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Hmm, it's Friday and I have yet to put up a Baldur's Gate 2 review. Been too lazy I guess. I noticed that Laz is itching to get himself a copy, while KGL has other problems to worry about..
Oh, BTW. There is one drawback with importing characters. Although you do get the extra abilities you gain in the original Baldur's Gate, you only retain a small fraction of your spells, and obviously you won't be able to try out some of the new classes. Starting a new character in BG2 is not a bad idea..
I might as well say something about the game while I'm up here. Er.. let's start with the plot. The story continues off basically where you left off at the end of Baldur's Gate. Without spoiling too much, you and your party get captured and taken to some unknown dungeon where you're submitted to torture and other nasty things. You don't know where you are, you don't know why you were captured, and you don't know what had happened to the rest of your party..
The introduction movie uses the still frame "sliding" animation found in the "Homeworld" movies (which got be thinking about "Cataclysm". *shiver*). Once the movie ends, you are released, and find that all of your equipment is gone (which made me wonder why I spent so much time hoarding all of those rare items in "Baldur's Gate"). When you finally escape, you find yourself in the middle of the city of Athkatla, one of the major cities of the southern lands of Amn. From there, you begin to adventure outwards, always in pursuit of your captors, ever slow slowly learning of their motives, and their reasons.
I don't want to give anything away, but even if you weren't as pedantic as me (and I still haven't finished all of the side missions), it would take a good week of solid playing to finish all of the required quests. Despite removing the "dead space" in the game, it is still very long, and I thought I got my money's worth IMNSHO.
You will bump into a few familiar faces in the game. You immediately meet Imoen, Minsc, and Jaheira, although their pictures will look somewhat different (especially Jaheira). You will notice, however, that all of the original portraits from "Baldur's Gate" have been ported over to BG2. Some of the old faces can join your party (like Edwin or Viconia), but some other faces will only be NPC's (like Garrick). This is made up for the fact that there are quite a few new characters that can join your party. They're listed in the manual so I won't go through them in detail. The range and distribution of characters is good enough that you can (in general) put together a very well balanced party without having all of them at each other's throats.
Speaking of which, there is much more NPC interaction in the game. When they said that each character had more lines in BG2 than all of the characters in BG1 combined, they weren't kidding. It got a little annoying after a while because most of these comments or discussions are random and not all too infrequent. Party chatter can be decreased (I think) but party dialogue cannot. Oh well, I went through most of the dialogue in Chapter 2 (seeing as I finished most of the side quests in Chapter 2) so I wasn't bothered much in the later stages of the game.
I did had some problems with some of the side quests and interactions. Sometimes, I would be given a quest that appears in the journal, even though the overall quest has already been completed. This makes it impossible for me to clear that quest from the logs and adds to the clutter. It's a minor point really, but something to keep in mind.
While I'm talking about the journal, the designers have definitely improved the game in that area. The journal now is divided into four sections. One for incomplete quests, one for complete quests, one for general journal entries, and one for user defined entries. It is also arranged so that you can view the entries in chronological or alphabetical order. This makes keeping track of all of your many tasks a lot easier (even manageable!). Apart from the incomplete quest bug, I give them high marks in this area.
Another annoying bug in relation to the incomplete quests is that some quests are.. incompletable (to the best of my knowledge. Following the directions of the entry doesn't always help you, and you have to have an idea about that certain situation sometimes to be able to complete that quest. But there was one quest which I just couldn't complete. Whether it's a bug or not remains to be seen, but I'll keep it a secret for now.
I mentioned "dead space" earlier. One of the major gripes about the original game was that there was so much area to cover to reach the interesting points of the game. For example, to make it to Nashkel from the Friendly Arm Inn, you had to literally walk the entire distance (which was five whole maps including Beregost) which would take forever. Generally, if you were just rushing through, you will miss some of the side quests hidden off of the main path. This made it annoying for people like me, who had to clear the entire map to make sure I didn't miss anything before going on to the next map. This meant that going from one interesting point to another took a long time the first time you headed to that location. BG2 changed that. Instead of walking through buffer zones to reach areas of interest, they got rid of all of the buffer zones (nearly). So, now all of the side quests are located within the cities or locations of interest. There are times when you bump into a scripted event on the way to another location, but they are fairly rare. In any case, this gave the designers many more maps to play around with to greatly increase the playing size of the locations of import.
Since you start off in Athkatla, the game is essentially the opposite of "Baldur's Gate" where you reach the major city near the end of the game. I'm not sure if it's better or not, but it means that you get to do a lot of stuff at the beginning of the game without actually "going" anywhere.
While I'm here, I should talk about the map. There have been some improvements in this area as well. They have added markers on the map to show important locations on the map so that you don't have to wander around aimlessly for an hour before finding the correct house or the proper hole in the ground. This has helped reduced wandering time, which could be used for playing time. The map also allows one to add their own markers for other possible interesting points. You may need them actually. but I didn't find that I needed to use them much. However, these waypoints do make you a bit dependent on them. At one point in the game, there is a waypoint missing on the map. Although it's not critical in finishing the quest, it makes it a little annoying for people like me (pedantic as hell) when it comes to completing all parts of a quest. In any case, apart from that glitch, the map also gets top marks.
There was also improvements with the inventory system. The inventory borrows two features from the "Tales of the Sword Coast". The backpack automatically groups like objects together, so you don't have to manually group arrows into piles to make space. Also, unidentified magical items will appear as blue to make it easier to spot and less likely for you for ignore them when you go through your enemy's stash. They have introduced scroll cases and jewel pouches to give you considerable extra room in your pack for more important items (like arrows). Although these items have limited capacity, every extra bit of space helps. Later in the game, you'll also find a bag of holding which will also come in very handy. I mentioned arrows before, and they too have not gone unscathed. The group limit has been increased from twenty to forty, so you can now hold 120 arrows in your quiver! This also applies to bolts and bullets as well. A welcome change for those long campaigns into the wilderness.
This area, unfortunately, isn't without it's share of bugs. There are some magical weapons that don't show up as magical. One being the staff mace. It may be because I had it in my pack when I finished BG1, but I don't think so. Keep that in mind. Another gripe has to do with the Kor-Tah bolts you find in the Underdark. These bolts are the best type of bolts you can find in the game (you can't buy them). Unfortunately, the grouping limit on them is ten. I don't know if that's a bug, or it's to prevent you from stocking up on these beauties, but it filled up my packs very quickly..
Oh my, I've gotten a little more long winded than I had anticipated. Oh well, at least now you have a taste of what's to come with the game engine. I haven't even started talking about the new enemies and the new skills and spells!
I'm thinking of playing the game again with my Cleric/Mage, but after I realized that the experience cap will severely cripple my Cleric/Mage's abilities (up to level 16/14 instead of 21/17 if I was single classed).. I'm going to think about it.
In any case, I should be going to bed. *yawn*
Friday, October 06, 2000 at 08:32:56 (UTC)
honestly though, there's something weird going on and I don't know if I should be worried about it....too many things are too 'coincidental'...you know what I'm sayin'?
k<e-mail>
Friday, October 06, 2000 at 16:18:36 (UTC)
In that case, I think you should go and invest in a stalker remove-o-matic (TM). But honestly, if you don't think it's coincidental and you feel uncomfortable about it, you should confront the guy (or girl).
What do you guys think?
QYV
Friday, October 06, 2000 at 18:42:37 (UTC)
Jung called those sorts of meaningful coincidences "synchronicity." Take it as the universe (or your subconscious, or whatever) trying to tell you something. It doesn't hurt to listen.
FlyingS
Friday, October 06, 2000 at 21:13:38 (UTC)
see, the problem is that I'm not really sure how this even got started....I just got a random e-mail, and then all the coincidences started....so how can I confront it if I don't know what or who it is?
as for 'listening' to whatever my subconscious is trying to say....I think its telling me that I really need to lay low, esp with updating my page since I already know that the sender of the e-mail read my page....
furthermore...as far as my previous stalker experience, it wasn't so cool....these two guys broke into an office to get my info from a computer...and then proceeded to e-mail me and send me letters and poetry to my house for a year. yeah. not cool.
k<e-mail>
Friday, October 06, 2000 at 22:20:41 (UTC)
K, I would suggest you take a look at Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear, possibly the most helpful book around when it comes to dealing with violence. It also deals with stalkers. I've been reading this book for a while now, and it's truly informative, fascinating and important.
I'll email you some ideas.
Persistance is often the key trait with stalkers - and Hollywood doesn't help here, who seem to champion the formula Boy Wants Girl, Girl Doesn't Want Boy, Boy Harasses Girl, Boy Gets Girl. Many movies teach that if you just stay with it, even if you offend her, even if she says she wants nothing to do with you, even if you've treated her like trash (and sometimes because you've treated her like trash), you'll get the girl.
MC Hwanking
Friday, October 13, 2000 at 19:03:00 (UTC)
I'm sorry, k, I guess I misread what you were saying (or I was in a daze or something). I was thinking of "huh, that's weird" coincidences rather than "I'm just a little creeped out right now" coincidences. I hope you're doing okay.
FlyingS