Customer Reviews

Icewind Dale 2

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I have played both Baldur's Gate games, Planescape: Torment, and the Icewind Dale series extensively. While these games all share the Infinity engine, I was never truly absorbed by Torment or the Baldur's Gate games the way I have been with Icewind Dale 1 and 2. All were splendid games, but Icewind Dale offers a feature that sets it victoriously apart from its kin - it allows you to create a PARTY of adventurers, not just a single hero. I joyously spend hours crafting my party before leaping headlong into the game itself, where the fun only continues. Icewind Dale is everything that Diablo is NOT, despite both games' reliance on open battle. Where Diablo is a clickfest to see who drops first, Icewind Dale requires tactics and strategy amidst the chaos (and gives you a pause feature to simulate a kind of turn-based, thought-provoking play style). Despite the action, very little about Icewind Dale II (or Icewind Dale) can be called "dumbed down," save perhaps for the linear nature of the campaign - which I, for one, embrace, as I loathe errand boy quests that seem unimportant to the storytelling. Icewind Dale II is pure gaming goodness in a tasty D&D shell, and anyone who likes the sound of that should not hesitate to play this game... not even for a second.

I honestly hope that people who read these reviews pay more attention to those praising Icewind Dale II than those that in my mind belittle a great game. Icewind Dale II is similar to the other Forgotten Realms games, but it is unique in its own right.

Icewind Dale II seems to have found the balance between the heavily quest-based Baldur's Gate II and the hack-your-way-to-fame Icewind Dale. The new third edition rules make Icewind Dale different from the other games as well, and they add a whole new challenge to the game, making the perfect characters. The vast amount of skills and feats all characters can choose from, not to mention all the new races (Drow, tieflings, deep gnomes, gray dwarves, among many others) and subclasses offered, make characters unique, and each level almost makes a player giddy when they try to decide whether they should give their rogue more hide skill for the ever useful sneak attack or maybe more to pick pocket or open locks for the always fun five-finger discount shopping. The addition of the bluff, diplomacy, and intimidate skills also make for a nice variety in NPC dialogue, and deciding whether you want to use your nice little paladin to go negotiate or an evil dreadmaster of bane to threaten an undead life to your enemies can put a player into a moral dilemma. A player's character class can affect NPC dialogue as well, the most obvious class being a cleric which has something to say whenever you run up against a different order or cult. The joys of threatening to kill half the members of a village of druids with my dreadmaster of bane, raise their corpses as undead, and then laugh as they tear into their surviving friends remains potent in my memory. The creation of characters and a well balanced party might dissuade some from this game and the lack of character interaction is disappointing, but characters are far from stale and part of the fun in my mind.

Although the graphics remain the same as all of the recent Forgotten Realms games, players should still appreciate the beauty of the artwork within the game. The one thing I've seen on most reviews, even ones by people who test games as a job, that remains constant is that the fighting in Icewind Dale II is hard, or even impossible according to some. I've played the game on the normal D&D rules throughout and I understand why people describe it as hard. Sure I've had to reload the game a few times after having a character or two die, but I remember spending a hour or two on the final battle of Baldur's Gate II and reloading on all the other games as well. Then again some reloads were just because I wanted a better-looking battle. The reason people probably complain about Icewind Dale II being too difficult in fighting is because battles need to be planned for once, and yes monsters will spawn behind you and try to surround you, a problem perhaps, realistic definitely. I won't discuss strategy in a review, but I will say it's required in most fights in Icewind Dale II and can make fights quite easy. As the makers said, the game has a feature that varies the difficulty depending on your party's skill, not the skill of the player, so plan your battles carefully or turn down the difficulty if you need (a feature all the recent Forgotten Realms games offer) because you're in for one difficult good time.

The story in Icewind Dale II is not anywhere near the level of Baldur's Gate II, but it was not intended to be. You are not a hero that has the blood of the god of murder in your veins, you're a band of mercenaries out for some coin who just happen to save the North in the process. When Icewind Dale II is looked at by itself rather than a comparison to the other Forgotten Realms games, the story will draw you in and is very well done. The big baddies of the story aren't the devilish Irenicus from Baldur's Gate II who seemed to be pulling at the very core of your character's self, but two outcasts who seek revenge. If they seem to come off as childish and vengeful but immensely powerful, then that is because of the story behind their creation which is quite sad and not for me to tell.

The one complaint I can offer about the game comes from a very common cliché, to the victor go the spoils. I find myself spending anywhere from ten minutes to an hour planning out my spending and selling. Charisma as well as some skills can affect the price of goods or the price which you can sell your goods, and in addition to that, supply and demand plays a role as well, sell all things of one type (a good example being gems) at one time from the same character or prices will go down. Although it's a complaint, it's realistic that a charismatic character could barter better prices especially if trained in that area, and besides, who can complain about coming back to town with sacks bulging with gold and gems, bags full of all sorts of potions, and characters laden with all sorts of magical means of destruction ranging from nondescript weapons of immense power to armors of such a design as to have an effect by themselves. Just remember to buy all the potion bags, scroll cases, and gem bags that you see, and always hold onto bags of holding when they're found.

I still remember the reason I got the original Icewind Dale. I was simply bored out of my mind, disappointed with Diablo II, and looking for more Baldur's Gate while waiting for the sequel to be released. Icewind Dale had a unique flavor that distinguished it from the other Infinity Engine games, and a fast-paced, svelte system that still makes it an eye-opener in this world of 3-D everything games. The soundtrack, also, was arguably the best of any game I've seen.

Icewind Dale II is good enough that I'd call it a worthy successor. Like Baldur's Gate II it carries on in the flavor of the original, but with improvements to increase replayability. These improvements are largely comprised of a change to the 3rd Ed. D&D rules. In this regard, the game does a fair job at approximating them. I would say it's roughly comparable to Neverwinter Nights, though there of course are some major differences since you can control up to 6 characters.

The gameplay is pretty similar to the original, with less Fed-Ex quests and more good old-fashioned slaughter. The plot is still very much linear, but there's many ways you can go about meeting NPC's requests. One of these ways is to simply kill them all and take their stuff (though you might not always want to). There are quite a few new spells, and although the game lacks metamagic feats you can do things like spontaneous casting, domain spells, and wizard school specialization. All the old summoning spells have been upgraded as well, so they are actually useful at higher levels. Lastly, the 'Heart of Fury' mode is embellished with better weapons and items to make chopping down the horde less impossible. Your characters can advance to level 30, up to level 20 in any one class. It doesn't quite follow the epic level rules, but you'll probably be glad for the extra hit dice, since the only way to get that high is HoF mode.

There are many magical weapons and items to find, and a whole ton of new magic ammo. I can't say I used very much of the latter, however, since the sell price is so ridiculously high that I ended up selling it all instead of shooting it. You also have far more quick weapon slots so changing weapons isn't a pain. There are even more NPCs and more dialogue choices than the original IWD, and more places to visit than the original game plus its expansion. I don't doubt there will be an Icewind Dale II expansion coming up, either. The music follows in the flavor of the original score, but it isn't quite as good (a different artist). It's good enough, however, for my tastes. The graphics, of course, are still magnificent. While the character avatars haven't changed at all, it has always been the rendered backgrounds (and perhaps spell effects) that's the real point of interest. No disappointment there.

I'm not normally one to lower a rating solely due to bugs, but I'll have to make an exception here. Icewind Dale is so badly bugged that it really reduces the fun of the game. Some of the bugs are so ridiculously obvious I wonder if Black Isle even did QA on it, or if the delayed release made them rush it to the store shelves. Importing and exporting characters used to be perfectly fine, but now you'll end up with weird things like extra spells, missing levels, altered natural armor class, and a gamut of others. Magic is also bugged crazy, with enemy saving throws incorrectly calculated and spell quirks all over the place. My favorite so far is the Melf's Minute Meteors bug. If you de-equip the meteors you can equip a sword or other weapon, and your attacks remain at 5/round! Who needs fighters now? Savegames are also not nearly safe. I've seen characters change permanently for no particular reason between a save and load.

I should note that most of these bugs aren't game-breaking, especially since you can use the cheat console to get past things. This isn't a very natural way to do it, though, and I hope the patch fixes everything. The original game was also known for bugs, but it wasn't nearly this bad. Though the 3rd Ed. rules are nice, I would have rather they stuck with 2nd Ed. and not had so many bugs.

Overall, Icewind Dale II was a great RPG experience and well worth its weight in good game time. It is fun enough to simply explore the areas and see a great rendition of the region, and battle- ever the heart of the game- is still as challenging and exciting as before. If you're looking for a good RPG, here's something you won't want to miss.

First of all, if you expect or hope for meaningful character interactions, go away. Icewind Dale 2 is hack and slash. True, it's glazed by some nice voice acting, beautiful locales, villains that are satisfying to kill (and even some that you half don't want to kill) -- but in the end, the game is linear, and there is really only one way to complete it. Sure, you can take slightly different conversation paths when you're talking to other characters, but these rarely have any effect other than minor experience point bonuses here or there.

In short, the talking doesn't really matter. What you're out to do in this game, is putting together a party of six people, and going out to kick butt. And butt. And butt. For a very long time to come, the heroes you make will be doing little else but fighting for their very survival.

Being focused on combat does not make a game poor by itself. Heck, chess has no character interaction and is solely simplified combat. Icewind Dale 2 is infinitely more complex in its mechanisms than chess, but it is still done with a professional quality.

IWD2 is the third computer game to implement the 3rd edition version of the 'Dungeons and Dragons' rules -- the first one being Pool of Radiance 2, which did an abysmal job, and the second one was Neverwinter Nights which did a much better job. IWD2, however, beats out both of them. The implementation of the 3e ruleset is not perfect (sneak attacks, attacks of opportunity, things like that are flawed if there at all) but it is the best thing out there at the time of publication. IWD2 contains a wide variety of feats for your characters to choose from, and skills such as Wilderness Lore actually have some use (at least here and there) and interaction skills (Bluff, Intimidate, etc.) can be used to steer conversations down other paths -- although within the confines of the caveats given before, the conversations don't really matter much in the end.

The story is lengthy, but fairly decent -- it keeps you immersed throughout, although there are a few areas that get tedious. But for the most part, the locales and terrains vary enough, and the goals and plots shift enough, to keep you interested. The villains are on the shallow end, as is to be expected from a hack and slash game, but the main villains at least have been given a quasi-plausible motivation that the heroes, given a less strained situation, might even agree with. Kudos for that.

I, personally, can't play through the game more than once, but the game certainly was entertaining all through that first time. I do consider it worth the money I paid, and I can even recoup some of that money by selling the game onwards now that I'm done with seeing the story through. If you like fantasy RPGs, and don't mind a game that is 90% combat and 10% story, then I can warmly recommend Icewind Dale 2.

Despite the fact that Icewind Dale II still brings its aging Infinity engine along for the ride, it fairs considerably better than the flashier (but less satisfying) Neverwinter Nights. When it's all said and done, gameplay is the thing - and Icewind Dale II (like its forebear), delivers the goods in pretty much all the right places.

The Pros:

· The Icewind Dale series doesn't let you create just one character, but six! To me, this is what really sets this game apart from the competition. A dedicated RPGer will spend hours joyously crafting his party of adventurers, leaving no detail unchecked. Personally, I revived my heroes from the original Icewind Dale and continued their saga in the sequel. You can even write biographies for each character! In the end, you'll really care about these folks, and that helps when things get a little tedious.
· Gaining levels is actually fun. Successfully employing 3rd edition D&D rules, the game implements "feats," which give each character an added boost. For example, you can choose the Toughness feat, which raises your character's hit points, or opt for Dodge to avoid incoming blows.
· This game has monsters aplenty. In the end, there are more enemies in this game than you can even keep track of.
· Icewind Dale II actually manages to deliver a pretty decent backstory to accompany all of that combat. Better yet, the dialogue in the game benefits from a writer's touch, and doesn't bore the player to death the way it does most often in Neverwinter Nights. The voice-acting is likewise excellent. It's so good, in fact, you may even begin to care about the characters. How ingenious! To add the icing to the cake, the music and sound effects are far better than the average computer game accompaniments.

The Cons:

· To some, the fairly linear nature of the game may be mildly distressing. Personally, I enjoy the pacing of the game and the fact that you can't get bogged down in sub-quests, but the fact remains that some would rather be playing Morrowind or Deus Ex.
· Icewind Dale II can be merciless at times. The final boss encounter is maddeningly difficult (or "a delightful challnge" if you're in the masochistic camp of gamers), and so are many other fights along the way. And that's on the easy mode!
· There are too many moments within the game where some mini-boss will hurl his men at you and then vanish while you do your dirty work. It begins to get comical after the third of forth evil wizard says, "Men, attack them while I hide elsewhere, only to curse my henchmen's ineptitude later on! Ha ha ha!"

The game's strengths definitely outweigh its weaknesses, and that puts Icewind Dale several rungs about Neverwinter Nights. If you can sacrifice style for substance, this is the game for you.

Final Grade: B+ (or 4 and a half stars on a curve of 5)

I was somewhat pleased with Icewind Dale; due to a few issues I had with the game, I thought myself through with Black Isle Studios, but upon hearing about the release of their sequel Icewind Dale 2, and their implementing 3rd Edition D&D rules I decided to give it another shot.

BIS has modified the Infinity Engine to accomodate the 3E rules, including the Half-Orc and the special new playable races, like Drow, Aasimar and the new Forgotten Realms races, like the Gold Dwarf and the Strongheart Halfling. All standard races and classes are also available including the new Barbarian and Sorcerer, with the return of the Monk (from 1st Edition). Multiclassing is now a BIG breath of fresh air, easier to handle and much more enjoyable, but you are limited in some ways, depending on which class you pick. Among the best is a Rogue/Monk (Monk of the Broken Order) multiclass; this limits your alignment choice, but offers powerful combinations in combat like the Monk's stunning attack and the Rogue's sneak attack, not to mention the additional AC bonus from a positive wisdom modifier.

The interface is similar to the original game, but has been streamlined and reorganized. Veterans to previous Infinity Engine games will be at home with the familiar controls. All eleven classes are available, and character creation is faster due to the point buy method for generating ability scores; this seems to be the method of choice in 3E CRPGs for gamers who want to create their parties quickly, but I miss the dice roll method. Dice rolling is most likely less popular and tedious, hence the switch to point buy; I'd like to see a choice of methods in creating ability scores in the next one! It has a great in-game help system with info for everything from the new races and classes to the exciting new feats, skills and their prerequisites. Great for reference and new players. The character record is wonderful, your list of skills/feats, your attack modifiers, and other info at the touch of a button. A few new portraits are available, but more could have been included, and all the original character voices were included from the original IWD and Heart of Winter (plus a few new ones). Gameplay is essentially the same, especially the real-time combat; I prefer turn-based combat, but the pause function makes fighting more manageable and is an interesting change. This helps when you need to cast spells or use one of the new skills or feats from the special abilities button. Moving around seems more tricky; sometimes a character will go a different way than the party or will be stuck somewhere, but the pathfinding can be adjusted through the configuration menu in Windows. When you're not in combat, you'll be spending most of your time talking to others for quests, running errands and using your skills to gain special rewards. A bit more role-playing and strategy is involved here and the combination of all these elements is what makes IW2 fun to play. Graphics are the same as in the first IWD, pleasing to fans of the game, but some might be disappointed in the lack of more 3D and graphic improvements. Spell selection is excellent, along with an impressive bestiary. I love the ambient sounds heard in the background; it makes the world seem more alive and realistic, and the music is the best. If you were fortunate enough to get the Adventure Pack or the Collector's edition, you'll get bonus items in both standard and Heart of Fury mode, including the game's beautiful soundtrack.

The rulebook is very small, unfortunately, reading these small words makes it hard on the eyes if not read in bright light. Right-clicking on the map when you click the Area Map allows you to add area notes, but this was not documented in the rulebook. The hide bonus has been excluded from the small races except the Deep Gnome. These are just minor grievances, though.
Despite its slightly dated engine and minimal problems, Icewind Dale 2 is an engaging and enjoyable romp through a living, breathing world, sure to ruin your social life and guarantee bags under your eyes from lack of sleep, and is one of the best utilizations of the 3E rules I've seen in a D&D computer role-playing game.

In a world populated with excellent RPG games, IWD2 stands out for its solid foundation of compelling story line, great game play, and high replayability. It's hard to please all RPG fans who desire different mixes of action, quest, and character development. IWD2 strikes a nice balance between quest-laden Baldur's Gate and Diablo's mindless click-fest. There are plenty of hack and slash, including all-out melees with a multitude of foes and harrowing battles against powerful monsters. While many quests are of the "go there and fetch this" variety, some are quite lengthy and challenging. But the most compelling raison d'etre for IWD2 must be its implementation of the vastly improved AD&D 3rd Edition rule set. The 3rd Edition offers not only new races and sub-races, but also new rules, classes, skills, feats, and weapons. Coupled with multi-classing, the changes make possible a mind-boggling number of party combinations. Even better, the special Heart of Fury mode with insanely challenging combat and vastly upgraded weapons is almost another game within a game. Throw in an intuitive user interface and beautifully rendered graphics and there's little doubt IWD2 is a winner in the crowded RPG arena.

IWD2 is set 30 years after the events in the original Icewind Dale, when a band of adventurers issued from Easthaven to thwart the plan of a demon to turn region into his private playground. Many characters from the original Icewind Dale make cameo appearances. It's not necessary to have played Icewind Dale, but if you have, you'll certainly appreciate the connections.

IWD2 is a revisit to that famous region of the fabled Forgotten Realms. The story begins when goblin hordes invaded the Ten-Towns, one of which had already been overrun. Bands of mercenaries, of which you are a part, were summoned to the defense of Targos, the goblins' next target. As soon as you arrive, you would have to fend off goblin attacks. Soon it becomes apparent that greater evils are behind the goblin threat and you find yourself thrust to the forefront of the conflict, for gold or for glory. Your adventure takes you through many exotic locales, including the great oak of Kuldahar, the warrens of Dragon's Eye, the steaming jungles of Chult, and the ruined elven fortress Severed Hand. The plot is fairly linear; you won't be going back and forth between locales to accomplish quests. Nevertheless, the game is surprisingly replayable, thanks to the reasons below.

The new rules are vast improvements for several reasons. Gone are the cryptic THAC0, the counter-intuitive negative armor rating, and the rather complicated types of saving throws. Now, armor bonuses are additive; however wearing armor increases arcane spell failures and hinders certain abilities such as Hide and Move Silently. Saving throws are reduced to 3 types: Fortitude, Reflex, and Will, which are directly affected by your ability ratings, racial bonuses and magical enhancements. You allocate points among a bevy of new skills, such as Bluff and Diplomacy, and feats, such as Ambidexterity and Two-weapon fighting. This gives unprecedented control over the attributes of your characters. New races include half-orcs, Aasimar, Tiefling, Duergar, Drow, and Deep-Gnomes. Each race comes with its own bonuses and disadvantages; some are more powerful than others, but advance in levels more slowly. New classes include monks, barbarians, and sorcerers. Experience level now caps at 30, allowing the creation of even more powerful multi-classed characters. In fact, experimenting with different party combinations is half of the fun, and playing the game again with a new party is almost as fun as playing a new game!

The battles in IWD2 are intense and furious. For some reason, the designers tend to favor the "attack as soon as party moves to a new area" approach. This wouldn't be so bad except that after a long journey most of your defensive spells will have worn off. The result is often a frantic scramble to escape damage, cast defensive spells, summon supports, and finally counter-attack. Combat almost certainly requires a tactical approach, as enemy parties are always well-balanced, complete with both tankers and magic users. The AI is excellent. Enemies will often go for the weakest member of my party, much to my chagrin. When attacked, enemies will cast the appropriate defensive spells. In short, you can't rush in hacking and slashing and expect to last; the enemies are just too powerful for a single-minded approach. This also necessitates making up a balanced party.

The Heart of Fury mode deserves special mention. This mode can only be accessed from the configuration screen, and a dialog box pops up to warn you of the implications. You shouldn't even play in this mode with characters lower than level 15. Heart of Fury, in short, stands for insane difficulty. Not only are monsters more numerous, they also are immensely powerful and have astronomical attack and damage ratings. Your rewards are proportionately powerful magical items, including a +10 magic sword when everything else maxes out at +5, and more experience points. You probably won't get the most out of IWD2 until you play through the game in this mode.

Much ado has been made about the venerable but dated Bioware Infinity Engine. What it lacks in 3-D camera angles it makes up for in polish and ease of use. Despite its popularity, I just find Neverwinter Nights' interface clunky, and the constant need to pan and zoom tiring. IWD2's interface is intuitive and does a great job of organizing the wealth of information required to effectively manage an RPG party. The fixed background is gorgeous, and the sprites and spell effects animations are beautifully rendered. The soundtrack is superb and the voiceover is competent, if sometimes overwrought. There are no famous names from Hollywood, but I recognize minor actors from "Armageddon" and "Speed".

Thanks to its implementation of new AD&D rules and its excellent game play and interface, IWD2 deserves to be a standout in the crowd.

Icewind Dale 2 is a computer RPG, and the last one to use the Infinity Engine popularized by the Baldur's Gate series. Icewind Dale 2 is a much more linear game, which is often for the best. There's no wandering around for 4 hours trying to figure out what you should do next. The combat system should be familiar to anyone who's played Baldur's Gate or Knights of the Old Republic on XBox. It's basically turn-based real-time. The 3rd edition D&D rules it uses allow for a lot of customization for your party, and it's never too overwhelming. The plot is a little weak, but well-written, and the puzzles and battles are challenging but not impossible. This is probably one of the best RPG's available today.

By all rights, ICEWIND DALE II should not be nearly as addictive, as compelling, and as all-out entertaining as it is. Consider: in an era where no game seems to have any hope of selling well unless it takes advantage of the most up-to-date 3D rendering technology, IDII employs old-fashioned handdrawn backgrounds and 2D animation. While the market is dominated by flashy console RPGs with unsurpassed production values, IDII has nary a movie-like cutscene or in-game cinematic to be found. And while the gaming zeitgeist is heavily slanted towards Japan, with exaggerated manga-style characters and a frenetic J-pop aesthetic, IDII soldiers on with the decades-old Dungeons & Dragons motif of dudes in fur hats and chainmail fighting monsters straight out of Tolkien.

On paper, ICEWIND DALE II had no right to be so good - but it is.

The reason for this is that game has a number of secret weapons at its disposal. First among these is BioWare's venerable Infinity Engine, which has powered game after brilliant game from BioWare and their prestigious licensee, Black Isle. While showing its age in spots, especially in the lack of graphical flash, the engine has been polished and improved upon for over four years now (!), and in its last outing it has been honed into an almost perfectly intuitive interface for allowing players to guide their heroes through battle after battle while efficiently fielding the vast reams of statistical information that are part and parcel of anything having to do with D&D. The interface takes up less of the game screen than ever before, and this, combined with the game's higher resolutions, allows players to see vast amounts of territory with a God's-eye-view and plan their strategies accordingly.

The game features a host of new painted character portraits, all of which, with their brooding faces and evocative clothing, do a fabulous job of personalizing and humanizing the heroes you create, and most of which are simply excellent paintings in their own right. (One quibble: it would have been nice, in the final Infinity Engine game, to have access to the by-now-vast gallery of portraits that have been created for the BALDUR'S GATE, ICEWIND DALE, and NEVERWINTER NIGHTS games - though, in truth, nothing is stopping the industrious player from importing those portraits into IDII himself.)

The other major weapon in IDII's arsenal is the new and incalculably improved Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition ruleset, which is both more intuitive (having more armor gives you a bigger armor number, not a confusingly smaller one) and allows for infinitely more possibilities for character advancement: in D&D 2nd edition, the only truly significant choice you made was what class to start a character out as, and afterwards your party was more-or-less set in stone; whereas with the 3rd edition, you get so many options for skills and 'feats' (superpowers or extra abilities granted to characters) that, hypothetically, you can roll up six fighters who start out with not much in common with one another and end up with even less as they branch out into different specialties as the game progresses. This diversity is the heart of the game's surprising replayability: it is highly unlikely, perhaps even impossible, for even the same player to generate heroes that have too much in common.

Like the original ICEWIND DALE, this game is purely linear and almost strictly focused on combat, forsaking both the vast gameworld and indepth roleplaying of BALDUR'S GATE II and the intricate, puzzle-box story of PLANESCAPE TORMENT. But ICEWIND DALE II does have a story, and it's a good one - taking you from the hoariest of cliched beginnings (monsters are menacing a town and six would-be heroes arrive Just In the Nick Of Time) to an epic and surprisingly emotional confrontation with a pair of villains who are far more interesting and complex than the usual run of mad wizards and homicidal warlords that litter the pages and screens of fantasy novels and video games. Along the way, your characters solve old murders, bring peace to the unquiet dead, defend the defenseless, and right ancient wrongs...or not. Whatever you do, the game shows you the consequences of your actions in ways both gratifying and surprising. Dialogue is well-written, often sharply humorous, and occasionally even moving. There's a lot of depth here for what many will dismiss as merely a 'hack and slash' game.

Lastly, I want to give special commendation to the music, composed by Israeli musician Inon Zur. Those who played THRONE OF BHAAL will recognize Zur's more exotic sound, which perfectly fit that game's more eastern-oriented setting, and although the soundtrack is a large departure from Jeremy Soule's more traditional Celtic-styled music from the first game, the new pieces do a superb job of getting you fired up to kill monsters. (Although Soule's much-heralded theme music from the original game is back, though unfortunately minus the stirring horn section midway through.)

On the surface, this game is basically similar to Baldur's Gate, BG II, Icewind Dale, and Planescape Torment: a Dungeons & Dragons game focusing on a six-member party of adventurers. Unlike its predecessors, it incorporates the 3rd edition D&D rules, which simplify gameplay and add some options for customizing your characters' abilities as they go up in level. The 3rd edition rules work well here, and are an improvement over the previous games.

Unfortunately, very much is wrong. The first Icewind Dale was a simple, combat-oriented game--you just hacked your way from one obvious location to another. This sequel has that element also, but has two glaring flaws. First, the game is cheesy. By this, I mean that monsters teleport to attack you from behind and the game prevents you from saving at numerous critical points--there are several multi-part battles where you can't save, and a misstep means you start the battle over from scratch.

The second flaw is the focus on puzzle dungeons. By this, I mean areas where you can't kill a monster unless you pull a series of levers in the right order and maps where going east puts you northwest of your previous location, and you can flail about endlessly unless one of your characters has an otherwise useless ability (Wilderness Lore). Chapter 5 of the game (out of 6 chapters) is one big puzzle--and grotesquely annoying--dungeon, where you have to perform each step in a specific sequence--a sequence that is never revealed to you by the game. (Even then, the problem is not that the puzzles are hard--they aren't--it's that they are so numerous and so ridiculous. What kind of a ... villain would build all these puzzles in the first place?) There are parts of this game that play more like Tomb Raider than D&D and, while I like Tomb Raider in its own genre, puzzle dungeons are more annoying than anything in a D&D game.

A lesser flaw is the weakness of the story--the two enemies are simple bogeymen. There is a part of the story which is, I guess, supposed to make you feel sorry for them, but the shades of morality here are far from grey. The enemies simply have no personality, just lots (and lots) of spell effects they can summon instantly (bringing us back to the cheese problem).

I consider myself a fairly hard-core player of D&D games on the PC. I can't recommend this game to even players like me; for anyone just starting out in this type of game, stay far, far away. Pick up Baldur's Gate or Baldur's Gate II if you want a pleasant introduction to D&D on the computer.