Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition: Review @ GammaSquad
 

GammaSquad have reviewed Baldur's gate: Enhanced Edition in a rather short article, here is a quote covering a third of the total review:
More information.

Were there any work done on that?
It should have been one of the more important things do fix if you really want to put out an Enhaced Edition

C

Is there much difference in the graphics during play (i know they beefed up the videos; but not sure they did much to the basic game). In fact is there much difference at all between the new and old version (is there a list somewhere?)

smells more like porting without improvements. But enhanced sounds nice for marketing

The zoom is great. Also if you are playing at a higher resolution, it's really nice for the GUI to not be tiny (nor the text). More than anything, I'm looking forward to the new content.

It's been a long time since I've played BG, so I'll give this a try once I see the release has stabilized. :)

This!

The widescreen mod for the original is still awesome, but you'll still notice that this isn't the way the game was supposed to run.

This version runs exactly like the original looked, just on 1920x1080, for example. Everything has the right ratio. This is a big deal to me. So it might be meaningless to someone else, I don't know.

Otherwise the graphics are identical, as far as I can tell. Sometimes it feels like they are a little smoother, I can remember that 2-3 years ago, when I last played BG with the trilogy mod, that it sometimes froze a little, not much, just enough to be noticeable.

Concerning everything else, it's the game we already know, except for 3 new party members. I can't say how good this content is (they all seem to have quests tied to them). Just hired the supercute wild mage, Neera. She's fully voiced. So there is clearly a contrast to the old/known ones. I'm not sure how I should think about this. I always had troubles to throw out proven members of my team, just so I could play a specific quest, so upping the number of potential party team members certainly doesn't make it easier.

Really?! These are the only things I thought really needed to be improved!
Did they at least stop enemies from respawning when saving?

I also read that the AI/frame rate is locked at 30 updates per second and can't be changed like in the original game, I liked to run these games at 40, made a huge difference to the smoothness and response of the game for me.

Well, there's a reason why people trolls like me labeled this the Infinishitty engine back in the day :biggrin: .

I've caved and bought the game. Actually it looks and feels much better than I expected, a decent job.

I plaed this too last night and even though the "improvements" are nice they are justa new coat of paint and a few ideas implemented in mods years ago. Of the 2 things I was expecting to be fixed none were!
Pathfinding, just as dumb as before; no big deal but still a chore
Combat AI, just as dumb; everybody needs to be spoonfeed and the characters cannot change from ranged attack by themselves. Mind you that Darklans which is 6 years older than BG already had this nailed so no "oh but the game is old" bull here
The UI looks better than I expected but it still a port with delusions of grandeur.
On the plus side it plays quite smoothly on my laptop and hell it is still BG…
Just hope they dont get any ideas of "enchancing" Torment :P

Small scripts can not mend that?

Funny, the pathfinding never bothered me, and the companion AI sure as hell didn't. Quite the opposite, I liked tha fact that you had to control all your characters in combat whenever you faced something tougher than a Gnoll. In all the similar games since BG (DA:O and NWN2) the AI could handle itself good enough so I never felt the need to pause as much. This also made the battles in those games less interesting, because since the need for tactics wasn't there they ramped up the number of fights and enemies instead.

Yeah well I am all for strategy, like getting Minsc to move here or pausig to think things over; having to tell each of my companions to switch from ranged weapons to melee each time they fight is kind of annoying since older games had AI smart enough to do it by themselves. And good old Trent and his "400" fixes (having the source code no less) coundnt fix that?
Oh wait….maybe he didnt fix it because it is a "feature"?

Started up the game the other night to play for a 1/2 hour or so before bed.

Ended up going to bed 5 hrs later.

They could have done a better job and I suppose I could complain about silly stuff like the intro movie or complain they didn't fix more or I could go spend another 1/2 hr that turns in to 5.

I sympathize with those that have bugs making the game unplayable and would agree that it's unacceptable considering they even delayed it but for me it's been bug free other than some portrait flickering here or there and is the best version of BG I've played.

And yes I've played the original heavily modded.

Stable (at least for me), widescreen that you can see and read, very good new npc's and content ( imo),a better looking game ( except when zoomed all the way in then it's pretty much the same as the original), the ability to zoom and hey it's still Baldur's Gate.

So I spent the afternoon playing and Imust say the game feels pretty good, the new companions are fun and I decided to make an all new party with them. The wild mage is good, although a bit cheesy, the monk guy is interesting but I am trying for an evil party so his playstile requires a bit more of handholding that I want for this playthough. The Blackguard is the best IMO, his stats are pretty good and makes a pretty good fighter for my evil party. As soon as I find Viconia I will have my perfect party with my sorcerer, Edwin, The wild mage, the blackguard & Kagain. The only bug I have found so far was that for the Blackguard´s story I was ambushed by a group and if you dont loot the bodies of the ambushers every time you run into an encounter on the road you will end up in the same place with the bodies of the ambushers.

You're missing a thief, by the way. It's going to be very, very painful to explore Durlag's Tower without one.

I'm having a blast with BG so far, taking it easy and just enjoying it. Haven't played it since '06 or so, and it's doing a great reminder of what good games are all about. I cannot help but be impressed with the work.


-Carn

I agree Carnifex. My expectations might not have been too high to begin with, but they have been met and then some.