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Baldur's Gate Review
The last time a game of many discs arrived in the office, it was greeted with sheer horror. When we managed to coax Mark out from under his desk, he declared the six art-packed discs of Ring to be 'arse'. With only one less disc, Baldur’s Gate’s arrival prompted flinches all round: what could warrant over 3Gb of disc space? How big can this damn thing be?
I was also worried by the apparent beardiness of the whole thing. Based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons system, you say? Party-based goblin-bashing adventuring? At first glance, it’s about as hirsute as role-playing gets. But don’t let all that fool you; because behind the bristling chin-growth lurks a sleek, polished, involving and enormous game. But no goblins, in fact - that’s Tolkien, mate.
AD&D. A simple acronym that conjures up dark thoughts of a youth misspent as Derek The Destroyer. Hit points. Armour class. Such things are best confined to the table-top, a fact which Bioware have acknowledged. Most of the mechanics, therefore, are hidden behind the game’s friendly exterior; which can only be a good thing, as Baldur’s Gate is very complicated indeed.
Set in the Forgotten Realms world, which will be familiar to some as the setting of many TSR games and books, Baldur’s Gate involves you in a plot of intrigue, politics, shady dealing and discovery. Oh, and good old combat, too. You create a main character, who is central to the plot - you lose if he/she dies. Hours can be spent here, as you can customise not only the alignment, class, gender and so on but also the appearance and even voice files of your character.
You can also recruit up to five other party members, from more than a dozen characters who are interspersed all over the game world. This aspect is central to your progression, rather than an amusing diversion (as with Fallout); as you won’t get anywhere without a band of loyal comrades. They’re fun, too, as they all have distinctive personalities. The class, experience, magic, weapons and abilities systems are all lifted straight from AD&D, and are therefore well-balanced and effective. Magic is not overly powerful, and magical weapons are suitably rare (and valuable); so utilising particularly powerful enchantments is a pleasing break from the norm.
Baldur’s Gate takes all the traditional elements of CRPGs, from the Ultimas, the Bard’s Tale series and even further back. Towns with working inns, taverns, temples and shops are bustling metropolises with scores of people to interact with. The city of Baldur’s Gate itself is enormous – you can spend ages just wandering around, sneaking into people’s houses, talking to random punters and getting the gossip. The main plot, and the scores of sub-quests, are advanced precisely in this way; and relevant bits of information are noted in your journal. Like Fallout, though, the consequences of your actions are not always noted by everyone, and so people will sometimes whine about problems you have already solved.
The control system is a formidable beast, with more keyboard short-cuts than most flight sims. These are all customisable, and allow quick access to the plethora of information available about your party, quest, map, etc. This system is particularly useful during combat, as it allows the skilled player to dispatch orders quickly and efficiently, without over-using the very useful pause feature. During combat (or at any other time, for that matter) you can pause the game to issue orders. In this way, Baldur’s Gate neatly side-steps the real-time versus turn-based issue. Time, on the whole, is managed very well; with day and night cycling appropriately. Game time runs four times faster than real time - while this may seem strange, the accelerated onset of dawn or dusk is very atmospheric. Weather effects, particularly snow, are also excellent, and it is a tribute to the game’s engine that these features sneak in unobtrusively.
Those five CDs, then. I am assured that they contain all the artwork necessary for the very large and unique landscapes that make up the game’s reputed 10,000 screens full. DJ-ing is a thankfully irregular and painless occurrence; only usually necessary when moving between distinct areas. They also contain rather a lot of sound files, from individual NPC voices to the commoners’ stock phrases. Sound in general is handled beautifully; with varying wildlife sounds, footsteps which change according to terrain and a variety of monster sound effects contributing to the immersive nature of the game.
So Baldur’s Gate is good; very good, actually. It could challenge Final Fantasy VII to a scrap outside the inn, but lacks the Japanese epic’s range and imagination. It’s more akin to the venerable Ultimas VII and VIII, but the passage of time has rendered them incomparable. Baldur’s Gate is a tremendous reworking of traditional CRPG themes, which for some may be horribly retrograde, but there’s no denying that it’s a hugely impressive piece of work.