Amazon.com: Icewind Dale: PC: Video Games

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4.2 out of 5 stars (95 customer reviews)

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147 of 151 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A sense of adventure, a touch of awe., July 6, 2000

By	"ceraph" (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

If you've never played Baldur's Gate, then I'd recommend playing that before you ever come near Icewind Dale. Playing Icewind Dale will make it nearly impossible for you to enjoy BG. If you've also never played Planescape: Torment -- the same applies (relatively), although you should probably play BG before Torment as well. The engine enhancements make it difficult to enjoy the earlier games once you've experienced the new capabilities.

Icewind Dale is a "Baldur's Gate Engine" game set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. The game takes place in the northern lands of Faerun known as Icewind Dale. The game is labeled, and plays, as a traditional 'dungeon crawl.' The combat in IWD is a lot more intense than in both the previous BG/TotSC and Torment titles. That being said...

-- What Icewind Dale Does Right --

[Music & Sound] The compositions in this title are by far the best of any Black Isle game released. The game is filled with deep, rich, orchestral pieces that fill the air with the spirit of the Dale. The beautiful, Celtic music of the town of Kuldahar is spectacular, and the dark, sinister sounds of some of the more ... exotic ... places you visit are awe inspiring. The battle sounds have been improved upon as well, with more bass and bigger clashes. Voice acting and dialogue are a lot more prevelant in this game, because the dialogue is sparser and not as present as in earlier games. The voice-sets for your characters are much more diverse, and superbly done.

[Graphics] The artwork of Icewind Dale is something to dream about. The maps and landscapes are done with such attention to hues and moods that I almost felt cold as I walked though a frozen Dwarven museum. The portraits of your characters are also given this same depth and attention to detail, making it infinitely more enjoyable to construct your unique party. One of the greatest improvements to the engine is the support for large creatures. No longer do you have to imagine a frost giant ten times your height -- to say more would ruin the surprise. Just be assured that the first time you see a frost giant tower over your players like an oak over an acorn, you will be humbled. The spell effects for this game are much more like Torment than BG, and you'd require knowledge of both games to know exactly what I mean. Basically, the spell effects have some of that gothic-imbued tone that Torment lent to them.

[Gameplay] With the improvements to the BG engine, including increased walking speed, bumping, and increased animations the game is a pleasure to play. The game is situated mostly in underground locales, but you'll never miss the overland of BG or the landscapes of the Planes. Icewind Dale has its own mood and setting -- one that lends itself extremely well to a dungeon crawl. The last thing you have to be worried about in Icewind Dale is gameplay. You'll always have some battle to wage, some mystery to solve and places to explore. Unlike BG, there is absolutely no "empty space." There are no large areas of maps with nothing in them, or any at all so to speak. Every inch of this game is filled with things to do. The game also includes an enormous amount of items, armors, weapons, etc -- much more variety than ever experienced with BG or Torment.

-- What Icewind Dale Doesn't Do Right --

Basically, this game is a Baldur's Gate Engine game (Bioware Infinity Engine). What I saw that dissapointed me was the lack of new paper dolls for the characters, a lack of animations for some of the new weapon types, and for lack of icons for new types of magical weapons and armors. Such things are not incredibly difficult to include in a modification of an engine, and I wish that BIS had taken the time to include them.

Basically, IWD delivers more of the things that have made BIS the RPG leader that it has become. Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate 2 will be the last two games to make use of the Bioware Infinity Engine. If you've never experienced these epic RPGs before, you're missing out on a fantastic experience. If you're familiar with both BG and Torment, and enjoyed both, then you won't regret purchasing Icewind Dale.

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100 of 104 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Diablo Who?, July 11, 2000

By	Mark Heard (APO, AE USA) - See all my reviews

I got Diablo 2 and Icewind Dale in on the same day. After having played them both, here's my take:

If you're just frustrated and want nothing more than to kill imaginary thingies, then D2 is THE game. While I thoroughly enjoy the game, and nothing pleases me more than to watch my hordes of undead do all of my necromancer's work, D2 has re-confirmed that which I always maintained: Diablo & Diablo 2 are NOT role-playing games. That so many publications continue to label them as such frustrates me to no end. PLANESCAPE: TORMENT is an RPG, probably the best RPG I've ever played. Hey, I was shaking after I finished that game the plot was so incredible. Anyway, taken for what it is, D2 is an absolute blast to play. The numbers of magic items and such are awesome.

The only thing about the game I DON'T like? The graphics. I know, I know, but you would think that in almost FOUR YEARS Blizzard could have done more than they did. The game is pretty, no doubt, but considering the advances made in the last few years, there should be at least the option to change the resolution to 800x600 and tighten things up...

I could go one about a few other things, but that would take away from the real star of my past few nights.

Folks, RUN, do not walk to Amazon or whoever you get your games from and buy Icewind Dale. I loaded it up AFTER I had played Diablo 2 for nearly 2 straight days, and I will probably not play D2 again solo for another week or two. Why is IWD so great? Glad you asked. The publicity generated for IWD has been kinda misleading, making me think that perhaps the PR department and Black Isle Studios weren't communicating well. IWD is supposed to be a "back to roots" dungeon romp, but nothing could be further from the truth. There's quite a story here.

What I didn't like so much about Baldur's Gate was there it focused around this big plot that you were the son/daughter of a dead god thing. IWD is a lot simpler: a group of adventurers get bored with their respective lives in the big cities and go north, seeking something different. It's typical 1st level fare, with your characters falling into situations beyond your control and trying your best just to stay alive. And there are no illusions about your power level. I saved the game and attacked this fighter dude who was talking smack to me. A party member died almost every time he swung. Bad mojo.

A few other awesome things: Characters can go up to 1,800,000 XP. The spell lists are HUGE. Here's a great time saver though: there is an option to MAX HIT POINTS every time your characters level! No more 5th level fighters with 28 HP! :) It may be a form of cheating, but to anyone who spent an hour saving and reloading Baldur's Gate every time one of your characters leveled, this is a God-send. The graphics are much improved as well. Every enemy looks just a little different. The skeletons I fought last night were armed with everything imaginable, from clubs to two-handed swords (which I sold for a dandy profit). And the game also reminds you how terrifying "normal" enemies can be. I had all my characters up to 2nd level and was decimating an orcish encampment when their ogre leader shows up...with an ogre sized morning star. Two of my characters lived. :(

So, as I said at the beginning, D2 is a great stress reliever, but IWD has it beat in terms of involvement for a D&D fan.

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37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wondeful kill-almost-everyone-in-sight RPG !, July 31, 2000

By	Ole Bentsen (Horsens Denmark) - See all my reviews

Fans of Baldur's Gate will no doubt already have this game in their collection, since this game was made with the same BioWare engine that created BG. And my, that engine has been used wonderfully to create Icewind Dale.

If you're new to both RPG's I would hesitate to recommend this game to you, since it has advanced elements of role-playing (statistical, numerical) that may scare any newcomers. Anyone just vaguely attracted to RPG's will be in for a big-time treat, though. The game runs in 800x600 resolution, which is nice (yes, it looks very, very good), since you can see more of the surrounding area than you could in Baldur's Gate, and much more than you could in Planescape: Torment. That's nice when decimating the ranks of your enemies with fireballs, since you have enough distance to cast area-damaging spells without hurting your own people.

You create six player characters, which are made from (almost) the same parameters as those in Baldur's Gate. BG2 features class kits, but Icewind Dale does not! This doesn't really matter, since the game is diverse enough as is. You start in a small town as 'puny' level 1 people, and can accumulate 1.800.000 exp. points, putting you in levels 14-19, depending on which class you choose. Druids only ascend to level 14.....!

The people who made Icewind Dale have, I think, let themselves be affected by Planescape:Torment, for there are SO many strange and differently wonderful magical items than in BG1. Daggers that inflict 1d4 extra points of fire damage 15% of the time, +3 axes that increase your saving throws and your Constitution. Anyway, as a long-time DM I found all those unusual magic items to be a breath of fresh air, instead of 'just' having +1 weapons, armor and so on. I have a level 8 paladin with an AC of -5, due to all sorts of strange items that improve his armor class, one is a +2 axe (defender) which also improves AC by 2. Great and varied magical items don't make a marvelous game, though. That's why there are monsters !

Enemies in Icewind Dale look as you would expect them to, the nice thing of course being that there are really huge monsters and creatures to be found. The first time I met a verbeeg giant, which is probably the smallest of the giant-kin, I was astounded and scared at the same time. Having been a DM, I knew that the verbeeg wouldn't pose a very big threat, but just seing such a GIANT made me shiver with awe. And I've shivered many times so far, for battles are sometimes VERY nasty, hard and unpredictable. That's great, but remember to save often, or you're going to kill yourself in frustration. I'd give my right arm to see someone not familiar with AD&D trolls 'kill' one such troll, only to have it come after them later because they didn't b... it, which is the only way to really get rid of it.

Actually background and monsters blend in nicely together, without anything looking out of place. That is more than you can say for some spells in the game! Sadly, some spells look strange, as if they don't fit into the game's background and texture. Stinking Cloud and Cloud Kill are the worst I've seen so far, but I've 'only' reached the 5th level spells. Where I am in the game now, I suspect occasional bad spell graphic implementation will be the only thing I'll have to complain about in this game. The rest is just plain RPG heaven.

As Interplay stated long before Icewind Dale's release, it was going to be more action-oriented than BG, and that is also very easy to feel, since you fight much more than you talk, and to complete most quests you have to fight your way through caves and dungeons filled with monsters and people, and the only solution, after a brief and often futile conversation, is battle. After Torment it's nice to have an RPG of that kind, which is mostly a battle-everything-to-win RPG. Kill unless someone speaks to you first, is almost what I find. That's fine by me, and although you fight a lot, it doesn't become too much! NO, I'm not sickly addicted to watching monsters get hacked to death. I just like a good battle, and can't wait to chop off some beholder eye-stalks in BG2.

The music in the game is really the cruncher. WOW, is all I can say for the people who have made such atmospheric and often spooky music. I couldn't help feeling that the music set exactly the right mood for cold mountains and frozen forests. It's too bad you can't put it in your CD-player and listen to the music while reading or just relaxing. As a fan of R.A. Salvatore's books I was delighted to see many of the visual images of Icewind Dale I carried around in my mind, so well-made in a computer RPG. Just for your information, the game takes place about 80 years before any mention of Drizzt, so NO, you won't meet him in the game. As to whether you meet Bruenor Battlehammer or not, well..... I can't say !

This blows away anything else of it's kind, so if you feel attracted to RPG's, buy this and hurry to play through it before Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn comes out later this year.