Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition - iPad Review

Digitally Downloaded sends word of their review of the iPad release of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, which carries a score of 5/5:

The most compelling reason to buy the game is there’s the fact it’s on the iPad for the first time naturally, and the delivery both succeeds and fails. For the most part the interface is comfortably laid out and the chance of death-by-accidental-tap is almost non-existent. On the other hand, there isn’t a clear enough indication when you have tapped on an enemy. A couple of times I’d lost a round of combat because I had thought that I told my hero to slash at the troll, but he instead moved next to the monster and stood there twiddling his thumbs.

It’s also slightly problematic that the movement of the heroes is mapped to roughly the same touch screen command as the map scrolling action. A tap and swipe will move the map around, and this is fine, but often when I took my finger off the screen after scrolling around for a bit, the game would register that as a “tap” and send my party of heroes wandering off somewhere I didn’t necessarily want them to venture. It’s workable, but occasionally irritating.

More information.

I'm confused as to how a game can get full marks when it has - what sounds like - irritating UI issues? They sound quite bothersome to me. I have a friend who is now playing the ipad version and says its 'what he expected', mainly good value for money (only having played it once many years ago in a pc) and withe a new UI and some zooming etc. I get the feeling he gave it 5/5 just because it *was* on the iPad…

edit: almost all the iPad reviews cite do the Watch give max score, while all noting interface quirks. I would have though a touch-screen interafce is mostly about ease of UI use, so that makes the even more dubious.

Originally Posted by booboo
I'm confused as to how a game can get full marks when it has - what sounds like - irritating UI issues? They sound quite bothersome to me. I have a friend who is now playing the ipad version and says its 'what he expected', mainly good value for money (only having played it once many years ago in a pc) and withe a new UI and some zooming etc. I get the feeling he gave it 5/5 just because it *was* on the iPad…

edit: almost all the iPad reviews cite do the Watch give max score, while all noting interface quirks. I would have though a touch-screen interafce is mostly about ease of UI use, so that makes the even more dubious.

Now that I have a full party I will say the interface is a bit cumbersome. Positioning my guys just right can be a pain and take some time. Also with the small screen I find some of my guys are off screen which is mildly annoying. You do get used to it with time but its not optimal.

I still think touch interface would suit wizardry style games much better.

As for the high review scores I think they are giving them out based more on it just being a great game.

Much like the pc version of dark souls got high marks because most think its a great game despite the obvious short comings with the interface. ( without mods)