I'm quite familiar with the way it's used Mike, and it's quite clear that you would defend it for whatever reason regardless of the facts.

Your condescending comparison of the whole console thing was on the fanboy level, which surprises me, but oh well….

I think that the game is hard or easy depending on your experience with similar sorts of games and your skill. The reviewer is dissing Wynne but I am playing on normal difficulty with her as my only caster right now, basically all I have her do is heal, and having no trouble at all.

I played all the way through as a damage dealing mage earlier and some parts of the game were easier for that earlier group and some for the group I am playing now.

Because you are able to build your characters however you like there is no way that the game is going to be the same difficulty for every build. That is the boon and bane of being able to do that.

BTW, I cannot imagine successfully playing on Hard or Insane difficulty but I hear about people who are.

I liked the combat system, but then again I've always enjoyed finding out how to exploit clearly unintended game mechanics. It might not be everyone's cup of tea though.

For instance, crowd control spells lasts much, much longer on your characters at harder difficulties. The problem? This also affects force field when you cast it on one of your own characters. This alone makes nightmare not very difficult if you know what you're doing. You can keep up force field forever and have plenty of mana to spare while your other characters kill of monsters beating on an invulnerable tank

Yep, there are so many cheap abuses. I totally agree with those who mention that spellcasters are unbalanced. In places like the Deep road where you can often spot groups of enemies from afar, you can just complete most fights by simply casting earthquake and Tempest, the last cold spell and chain-lightning to accelerate the process. Your fighters and rogues just have to stand aside, drink a cup of tea and watch the firework.

Normally, you would need your fighters to at least stop the wounded enemies from getting to your exhausted spellcasters but here, you don’t even need them because enemies can all be fairly easily knocked to the ground, stunned, paralyzed, frozen, cowered and for the strongest, force-fielded!