Icewind Dale Collection (IWD, HOW & IWD2)

This is the latest installment in the Forgotten Realms series, with both IWD, HOW and IWD2 following well in the footsteps of previous titles, such as the acclaimed Baldur's Gate. Unfortunately, I have not yet had the pleasure of playing Baldur's Gate, but if its anything like this, then I should be in for a treat.

In both IWD and IWD2, you create a personalised party of your choice, consisting of six members, including fighters, clerics, mages, paladins, and thieves, but if you're unsure of who to pick, you could always be boring and choose from a variety of customised parties. You and your six campanions will travel through many vast and incredibly detailed environments, ranging from snow to caves and temples. You must guide your party of mercenaries through this wilderness, battling orcs and other foes on the way, choosing to dispose of them using either a range of magic attacks, via your mage or sorcerer, or melee attacks, from your fighters and paladins.

The way you comunicate with others participants of this environment, is through a series of textboxes, in which you can choose an appropriate response. The more important characters have spoken dialogue, as well as text, and the choices you make can decide the fate of you beloved companions.

The combat is orchestrated via your commands to your companions. For example, if you come across a band of orcs, you can command individual characters, such as fighters to attack different enemies, whilst your mage hulrs various fireballs, and other magic attacks to assist. You must have either a cleric or a druid in your party, in order to heal any injured companions along the way. You can also pause combat at any time, to give different commands, and resume again, as you watch your enemies being decapitated one be one, whilst you marvel at your leadership and strategy skills. Also if you find a partiuclar part you are stuck on, on IWD2 you can alter the difficulty level mid-fight!! and change it back again whenever you wish!

This game has it all, action, suspense, excellent gameplay, and a good storyline, which is what makes it one of the best RPG games around, and take it from me, it becomes highly addictive, so be prepared to spend hours of your life in front of the screen, becoming less sociable as the days go by! So, what more can I say, except, to go out and buy it!!

The first Forgotten Realms game i played was Baldurs gate 2, it was a game that induced me into something close to an obsession. I completed it and i was distraught, though this was certainly re-playable, i didn't want to start another game so soon. So I took a stroll into my nearest Game retailer and they reccomended Icewind Dale and expressed how surprised they were i didn't have it. So i took it home and tucked the CD into the Rom drive. I went to create a new character and i was greeted with the same character creation ritual as Baldurs Gate. But then it asked me to create another character, and another, and another until i had a party of 6. This was too good the story line was just as intricate as baldurs gate and the game play almost better. But then i found its flaw, the characters didn't have "Feelings". In BG the game was interlaced with romance, grudges and dark pasts which gave the gamer so much joy and re-playability (Eg. I wonder what would happen if i said THIS to Aerie and not that). I played through most of Icewind, but gave up after a while.
Then, shortly after getting a new jazzed up PC Icewind Dale 2 came out, i decided this would be the christening game for my PC. I booted it up and i found that the Character creation had been re-vamped and i liked it. The playability of IWD2 is similar to that of its predecessor but subtly better, though i still found it lacking in the character realness department.
So if you find that its one major flaw is too much for you to cope with and/or it was the only thing that attracted you to the game anyway, then its not for you. And if you are the DnD player who just wants to kill to a story. Then this certainly is your game

Having played the awesome Baldur's Gate there seemed no other option but to go out and by this similar installment. And thank goodness i did; it is simply amazing. The ability to design your own party and guide it through snowy wildernesses defeating foes with sword and magic alike never gets in the slightest bit boring and with an gripping storyline one cant fail to be intrigued. Unfortunately there are far fewer subquests which made Baldur's Gate so special but nevertheless this is top notch. Sadly the gamemakers have decided to scrap the format shown in these games and use more powerful'3D'graphics at the expense of gameplay. Bring back the classics!