Icewind Dale 2 - Now Available on Good Old Games

The Quest for Glory series are the only titles from both Sierra and Lucasarts adventuregame series that I have yet to play.

Zerotown said:

Yes, my money is on BGII as well. I'm curious about the release after that. POR2 - Ruins of Myth Drannor perhaps?

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I'd buy that. I can't get my boxed copy to run. Tons of missing graphics, invisible menu, invisible characters. Drives me nuts.

JemyM said:

The Quest for Glory series are the only titles from both Sierra and Lucasarts adventuregame series that I have yet to play.

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They're the best ones, actually - so I HIGHLY recommend them.

Zerotown said:

For me IWD1 was the best game in the series atmosphere- & plot-wise. For some reason IDW2's story felt a bit uninspired.

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Completely agree. I loved IWD1, but the first time I played IWD2, I lost interest about 1/3 through the game as I had no idea what the story line even was at that point. Recently replayed it with the party mod from G3 and it was a much more enjoyable experience, though I still felt it was least of the BG and IWD series.

spiraling69 said:

The graphics for BG2 & IWD1 are actually better than IWD2. They removed 3D acceleration for IWD2 and that caused the fog of war shadows and the graphics in general to be grainier.

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Yeah, thought the graphics were worse it IWD2 than in any of the others. Didn't know abou the 3D acceleration beign removed (why did they do that?), but hte colors just seemd really splotchy to me.

Zerotown said:

QFG… now that takes me back. I guess the first in the series (wich was called Hero's Quest, iirc) was the first 'RPG-like' game I ever played, though it wasn't really complex. I should still have all those Sierra-boxes somewhere in my attic.

Anyway, I especially liked the first title and the fourth, wich had great atmosphere and sound-acting. For those interested, there's a remake of the second game available for free here

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Yeah, loved Hero's Quest. Player it through four or five times, then bought the VGA remake when they made it! I really enjoyed the sequal two, but I never finished the third one. Something about the interface didn't take with me and I just never got far into it.

This news prompted me to re-install TOEE for the first time since it came out. It sounded like fun but I never liked the RTWP infinity engine games. So instead I'm finally trying TOEE with CO8.

Zerotown said:

For me IWD1 was the best game in the series atmosphere- & plot-wise. For some reason IDW2's story felt a bit uninspired. That said, the latter has a bit more going for it technically: higher resolutions to play in, some very nice soundtracks and a game engine that uses AD&D 3.0 ruleset.

Regarding the plot and pacing of both games: they are far less epic than the Baldur's Gate series. Icewind Dale is more of a 'Dungeon-romp', wich I personally liked a lot.

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I agree with this.

IWD 1 was really perfect. Tight pacing, great graphics, phenomenal soundtrack, challenging battles, good story which just served to move you to the next epic battle.

IWD 2 wasn't a bad game overall. It actually had some improvements over the original such as more elaborate quests, noticeably more dialogue choices (although they didn't really affect anything but still made the conversations more engaging) which included a nice dose of humor and the soundtrack was as epic as ever.

However, IWD didn't feel as "tight". The first time I played it the pacing felt off - some battles were fine but others were difficult to the point of being annoying and requiring MANY reloads. Replaying the game recently though, I had a much easier time though story pacing was still off. It just didn't flow as well as it did in the first game. There were also some unnecessary puzzles added to the sequel that slowed down the game.

The first game also had several memorable locales and battles and the sequel, not so much.

So overall IWD2 is worth getting but it wasn't as great as IWD. I'd give IWD a 10* and IWD 2 gets an 8 (which is maybe a tad generous? 7.5?).

* This 10 is relative: for a hack & slash dungeon crawler, IWD was perfect. However, it is NO Baldur's Gate 2 which to me, to this day is the pinnacle of computer RPGs. That one goes to 11

OH and GoG should really do the Wizardry games next!
A Wizardry 6 to 8 pack would be awesome.

I also didn't get into IWD2 that much. IWD I loved though.

Lands of Lore next, please.

ToddMcF2002 said:

I'd buy that. I can't get my boxed copy to run. Tons of missing graphics, invisible menu, invisible characters. Drives me nuts.

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What platform?

I loved both IWD 1 and 2. Both for atmosphere/music and for handcrafting / building an entire party. I played them all with auto-pause turned on for every round, so it was just like turn-based combat.