playing Baldur Gate. It seems that I am doomed, in the issue, to give only good reviews. I don't want you to think that I like everything, so I will direct you to my column about LARPers. Typically, I'm the most critical person you will ever meet. I've played many of the AD&D computer games. I've liked many of them, though I can't say much good about them. The interface was clunky, if not painful. The plot was linear, and the story line had no sense of urgency. Hell, you could rest and rememorize spells in the middle of a chase scene. For years, SSI held all of the rights to computerized AD&D games. This changed, just recently, and the folks at Interplay, in the Black Isle division, have been kind enough to put this game together. I am excited by the prospect of the future of AD&D computer gaming. Interplay has been around since it was founded by a software developer in 1983. They have given us many fine games, including best selling blockbusters such as Descent and Fallout. Baldur's Gate is the newest big game from Black Isle, and they will soon release Infinite Worlds, a sequel to MakeItSo's Mordor, and Torment, the first Planescape adventure for the computer. I took all the hype for this current game with a grain of salt. I mean, all the SSI games were playable at best. The only good thing about them was that they were AD&D. I didn't have any of those problems with Baldur's Gate. Combat is fast paced and interesting. NPC's act on their own, charging enemies or firing bows with abandon. People respond to you based on your reputation and charisma. The game has a cohesive and well-planned feel to it. You can follow the plot of the story or just wander the countryside. And man, can you wander! This game takes five, count them, five CD's. It has almost 10,000 screens. Many of them are huge. Baldur's Gate alone is comprised of nine different boards, just to cover the outside. That doesn't include all the houses, shops and buildings. The game begins with you wandering your home, performing some minor fetch and carry quests, basically learning the interface. You are then taken by your foster father and flee the city, where you are attacked on the road. Your foster father is killed and you escape. It is insinuated that he is killed because of you. You then wander the countryside doing quests and fighting bad guys. There is a lot to explore. A lot to accomplish. You can win the game without doing 90% of the side quests. The game just has that kind of scope. The core rules are AD&D. If you know them, you will know how to make the most useful characters. You will also know how combat runs and how to manage your character. if not, then they have documentation. Let's talk about pros and cons. Pros: It's big. I'm thinking about winning it a couple of times, just to see how different characters fare. It's interesting. It's the only game that's ever kept me awake 31 hours straight. I'm getting too old for that sort of thing. There are a lot of different ways to respond to a situation. It's a lot of fun (I can't stress this one enough). NPCs get happy or unhappy based on how good your reputation is. A lawful evil dwarf won't hang around with do-gooders. Combat is this fun, real-time affair, but allows you to pause to give orders (A must since this is more difficult on a computer than it would be in real life.) Cons: Not enough cut scenes. I was looking forward to great cut scenes, moving the plot like Blizzard has done with Starcraft. I've been disappointed. Most of the movies are very pastoral. Isometric perspective. Haven't we played enough Diablo? Couldn't be helped, I suppose. I can't see any hindrance to violating your alignment, though the FAQ insinuates there is one. There are times when you can rest and heal when the whole dungeon should be rallying against you. Specialist Mages aren't forced to memorize spells of their specialties. The experience cap applies even to double or dual classed characters. I liked making multi-classed people in the past, to get the most out of the game. It gets a little boring at the beginning. Work through that. There's no really evil path to take through the game. You can't join the bandits. If they don't want you to be evil, they shouldn't allow the alignment. There's no sequel yet. I can't recommend this game enough. Get it. Play it. Love it. I'm already looking forward to their Planescape game. For more information on Baldur's Gate, consider turning to the web. 1, personally, have gotten a lot of joy from the site The Gate house (http:// www.12ottsland.com/baldur/). Back to Masters of Role Playing #7 Table of Contents Back to Masters of Role Playing List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Chalice Publications. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com