Amazon.com: Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn: PC: Video Games

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137 of 140 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The mother of all computer RPGs, March 26, 2003

By	Dinh Yen Tran (United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Baldur's Gate franchise is the most popular single-player RPG series out there for good reasons, even though it's been a few years since its release. While more recent Black Isle games, notably Icewind Dale II, have vastly improved graphics and interface and others like Neverwinter Nights have changed the playing field entirely, BGII stands out for its tremendous scope and exceptional depth. BGII's complexity, intertwining subplots and host of myriad characters are enough to constitute a novel, one which you get to shape and play out instead of merely reading. To me that's the essence of RPG that few others have been able to capture. Reinforcing this feeling, at many points in the game you must make decisions that have far-reaching consequences. Furthermore, you can also complete many quests using the good or evil approach. You may decide how to proceed based on whether you want to be good or evil; there are non-player characters (NPCs) of both alignments ready to assist you.

BGII's strongest asset is its quests. While some quests are short and easily completed, most are substantial, highly interesting, and many engender their own sub-quests. For instance, one quest requires you to infiltrate a thieves guild suspected of treason; to gain their trust, you must finish several tasks for them; after you gather evidence of their treason, you're asked to go back and eliminate the guild leader; if you're successful, you then have the option of becoming the new leader and manage your own guild. It's possible to finish the game doing only the minimum handful of quests, but you'd be missing a big part of the game. Similarly, it's almost impossible to complete all quests in one run, because the quests you get depend on the decisions you make. For instance, you can side either with the thieves' guild or the rival vampires' guild, each of which comes with its own storyline and quests. Most of the quests are initiated at the beginning of the game in Athkatla. Subsequently, quests become smaller and more linear.

Characters are tightly intertwined with quests. Since you start off with only one player, you should add additional characters to your party. Characters range from elven cleric/wizard to human ranger/stalker. Some are carry-overs from BG1. Some are found only if you accept certain quests, and some come with their own quests. You can interact with virtually any character in the game. Each character has his/her own history, alignment, and personality. From time to time, characters in your party will initiate dialogues with you and with one another, most with some amount of actual voice dialogue. Some interactions are quite funny; I've chuckled many times with Minsc and Jan in my party. One feature that I suspect to be very popular is romance with characters in your party. If you meet certain conditions, a male player can romance with one of three female NPCs and a female player can romance with one male NPC. Romance are simply additional dialogues that you go through during lulls between battles. They don't add significantly to the plot, but they're an extra dimension that adults may appreciate.

A new feature in BGII is the "stronghold". The stronghold you get depends on your class. For instance, the fighter stronghold is a keep outside of Athkatla, while the thieves stronghold is a guild headquarter in the Docks district. Strongholds are gained after you complete a certain quest; they generate gold for your coffers and come with their own mini-quests at intervals. They're not essential to the story, but they add immensely to the illusion of role-playing. Another great new feature is familiars, small pet-like creatures that follow you and obey your orders. There are many tricks you can do with familiars, but mostly they're just cool to have.

If you haven't played BG1, the premise is that you're the illegitimate child of Bhaal, the God of Murder. After you defeated your nemesis at the end of BG1, your party was ambushed and taken prisoner. You wake up in a dark dungeon and find yourself tortured and apparently experimented upon by an unknown wizard. The game begins as the dungeon are invaded by hooded assailants and you are released. Now you must fight your way out of the dungeons and discover the identity of your captor and thwart his nefarious plan. You will explore the vast city Athkatla as well as travel to many exotic destinations such as an extra-planar prison, an underwater Sahuagin city, the Underdark, the elven city Suldanessellar, even the Nine Hells! There are innumerable dungeons and ruins along the way for your to explore. If any game is able to truly capture the dungeon exploring feel of D&D, this is it!

You'll encounter a virtual encyclopedic list of monsters, including golems, vampires, liches, beholders, mind-flayers, werewolves, demons, and dragons. Some are immensely powerful and require much tactical planning on your part. Mastering spells and understanding their effects and limitations are a must. This is a hard task as there are 300 spells of all types in the game. Enemy spellcasters have powerful magical protections that make them virtually invincible. However, every protection spell has some form of counter. To successfully attack them, you must use the appropriate counter-spells to weaken their defense. Game play is fast and furious. Battles are not as large as those in IWD2 and are more oriented toward magical duelling, which is equally if not more fun.

The sprite graphics and animations are unspectacular by modern standards, but they are no longer noticeable once you become immersed in the game. Background graphics is gorgeous eye-candy, however, particularly the Sahuagin city, the Underdark, and Suldanessellar. The soundtrack and voice-over work are superb.

BGII has very high-replay value thanks to its breadth and richness. If you like RPG games, this one is a must-have.

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73 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect game for anyone except me..., January 22, 2001

By A Customer

Described in one word, Shadows of Amn is HUGE. The amount of choices you have for creating your character is huge - you'll probably restart a few times just to try different options for forging your champion, which range from seven different races (the classic stuff + half-orc), about thirty (I think) classes and character kits (specialist classes like inquisitor), and a myriad of other options like different combat styles and A LOT of spells. Truly, your imagination can, for once, run wild. Once you have a character you are happy with, the fun begins. Your character starts a lot more powerful than in BG1. Although the game starts out as a simple dungeon romp, when you eventually reach the city of Athkathla, far south of Baldur's Gate, the game EXPLODES with possibilities. You have tons of terrain to explore, lots of quests to solve (all of them take at least 15 minutes and are generally quite intriguing, unlike the usual fetch this, kill that), plenty of characters with interesting personalities to join your six-member-maximum party, many mosters to slay (of course), and a fantastic story to follow. Perfect in the gaming department.

And now to the technical stuff. The game's graphics are, all in all, gorgeous. The rendered backgrounds look ten times better than before, even though they're still 16-bit (the game does support 800 x 600 resolution now, though). Bioware's artists have truly outdone themselves. But here's the part I don't like: some of the game's graphics, like character, monster and spell animations aren't created in the same style. Some of them are taken from BG1 (meaning choppy animation and low detail), while some are completely new (meaning high detail and smooth animation). The problem is that I (and probably only I)find it weird to stand next to a monster taken from another game (some graphics are also from Icewind Dale, others from Torment), that's rendered in a different art style. And also some spell animations (which are mostly gorgeous) look like they've been rushed and don't look very carefully made. I could probably list a hundred instances where the game's visuals aren't "seamless". Well, you're probably thinking, "why the heck should I worry about that?" You're right. You shouldn't. Now go out and get the game if you haven't already. Enjoy.

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92 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly brilliant, October 12, 2000

By	dj_swinger (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews

Baldurs Gate II: Shadows of Amn (henceforth BGII) is a truly brilliant game. Few other computer roll playing games can compare to the immersiveness offered in the world that Bioware has magnificently created. The only one that comes close was Betrayal at Krondor, 7 or 8 years old by now. Baldurs Gate I pretty much rejuvenated a soporific genre that was running low on ideas. BGII has built on the foundation of BGI, and the results are impressive. BGII does everything important right. It makes good use of the AD&D license with monsters, places, and objects familiar from those that played the pen & paper version. One of BGII's main bonuses is that it incorporates some new 3rd AD&D rules, specifically in character creation. Whereas before you were the familiar basic fighter/wizard/thief there are slews of new options. Each of the old classes, such as Fighters, have been given "kits" which are basically subclasses. So instead of being a guy or gal with a sword, now you can be a Mageslayer. This class has great bonuses when attacking magic wielders. On the minus side, they can't use a lot of magical items, including healing potions - which can make the game much tougher. Its a great balancing act, and makes playing the game much more immersive. As you play to your strengths and find ways around your weaknesses it creates much more of a dilemma and challenge. There are also three new classes: monks, barbarians, and sorcerers. All of which I could continue on about in depth... The characters you come across in the game world are fabulous as well. Other characters that join your group will have their own personal axes to grind. They often need your help and agree to join only if you do indeed help them out. If you dont keep your word, they will easily walk out on you. Also, if you try and mix good and evil characters in your group, they will have words with each other and may even fight to the death! Such drama! The game allows for an amazing amount of personalization as well. If you are so inclined you can import your own picture and voice files into the game, for that truly submersive experience. I could go on and about the good stuff as there is simply so much stuff to gush about. Interesting quests, size of the game (200+ hours of entertainment) etc, but there are a few caveats. The game is a bear - four discs! A full install will eat up several gigs. And if you dont do the full install, your load times can be veerry sllooowww. Additionally, the minimum requirements are a bit misleading. I make the minimum requirements and I've had to do *tons* of tweaking to make the game playable. If your machine is borderline, be very careful, or else you will have a game that is barely playable, its just too choppy. Besides hardware concerns, there have been some performance problems - the game does occasionally lock up and crash. But overall, Bioware has done an incredible job in delivering a solid, bug free game (especially when you compare it to other stuff on the market) that pushes the limits of the genre. They have done nearly everything right: great manual, great support, multiplayer etc. If you are ready to graduate from Diablo's mindless hack and slash into a game that will challenge your imagination, tactics, and assumptions, do yourself a favor. Baldurs Gate II is going to go down as one of the best games to ever be produced. If you like roleplaying games, go buy this game. NOW!