Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II

by Interplay

Product Features

• Rid the land of chaos and monsters as you face a new threat to the legendary city of Baldur's Gate
• Five new characters with unique powers and abilities -- they'll accompany you through 40 levels of thrilling action, spread over 4 acts
• Master new skills, weapons and magic spells -- all-new spell effects and more detailed environments will bring the combat to life
• New item creation system lets players create their own unique magical weapons
• Discover hidden areas, secret characters, and hundreds of new items -- from magic potions to magic wands

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00009MVJ7
• Item Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: January 20, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,982 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #20 in Video Games > PlayStation 2 > Role-Playing

Product Description

Platform: PlayStation2

Amazon.com Review

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance took co-operative action role-playing to new heights on the Playstation 2 console. Alone, or with a friend, you could tackle giant rats, undead monsters, dark elves, and even a white dragon, as you uncovered a plot against the good city of Baldur's Gate. But the ending indicated there was more adventure to come. Fans were worried that the sequel wouldn't live up to original's promise when the original design team jumped ship to work on Sony's Champions of Norrath: Realms of EverQuest. They need not have worried; Dark Alliance 2 is a worthy successor, retaining the weapons, monsters, Dungeons and Dragons action and rules, sharp graphics, responsive controls, and high adventure of its predecessor.

The plot is a bit darker this time, but you're given a wider range of character classes to help face the elevated threats. There's the mighty barbarian, a dwarf rogue, a cleric, the monk (a martial artist), and a necromancer. The quest is huge and there are character-class specific side quests you can embark on--an extra incentive to play again as a different character. The level design tends to be a little too maze-like, and there's lots of boring backtracking, but the annoying jumping puzzles from the first game are gone.

The biggest problem with Dark Alliance 2 is that it doesn't measure up to the competition. It's a 2-player game, while Dungeons & Dragons Heroes (on the Xbox) and Champions of Norrath (on the PS2 and Xbox) allow four-player play. Then again if you plan to play solo, or with a single friend, that shouldn't keep you from coming to the city of Baldur's Gate's aid once again. --Andrew Bub

Product Description

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II is a return to the addictive hack-and-slash gaming in the world of the Forgotten Realms! Two-player cooperative mode lets both players play on a full screen

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good, but with some reservations..., August 24, 2004

By 

Lissa "starcrossedlady" (Long Beach, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 (Video Game)

I adored Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, so when the sequel came out, we immediately snatched it up and raced home to see how much better they made the game.

While I wouldn't rate it better then the first one, there are some big positives that I'll share first. One of them is the ability to tweak armor and weapons, customizing them to do different things and help out in various ways. You may still find awesome treasure on your adventures, but with this feature, you don't have to rely on pure chance anymore! A two-player game is advantageous for this feature, since you can use either the dwarf or the necromancer to drive the price down on the item creation (otherwise, you are somewhat limited with the amount of gold you have).

You get more characters that you get to play with-- who all have unique abilities and feats. My fiance and I play together usually; and we tend to use fighter and spellcaster combinations. It seems to work well for us. For each character, there is a special quest that they must go on-- which helps keep the main story fresh as you go on the specialized side quests. After completing each quest, you get some nice abilities added into your list. While some might feel that it makes the playing a little confusing, we found it gave us some options to go on, as well as some nice gains in XP as opposed to following one thread.

Now for the bad: Unfortunately, the main arc of the story felt like a retread from the first. Oh look! Spiders! Ho hum.... A maze we have to work through! The side quests for the individual characters did help, but it wasn't enough to change the whole. The three characters from the first game are there, but there's very limited interaction with them.

But on the whole, this was a very enjoyable game, and we liked to play the different characters. The graphics are like the first-- superb and much better then a good portion of RPGs out. So I would recommend this to any fantasy RPG player who has a Playstation 2. Or an XBox. Or any type of equipment to play this game! Have fun, and remember: Rune stones are your friend!

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now this is a Sequel!!!, February 13, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 (Video Game)

Clearly, Black Isle coded this puppy for the fans of BGDA1. There are hundreds of subtle hardcore additions to this sequel. Gameplay has been extended to an average of 14 hours per character getting your characters to level 27. Each character can reach level 40(ie play through game twice on harder difficulty levels) to maximize feats. Any Diablo-style player can easily squeeze 100+ hours out of this game by maxing all your characters stats, feats, weapons, and amour. They added the left-trigger mapping option. This allows you to map 4 feats to your face buttons like Xbox's D&D heroes. Each of the 5 main character classes have hidden quests that allow them to level an extra 3 levels and unlock hidden feats. Gameplay even with 2-player coop is a blazing 60fps without a single drop. You can switch between 2 melee & 1 ranged weapon on the fly. Their is a 2x zoom option for single player. There are now 2 hidden characters from RA Salvatore's Forgotton Realms novels. These include the Drow-elf Drizzt Do'Urden and his assassin arch-nemesis. Each of these characters start at level 16 max at level 40(giving you at least 2 plays through the game with each). Multiplayer options are killer(like BGDA1). You can import or delete characters in the middle of any game. So if your friend leaves...delete his character out of your 2-player game and keep playing single player. There are now 80 levels instead of 40. Usually you have 3 paths to choose from instead of the old linear level-by-level design. There in an overworld map that provides optional side-quests(7 side quests). Item creation system is like that found in Diablo2. This gives you 10,000 possibilities for armour and weapons, thus eliminating the #1 problem with the original game...no new items to discover with each successive play. Each character class plays completely different. Think Diablo2 vs Diablo. Baldurs Gate DA 2 WILL OWN YOU!!!!!

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great to play with two people!, February 23, 2006

By 

Heather A. Teysko "heatherteyskodotcom" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 (Video Game)

My boyfriend and I played Gauntlet and the first Baldur's Gate, and we noticed a difference with this one right away. I like the story behind it, and the plot twists (near the end there's a twist that I never expected), but The Boyfriend doesn't so much get into the plot. I always get upset if he plays without me for a while because I miss out on what's going on. He, on the other hand, says "the point is to kill orcs - the plot doesn't matter...). So I was happy with this one because it had a great plot.

I liked the referencing to the first one - there was a job cleaning the sewers, which I thought was cute - the sewers were a mess because of the first adventurers who came through and killed all the rats. I also noticed that the music was the same in that job as it was in the first Baldur's Gate when we were in the sewers.

The music is great - all of these Baldur's Gate and Norrath games have such stunning soundtracks. I could have left it on in the background just to listen.

I liked the fact that we could share money in this game - in the first we couldn't, and I had more charisma (just like in real life!!) so he would drop things for me to sell, and I'd buy things for him because we got better prices. But with being able to share money it didn't make so much of a difference.

I loved the workshop. I made some amazing weapons - it was a lot of fun to think about what sorts of stones you wanted to add.

I also liked that your home stayed in Baldur's Gate the whole time, so you always had the same shop guy.

It took us about a month to finish the game, and I thought that was just about the right amount of time. I'm glad we had two people, though - I think it would have been a lot harder, especially at the end, with only one person.

Great game, gorgeous graphics, awesome music - what more can you ask for?

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