Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale 2?

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I've just completed Icewind dale 1 and am itching to get stuck into another. I'm a fan of 2nd edition D&D rules, don't know 3rd ed. What do you think? should I buy icewind dale 2 or switch to Baldurs gate? If BG should I start with the original or jump to the sequel?

Look forward to you views!

[ July 04, 2003, 01:31: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

I think you should buy Baldur's Gate I with it's expansion first since it's alot cheaper. By the time you finish it, IWDII's price will go down. The graphics in BG are realy outdated, but if you're a roleplayer that won't matter, becuse it's realy a great game.

And welcome to the boards

 

You should play through BG I, then number II, then ID2. I beleive that BG2 is better than ID2, mainly because you can do the evil and the good path, but still, thats just me.

 

Baldur's Gate series is my personal favourite. It's much more roleplay oriented, Icewind Dale is more of the Hack & Slash style. I liked Icewind Dale, but I had some trouble with enjoying Icewind Dale 2 though. But I can very strongly recommend that you play Baldur's Gate + Tales of the Sword Coast, and then continue with Baldur's Gate 2 + Throne of Bhaal. That is if you like real roleplaying. You might find the graphics of BG1 to be a bit annoying. After all, it's not the latest game on the market. But it's a truly amazing game and a complete must if you are to play BG2. The Baldur's Gate saga is one of the most interesting and awesome stories ever written for a CRPG. Planescape: Torment nabs the no. 1 spot though.

Oh, and IWD2 uses D&D 3rd edition rules...I really hate those. I like AD&D 2nd edition, which Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment use, much much better.

 

Hmm... I can't really advise you, but I'll give you my little BG1, BG2, IWD2 (never got IWD1) review. I've finished BG1 but I haven't finished the Tales from the Sword Coast (expansion) areas yet.

BG1: for sure get it with the TOTSC expansion, the expansion adds auto-pause features and raises the experience point cap... My big gripe with BG1 was that I thought it took too long to finish and that the storyline/quests aren't very linear. By this I mean that at any given point in the game you may have 8 or 9 quests which take you to different areas where you will invariably find 3 or 4 subquests... Keeping track of which quests you've done and which you haven't can be difficult without careful note-taking (even with the journal). This bugged me because I like to cover all the quests, and there really are a lot of quests which you can do...

BG2: Only 1/2 finished, but so far it's more linear (fewer concurrent quests), the rules are handled a little better, you start as a 7-8th level character... I like the bad guys better, and the higher level game-play + new character kits = more fun for my taste.

IWD2: Got it because my friends all bought 3rd ed D&D books, and we played a couple times and found ourselves at the bottom of steep learning curve. It's great for learning the basics of 3rd ed D&D. I really like it. Originally I had mucho gripes with 3rd ed multi-classing rules, but now that I've played IWD2 I don't mind it as much. Plus the quests + storyline are VERY linear. A to B to C to D, which is more the way I like to play. IWD2, you don't add NPC's to the party, you create all six (but you can run a smaller party if you want). You start at 1st lvl and end near 20th in normal, or 30th in Heart of Fury mode. So far I've enjoyed this one the most, but I should probably go back and finish BG2 before I really decide which is funner.

Hope this helps...

 

Thanks guys, BG1 it is followed by the tales of the sword coast, then BG2 (if I liked BG1) and then maybe IWD2 (but that will be a little while away yet by the sound of things).

Thanks for your help, happy gaming,

Will

 

Save up and buy all of them. I did. Although it did take just over a year. Gotta hate allowances.

 

You said you just completed IWD1? Then you should get the expansion Heart of Winter and the downloadable official expansion Trials of the Luremaster. They're both great.

 

@Kindo: Actually IWD is more roleplaying than BG. From the beginning hack'n slash was the roleplaying thing, now because of the pc it's changed a little.

But don't get me wrong BG beats the **** out of IWD!!!

 

Is there something I'm missing here? IWD been more roleplaying than BG? Are you sure you arn't thinking about something else.

 

No, as i have explained the REAL roleplaying is more hack slash than story. Sorry if i ruined something for you, but that's the way it is. Although i prefer a good story over hack any day.

 

I think roleplaying is more than just hack and slash. For a game to be considered an RPG for me I need alot of dialogue and thinking.

So BG1 and BG2 are RPGs while IWD1 and IWD2 are Adventure games if you ask me.


I like the BG series alot more than IWD, but the IWD´s are great games to.

So if you haven´t already, get BG1 with ToTSC and complete that. Get BG2 without ToB and go through that. Then I would get IWD2 and by the time you´ve finished that game to ToEE should be out

 

BG2 all the way. It's just like that. IWD2 doesn't make that much sense to me really, I'm so used to the BG-series