Baldurs
Gate the name rings in the ears of every PC RPG aficionado, and sounds
vaguely familiar to console RPG fans. It is one of the most well-known
and beloved franchises on the PC, and revered for its beautiful
graphics, engrossing gameplay, adherence to D&D rules, and, most
importantly, its epic scope. Let me reiterate that Baldurs Gate (on
the PC) is a very, very long game that you will play for weeks and
weeks. Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance brings the action to console
systems, starting a year ago with the PlayStation 2 version. Now we see
the release of the Xbox port, identical to the PS2 port except for the
acid green packaging, and all the bitterness that I felt last fall has
come back to me. The problem is that Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance is a
very good game, one that you would like to play for weeks and weeks, but
it is also an inexcusably short game, and the fact that Snow Blind
Studios and Interplay failed to respond to our criticisms last year only
compounds my disappointment.
Before we
launch into the diatribe about what is wrong with the game (and that
really only takes a minute), lets discuss what is right. Baldurs Gate:
Dark Alliance transfers the fun and action RPG good times of its PC
predecessors to the consoles. Controls have been customized for console
controllers and some other small interface changes have been made, and
these efforts pay off in spades. The graphics come through brilliantly,
looking wonderful (and easily as good as the Infinity engine of PC days)
on the PS2 and Xbox. The isometric perspective gives a clear view of the
action, and the programming seems impeccable everything responds in
the right way and there are no glitches or oddities.
BG:DA is
the first game to bring Third Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules
to the consoles, which is welcome. The system allows for an engrossing,
intricate, and textured method of developing your characters. You can
only play three different characters, so the breadth of this Third
Edition implementation is fairly stifled, but these characters get the
job done. You may choose the dwarf fighter, the elven archer, or the
sexy magestress. Each of these characters have utterly predictable
abilities and drawbacks, and each of them play the game fairly
differently. And there are special characters, but we wont mention
those.
Fortunately
for BG:DA, the folks at Snow Blind had the insight to include a
cooperative multiplayer mode, making this game more than a bit unique
(although significantly less unique on the Xbox since the release of
Hunter: The Reckoning). But this multiplayer allows you and a friend to
make use of two of the three characters to maximize your butt-kicking
capabilities. And what a good time playing the co-op mode is if
theres something weve all learned in the past few years of console
evolution, its that co-op modes rule. Working together is more fun in
many situations than blowing each other up.
The
story of BG:DA is not much. It all starts out with you hunting down the
corrupt thieves guild (no, I mean, more corrupt than your
ordinary thieves guild), which leads you in an adventure through the
sewers and grimy underbelly of Baldurs Gate, but soon youll find
yourself fighting your way through snowy wastelands and swamps until you
eventually save the world from impending doom. Along the way youll meet
busty barmaids, dastardly minions, doublecrossing lizard men, and more
standard fantasy RPG fare than you can shake your +2 mace at. The whole
thing is terribly stereotypical.
But the
conventional fare doesnt much matter because gameplay is so much fun.
You control your character in standard form, and the good idea that
BG:DA makes use of is to allow you to easily shuttle through your spells
and items for quick use on the fly. This is an action RPG, which means
you dont have days and days to decide what spell you will use and
where. The fast pace, intuitive and simple controls, and good level
design keep you moving right through the game. That is, until it is
over.
BG:DA
will be beaten in 12 hours on the first play through. Last year, after
three (only three!) major chapters, I was furious to reach the ending.
My character was loaded down with good stuff to trade for even better
stuff, I was just getting into it with my good buddy, Jeff, and its all
over. I seized the opportunity to ask a Snow Blind representative at E3
2002 what happened, and he said they were under the impression the game
was a lot longer because it took their beta testers much longer to beat
it and then he acknowledged that they were logging bugs at the same
time as testing it. Of course it took them longer!
In
BG:DAs defense, there are a couple of things that extend the gameplay a
bit, but no more than an additional 5 or 7 hours. You can play through
the entire game over again, this time with harder monsters. Its fun and
all, and its definitely tougher, but its just a rehash of the same
game, same story, same dungeons its not a new experience and its a
barely satisfying repeat of the first time through. There is also a
gauntlet run where you can play the infamous secret character in a truly
challenging timed dungeon crawl. So thats good. But in the end, if you
spend more than 20 hours playing BG:DA, youre beating a dead horse.
Perhaps
the most despicable aspect of BG:DA on the Xbox is that nobody took the
time to improve the game. What is here is a work of art, a masterpiece
of multiplayer and action RPG gaming, and could easily have been one of
the biggest games of the year. As it is, BG:DA will be relegated to a
niche market of the folks who have already played Morrowind and Hunter
on the Xbox and need another RPG fix. What has already been created in
BG:DA could be extended to double the length of the game its all so
short you dont even have time to be bored with it. It feels like the
rug is pulled out from under you when you hit the ending, and the hints
at a sequel just rub salt in the wound. Snow Blind should have made
amends in the Xbox version, and had they done so they would have been
able to easily achieve the status of a great RPG on a console that has
too few RPGs. However, as it is, BG:DA doesnt come close to dethroning
Morrowind as the king of Xbox RPGs, and I can only caution you again to
rent this before you buy it youll beat it three times in a weekend.