Customer Reviews

Icewind Dale 3 in 1 Boxset (Icewind Dale / Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter / Icewind Dale II)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have a confession to make: when the first ICEWIND DALE came out I bought maybe the first copy and rushed home to immerse into it. I had just polished off the excellent BALDUR's GATE and the incomparable PLANESCAPE: TORMENT. A day into ICEWIND DALE and I absolutely hated it!

The graphics were comparable (all three games share the same engine) and the gameplay was almost identical. The music was excellent and certain tunes stayed with me ever since. The storyline was nothing to complain about - after all, any story set in "the spine of the world" can hardly go wrong! What I did not appreciate was the rushed feeling of a job on an impossible deadline.

In order to prolong the duration of the game, much smaller maps were stuffed with a far greater number of powerful foes - and almost nothing could be solved without combat. As a result, what was expected to be an enjoyable experience turned into a chore of endless autopausing, retargeting and constant battling.

Having said the above, I must admit that, in hindsight, my complains seem trivial. Little did I know at the time how far into hell greed would drive the gaming industry. Compared to 3-4 hour games, extra charges for essential content, Limited Installations and RootKits (of the likes of StarFORCE and SecuROM), well, games such as the ICEWIND DALE saga stand out as landmarks in PC-gaming history.

The expansion (THE HEART OF WINTER) improved things somewhat but the series did not find its stride until the very good ICEWIND DALE II. I remember spending endless hours with the sequel and can compare it to the original BALDUR's GATE.

RECOMMENDED.

Icewind Dale I and II are old games. I'm not going to review the games as such, but rather this boxed set of them.

This package contains two DVDs (IWD I/II) and one CD (Heart of Winter). I'm not sure why they chose to package it this way; either DVD has enough unused capacity to fit HoW on it.

Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter both installed and ran fine on my Vista Ultimate 64-bit desktop. No complications.

The Icewind Dale II DVD, I believe, was badly pressed, as every time I ran through the installation procedure, it kept throwing the same "incorrect function" error, but every time it would be a different .bif file that it broke on. Every time, it would get further and further to completion before crashing. I've never seen such a problem before with any other program, ever. It finally stopped progressing at 84%, and would keep hanging on D:\CD2\Data\AR3002.bif.

Since it was impossible to install it the "right" way, I made an image of the disc, and installed from that. The reason this works is that the drive reads the disc slower while making an image, allowing for more error-correction. Installing from the image worked fine.

The game requires the disc to be in the drive during play, but if you make a "full" install, it doesn't actually look to the disc for any files, so it doesn't matter if they're semi-corrupted.

I skipped the original IWD when it first came out, because as a fan of the Baldur's Gate series I knew - or at least thought - I'd be bored with an Infinity game just based on combat. For whatever reason I picked up the sequel when it first came out, and I was hooked enough to go back and explore the entire series. The series doesn't really try to be anything more than a dungeon crawler, but it's at least a fun one.

The graphics are a little dated, but that's to be expected. IWD makes up for this in its great fantasy soundtrack and detailed character portraits. I distinctly remember the vast difference between the original IWD's portraits and those of BG2, which was released after - IWD blew them out of the water. In addition, at the time, IWD2's spell effects were great, and you can tell that they were pushing the limits of the Infinity engine, which was aged even when the game was released.

Gameplay is simple, particularly in the first game. Create a party of adventurers, go forth, and slay monsters. The story isn't a whole lot more than typical RPG fare, and there aren't a whole lot of puzzles and questing. The second game offers a little more (including a decent story), but is generally the same thing. The second game also offers a more robust character creation system utilizing the (then new) D&D 3E rules. To a degree, your choice of race and class will affect how NPCs interact with you, but not a whole lot. If you're looking for an in-depth, complex story...look elsewhere. This is a hack'n'slash, pure and simple.

I recommend the game for anyone who enjoyed the combat aspects of the BG series, or dungeon crawlers in general. IWD doesn't bring a whole lot new to the table, and I think most people know what they're getting into when they play a Black Isle game based on the Infinity Engine, but it's still a very entertaining romp.

I recently purchased this game in March, 2010 and it was instantly a big hit with me. I happen to love hack-and-slash RPGs set in fantasy worlds; especially DnD games. It should have quite a few familiar references to R.A Salvatore's "Forgotten Realms" franchise, also licensed by Wizards.

Pros:Soundtrack is amazing! Sould have been used in a movie. Also, when designing a character, it made me feel like I was designing a stat card for the board game. The artwork for character portraits is EXTREMELY detailed. I would have loved to work for their concept art department.

Cons: The only things that gave me (figurative) headaches was the fact that: (a)the some areas take FOREVER to get through, and (b) some areas of dialogue (such as Shaengarne Ford) are critical to the story, but you fail them anyway because SOMEONE was talking to you when you where supposed to be doing -------. (hi i'm a mage named Xuxi, and I want to talk to you" "sorry but I have to kill those ogres before they destroy the bridge that my renforcements have to cross" "ha ha! You talked to me instead of destroying the bridge! Loser!"). You see what I mean? Overall though it was a very good game(s). This pack includes: Icewind Dale, it's expansion pack,Heart of winter, and my personal favorite, Icewind Dale II. P.S: you can't install the expansion until you install the original.

This is a great game. I love character creation/development and the way a party of different classes is dependent upon each other. I'm still playing on the first disc but so far there is many many hours of exciting storyline and gameplay.

Icewind Dale and the sequels are great dungeon crawls. It's not the epic that Baldur's Gate is, but great fun nonetheless. If you like Dungeons and Dragons games and haven't played this... what's wrong with you?!

Decent game, very simalar to Baldurs Gate 2. Less items and the overall gameworld is smaller. It's fun. I couldn't get Icewind Dale 1 to play, oh well. Got Icewind Daleto 2 play.

This product states it will play on Windows XP but it would not load onto our computer. After many e-mails I am having to send it back (additional cost to me) and it has taken longer then necessary to get to this point. I'm not sure why we are having problems since the product came looking to be in very good condition. Hoping to resolve this issue. I also have bought Trine and Fate and had no problems with those.

p.s. I had to rate this product in order to leave a review but we have NOT been able to play it so the star value isn't accurate.

Great game, the pace is good (fast but not too fast, very little needed downtime). It's perfect for people who want to spend a few hours a week running through a game.

IWD1&2 are almost the same as the legendary Baldur's Gate games. However, compared with BGs these games are much more combat-oriented with less contents, personalities, and conversations in the story part. Nevertheless they are still fun: if you create your own dream party and share empathy with your own teammembers you don't need additional actors to get you involved. Excellent games for AD&D fans.