Baldur's Gate - Retrospective

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SasqWatch
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Resolution Magazine have a short retrospective on Baldur's Gate - a timeless classic so sayeth the wise Greg Giddens.
Baldur’s Gate defined a generation. A wealth of role-playing games were born from the success of BioWare’s classic, and the generation of gamers at the time were inspired and amazed by its achievements. It’s games of this impact that push the boundaries of what the medium is thought to be capable of.
Baldur’s Gate wasn’t a difficult game to learn. Its design allowed the modified AD&D Second Edition rule set to work its magic behind the scenes, leaving the player to concentrate on enjoying the experience of the narrative and characters. Knowing how the rule system worked and taking the time to master all the elements involved made the experience a little less punishing along the way. But the true magic behind the game was that, whatever the player’s level of knowledge, Baldur’s Gate remained accessible to all. Nothing was overly complicated, and the initially harsh combat simply encouraged a more cerebral approach. Simple controls and well designed menus kept things tidy and intuitive, all adding to its phenomenal success.
More information.
 
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OMG I just loved the article and agreed with every word. Damn I feel old and nostalgic right now. Lot of people are saying that bg2 is the game but for me its bg1. The freedom, the ambient sounds (!), music, ruleset, quests, locations and of course characters are precious to me like my own childhood memories. I was on my gaming "peek", old enough to understand and read english and yet not too old to be interested on other things like booze and girls. I think i could fill your scrollbar with everlasting memories of baldur' gate, but instead I suggest you to install and play it.

Candlekeep and Gorion is awaiting you child. ;'-)

PS. What is this "optimised" version?! What I've missed?
 
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Baldur's Gate was my first crpg, and really the game that got me hooked on the genre. I'd had a few D&D rulebooks, and made dozens of characters, but could never find anyone else that wanted to play pen&paper D&D. So it was a dream come true, allowing me to actually experience it solo.

I never finished it back then, I wasnt really the completist that I am these days, and there were other things (like girls and partying) that were in competition for my attention. Finally played it all the way thru last year, it was great to go thru the areas that I remember, then proceed thru fresh material that I'd never seen (including ToTSC) and finish it completely. What a glorious experience, for lack of a better term. I know that's a bit corny, but i swear - seeing Sarevok fall, to win this epic game for once and for all, it was truly glorious.

If you choose to pick it up and give it a whirl, please - dont let Candlekeep and the beginnning areas scare you off. Many a prospective player is turned off by the initially boring and extremely dated-looking foray into the game. Stick with it, the later areas, quests, & npcs are well worth the initial tedium!
 
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They are probably talking about Baldur's Gate TuTu when talking about an optimised version. Baldur's Gate TuTu moves Baldur's Gate into the Baldur's Gate 2 engine and optimises and improves things.
 
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I don't think so. It will be re-released next week by atari so it probably just includes something to help it run on vista/win7.
 
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Does it make anyone else feel old when people mention BG as their very first crpg? Cripes....I am getting old.
 
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It is hard to remember what was exactly my first crpg but it was from the list below.

WWOB
Ultima 5
Final Fantasy 1
 
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You guys are young ;)

Baldur's Gate was a great game - but to me it was more a modern version of the true classic and ultimate non-linear party-based AD&D CRPG known as Pool of Radiance.

Pool of Radiance didn't really suffer from any significant issues, unlike Baldur's Gate - which had horrible pathfinding and questionable AI scripts. Besides, AD&D 2nd Edition (or any edition) was never meant to be done in real-time and all the Goldbox games had fantastic turn-based combat with a great tactical feeling.

Still, Baldur's Gate was great.
 
Great retrospective. Baldur's Gate is a true "classic" among crpgs...it will always remain one of my favorite party-based games.
 
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You guys are young ;)

Baldur's Gate was a great game - but to me it was more a modern version of the true classic and ultimate non-linear party-based AD&D CRPG known as Pool of Radiance.

Pool of Radiance didn't really suffer from any significant issues, unlike Baldur's Gate - which had horrible pathfinding and questionable AI scripts. Besides, AD&D 2nd Edition (or any edition) was never meant to be done in real-time and all the Goldbox games had fantastic turn-based combat with a great tactical feeling.

Still, Baldur's Gate was great.

Heh, no issues with pool of radiance? You don't remember having to read the manual for text in the game?(a primitive copy protection) or the fact it was 3 or 4 years behind the other software released at the time. There were bugs as well....and the combat was ugly as hell. However, it was one of the first to get D&D right....I even remember playing those side scroller krynn games...

My first was Bards tale 1....that and ultima's were my vices back then. I started with part 3.
 
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Heh, no issues with pool of radiance? You don't remember having to read the manual for text in the game?(a primitive copy protection) or the fact it was 3 or 4 years behind the other software released at the time. There were bugs as well….and the combat was ugly as hell. However, it was one of the first to get D&D right….I even remember playing those side scroller krynn games…

My first was Bards tale 1….that and ultima's were my vices back then. I started with part 3.

The manual thing wasn't an issue if you had one :)

The Journal Entries were cool, though, with tons of flavor.

But most games back then had their own unique copy protection schemes, and that wasn't considered an issue by legitimate owners. It wasn't until it became a rarity that people realised how annoying it was :)

3 or 4 years behind what? I have no idea what you're talking about. This game was quite advanced and far ahead of its time in terms of features and the way it represented a truly epic and comprehensive CRPG experience. It might not have been the prettiest game in existence - but I don't really remember thinking it was "behind the times" in any way whatsoever.

Maybe it was the platform you played it on?

No game more advanced than Tic Tac Toe is free from bugs, but I don't remember any bug affecting my game - no.

Combat ugly? Nah.

It seems we don't really agree here, huh? ;)

Anyway - my first was actually Bard's Tale as well, or at least the first I played seriously. A fantastic game in its own right.
 
Awsome game I still replay from time to time. That was my first cRPG game (I was only 9 years old when I bought it, or shall I say parents bought me it for christmas :p) and because of that my feelings for Baldur's Gate are special (it was my favourite game until I played Planescape Torment in 2005).
 
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Heh, no issues with pool of radiance? You don't remember having to read the manual for text in the game?(a primitive copy protection) or the fact it was 3 or 4 years behind the other software released at the time. There were bugs as well….and the combat was ugly as hell. However, it was one of the first to get D&D right….I even remember playing those side scroller krynn games….

Everything you just mentioned was part of why I loved that game. Combat was ugly??? Ok, if you say so. I thought it was a dream come true (I was like sammy. Had tons of D&D books, but not really anyone to play with). As for the journal, dude, didn't you ever bring that to school/work to read? That thing was awesome.

Basically, I'm in total agreement with DArt.

Oh and those sidescroller Krynn games were extremely difficult, but fun. I think it was the first time I played a character that I read about in a novel. Pretty cool playing Raistlin and Tasslehoff. Although, I never did pass either one of those games.

Heroes of the Lance

Dragons of Flame
 
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Everything you just mentioned was part of why I loved that game. Combat was ugly??? Ok, if you say so. I thought it was a dream come true (I was like sammy. Had tons of D&D books, but not really anyone to play with). As for the journal, dude, didn't you ever bring that to school/work to read? That thing was awesome.

Basically, I'm in total agreement with DArt.

Oh and those sidescroller Krynn games were extremely difficult, but fun. I think it was the first time I played a character that I read about in a novel. Pretty cool playing Raistlin and Tasslehoff. Although, I never did pass either one of those games.

Heroes of the Lance

Dragons of Flame

I never said I didn't like it...I said it was ugly, and it was....however it worked quite well...I owned every gold box game there was except buck rogers was thata gold box game?
 
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I never said I didn't like it…I said it was ugly, and it was….however it worked quite well…I owned every gold box game there was except buck rogers was thata gold box game?

No, YOU think it was ugly - there's a difference :)
 
I never said I didn't like it…I said it was ugly, and it was….however it worked quite well…I owned every gold box game there was except buck rogers was thata gold box game?

I didn't say you didn't like it. I just thought it funny the things you complained about were the things that I loved about it, that's all. I still think you're nuts with the ugly graphics or combat. I spent at least an hour or two getting every color just right and every weapon just perfect for my characters. You gotta remember this was way back, I believe in EGA days. Things weren't all that pretty back then ;) And those journals were like P&P modules. Look at the map, go to #4 in the book and read what is in the room. I thought it brought a little bit of the P&P modules to the game.

As for Krynn, you just brought back old memories of that game and was just talking about it. I wasn't attacking you or anything like that.

To bring this back to the subject of Baldur's Gate, I thought one of the coolest features it had was the weapons and armor you wore actually showed up on your character. It's a silly little detail, but one that I thought was pretty amazing at the time.
 
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Oh and those sidescroller Krynn games were extremely difficult, but fun. I think it was the first time I played a character that I read about in a novel. Pretty cool playing Raistlin and Tasslehoff. Although, I never did pass either one of those games.

Heroes of the Lance

Dragons of Flame

I played the dragons of flame with c64 tape. Not sure if it was my first crpg though but I was quite amazed by it. I didnt know there were any novels until like 5 years later and as soon as I found out about them I read them all in quick session.

I never passed the game either. I always got lost in the maze sooner or later. Lucky that I even got that far because I didnt really know what the game was all about until I read the books years later.
 
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I loved both BGs… And will never forget the "you must gather your party before venturing forth" annoyance. Although it was getting on my nerves back then, somehow I miss that thing in recent party based RPGs. :)
 
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Everything you just mentioned was part of why I loved that game. Combat was ugly??? Ok, if you say so. I thought it was a dream come true (I was like sammy. Had tons of D&D books, but not really anyone to play with). As for the journal, dude, didn't you ever bring that to school/work to read? That thing was awesome.

That's a difference. Me, for example, had no knowlefhe of (A)D&D at all, and even less of the rules.

Hence my irritation.

I had a hard time figureing things out, and the fights became hard for me - I always thought it would be so because I'm not into the (A)D&D rules system.

And to develop an RPG that had almost no social skills at all ... That was evben more irritating to me, because I considered social skills to be "normal" in ANY RPG ...

Time has proved me to be wrong. What is considered "NORMAL" in RPGs are fighting skills, no social skills. Cynically said, social skills are for wussies (and I'm sure everyone of the Codex would agree with that).
 
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