Icewind Dale: EE - Review @ Analog Addiction

Analog Addiction gave Icewind Dale: EE a score of 6/10 in a review.

Overall, Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is a well polished update to a fourteen year old game. The Infinity Engine paved the way for a lot of current role-playing games, and must be given its due. For fans of the original series and the Infinity Engine itself, it would definitely be a great game to add to your collection. I would even recommend it for players looking for a multiplayer adventure experience. Even so, newcomers should definitely keep in mind that it is an older game, and it may take you a while to get the hang of it.

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More information.

Bashing Icewind Dale's "steep learning curve".

Wow, I was obviously much younger when I played it for the first time but remember many others playing it that were much younger still, back in a time when fewer were as knowledgeable about things computer related. Yet I don't recall anyone, young or old, having any problems coming to terms with the "complexity" of Icewind Dale, or Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights etc...

Infact I've looked at Icewind Dale as the more simple one when compared to it's compatriots. I think I was going to moan about how someone could list Icewind Dale's apparently "steep learning curve" as a negative, though now I feel at least as much that it's sad and telling that today people expect to be spoon-fed, perhaps forcibly, even the most basic concepts in games, concepts which a pre-teen should have no trouble grasping. Things which by comparison are no more complex than the concept of multiplication.

Gaming has for some time, given the impression that it believes it's audience is idiots or somehow mentally deficient and often treats them as such, though I always thought games were doing this unjustly and unnecessarily, though perhaps I was wrong not just about gaming but about general human intelligence if someone who reviews games thinks Icewind Dale is complex.

No, I refuse, I don't believe the average person gamer or not has only the faculties of a trained monkey, so I will instead presume that this reviewer sucks both at their job and at games. Perhaps they are far to busy looking for something to list as a negative, something to say "look I've analysed this", as if trying to justify their reviewing both to themselves and others. Believing they know enough about design and functionality down to the intrinsic to warn others that this is complex, even if it in actual fact is barely more complex than deliberately walking and pissing at the same time.

I'm very glad to see this re-release and I still haven't played it. I think I might like it more than it's peers since it is more combat focused.

I want to buy it but feel it is priced too high. I guess it needs to go through this early phase before the %50 or %75 sale. Happy to wait a month or two or three.

time has changed mate.
people have dumbed down, and sped up.
i blame nutrition mostly ) and having everything you want at hand.
most ppl are animals, western world has a broken value system

I'm playing it a bit on and off right now, while waiting for DA: I. So far, so good. It's exactly what you'd expect after BG: EE and BG2: EE.

Couchpotato said:

Analog Addiction gave Icewind Dale: EE a score of 6/10 in a review.

More information.

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The Bad
•Complex UI creates a steep learning curve for newcomers
•Early game leveling feels a little unbalanced

I'm surprised they didn't mention not being able to use a "controller" to play the game. Isn't that what the "New" generation want these days with all the cross platform releases?

They played the "Multiplayer" option of course, because thats what IWD was originally all about…. NOT.

A review by someone obviously used to being spoon fed their gameplay options. Lost the will to live by the end, get back to Donkey Kong and leave the grown ups to enjoy themselves.

For a much more positive review, see here -
http://www.gameplanet.com.au/pc/reviews/g545155e4a817f/Icewind-Dale-Enhanced-Edition-review/

They said that this is Beamdog's best enhanced edition game to date, and that with Icewind Dale enhanced edition, they have "hit their stride", and "third time's a charm."

I wish these reviews would focus on EE vs non EE rather than the base game. Also this is one game that the term 'steep learning curve' befuddles me. While the graphics are dated as well as a few of the mechancs (interface); the only thing that caught me by surrpise (that I remember) when I originally played the game was that trolls wouldn't stay dead.

Trolls that lurk on this site or the ones you must kill with fire?

I believe that as the population of gaming has grown exponentially over the years, there are more casual gamers who play RPGs and for many of those it is difficult to learn how to play a game which does not tightly hold the user's hands at least in the initial stages of a game.

Can anyone kindly inform me how many players does the EE version let you play with?

My buddies and I were thinking about it, but if it's two players only we'll have to pass.

soulbane said:

can anyone kindly inform me how many players does the ee version let you play with?

My buddies and i were thinking about it, but if it's two players only we'll have to pass.

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6 is max

If Icewind Dale has a steep learning curve, I can only chuckle at what they'd think of ID2 w/ the 3.5 ruleset.

I don't remember it having a steep learning curve, but maybe that's because I played it right after BG.

Man, if playing games are hard for these folks, real life must be super tough!! Digging ditches is hard work to me, even games like Wizardry 1-5 and the early Ultimas were not that difficult.

Thanks, Archangel. That actually sounds quite awesome.