Icewind Dale II

Unlike many, I was a big fan of the original Icewind Dale. This retains many of the features of the original (notably the wintry setting and lots of combat) but improves on it in every respect.

First off, it's beautiful to look at. The icebound landscapes are dramatic and you really feel as though you're in the far north; there's a tangled forest taken over by unnatural forces which feels genuinely oppressive and eerie and the remote monastery set into a mountainside is truly a sight to behold. The new monsters have been exquisitely drawn and animated - you'll love the driders, for example - and Icewind Dale still has the best iron golems in the business.

The incorporation of the third edition D&D rules is a huge enhancement and they have been very well incorporated. Character creation is a delight and the constant improvement of your characters is a major motivator for playing the game. The incorporation of feats makes for great variability within the same character class. No longer is a fighter just a guy who whacks things with swords until they're dead; instead you can choose to create an elven finesse fighter who wields two swords and can hit a penny with an arrow from thirty yards, a half-orc bruiser who can dish out tremendous punishment with a two handed sword or a dwarven tank who can take everything the bad guys can throw at him and then repay it with interest. Balance is excellent: you can choose to play a drow character who appears to have enormous powers but who also has limitations which makes him or her no better or worse than a plain human.

There is lots of combat in Icewind Dale II and it is extremely challenging, particularly in the earlier stages when your characters are still quite weak. Enemy AI is fearsome: you can't just pick the bad guys off one at a time using the fog of war as cover; instead if you attack one creature, all his mates join in. Worse, they don't just attack from the front but go round and creep up on you from behind, targeting your weak sorceror who's been merrily tossing fireballs at the frontline bad guys. Worse still, once an enemy targets your weak sorceror, he won't let up and won't be distracted unless your other characters surround him. This is how you play, right? You kill the magic user before worrying about the guys with the spears. Despite all the fighting, there is nonetheless room for diplomacy and deceit. You can avoid many hard fights either through flattery, intimidation or downright lies and you get the same experience as you would have got had you put the enemies to the sword instead. In earlier games smarts and particularly looks were mere candy. People who played the games by numbers would set intelligence and charisma to 3 and everything else to 18. Well now, many dialog options depend on these characteristics (not to mention many skils and feats) and they are only available to you if you're a good looking guy or girl with a magnetic personality, a glib tongue and wits to match. Even better, dialog options depend on the class of character being spoken to. Your bard can discuss philosophy and history while you'll want to kick your paladin's backside when he graciously refuses a reward or gets you into a really tough fight because he just can't keep his views to himself.

One of the major criticisms of the original Icewind Dale was the plot which did have a tendency to go something like: "Are you the bad guy?" "No, but I can tell you who might be.". Now you're waging war against a sinister organisation which has forged alliances with all manner of malefactors and disaffected elements and you are forever plugging breaches and cutting off one tentacle only for another to appear elsewhere yet emerging victorious against overwhelming odds (as I said elsewhere, the difficulty level is high). You may not have a particular commitment to the welfare of the Ten Towns of Icewind Dale, but the bad guys sure do get under your skin so that you want to punish them (the rewards are attractive too). Interestingly, the main villains aren't villainous for villainy's sake but are human-demon crossbreeds, mistreated as children, who are now taking revenge against those who hurt them and those who have slighted and shunned them.

Icewind Dale II is set thirty years after the original game and events from that game have repurcussions in this one. If you played Icewind Dale your characters would have killed a priestess of Auril called Lysan. In Icewind Dale II her death means that the Aurilites are just one of the many enemy forces allied against you. I won't give away other cross references because coming across them is just of the game's many delights.

Humour, sparingly applied, is the icing on the cake. If you have fond memories of pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons and your characters carried iron rations, ten foot poles and fifty feet of rope, you'll find a lot to make you chuckle. If you played the original Baldur's Gate, there's a scene around a campfire which will make you laugh out loud.

Any faults? Not many. Your characters' pathfinding seems to have become dreadful again having been quite good in Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate II. I haven't found any major bugs but there are a couple of unimportant ones. Nothing else comes to mind.

Bioware seem to have given up on the Infinity Engine and have bet the company on going 3D. I don't know what's with the fetish for 3D because Neverwinter Nights is a rubbish game which looks terrible and runs like a dog. Icewind Dale II, on the other hand, looks gorgeous, is totally immersive and runs very nicely thank you on almost all systems. If Icewind Dale II is the last Infinity Engine game, I will be most sad. Anybody fancy starting a petition?

So, is this a bad thing then? Most definitely not. NWN struggled to create a convincing world in 3D - but the luscious backdrops in Icewind Dale II are clearly much more detailed and realistic and most important of all: convincing. While NWN lacked atmosphere, IWD II has loads of it. The spell effects and the character animations are well designed too - not to mention resolutions of up to 1600*1200. So in the looks department, it still holds its ground quite well.

And now to the game - in many (and maybe even all) ways it's a huge improvement - over the original and even Baldur's Gate. The character system has been vastly improved. For example dialogue options will change according to the class of the person who conducts it or the skills of that person - making the game feel more lenient and freeform. Also, you can now avoid fights if the spokesperson of your party has a high degree in Diplomacy.

Quests are also very original at times - and many quests can be solved without having to raise a sword which is an interesting change from the original. For example one quest is about breaking a time loop by talking to people and changing the future - and past.

The game uses the 3rd generation of D&D rules which allows a character to change classes - so instead of being stuck on one class you can advance in another. This allows a fighter to be skilled in stealth and lock picking or a sorcerer to stand his own in a fight. Great in theory though in practice most people will prefer to stick with specialized characters instead of having 6 party members who can do a bit of everything but none great at anything.

The fighting has been slightly improved too with the ability to use several preset weapon sets so you can switch between a sword, bow or axe in mid-combat. Also, the interface for each character is customizable allowing you to put each favorite spell, potion or magic object on the bar for immediate use. All inventory weapons have been redrawn too, creating a fresh new look replacing the old and tired look of the original and BG1&2. The interface has been rearranged to let you see more of the gaming area. And while the control system is more or less identical to the other games in its line, it still works perfectly with the option of pausing mid combat to change tactics and select spells.

One of the biggest improvements is the story though, which, while basic at its simplest, is well defined and worked out. NPC (non-player characters) are well written and don't feel as shallow as the ones in the original. And it really feels as if you're making a difference in the world with people cheering your progress - and the game allows you to see the changes in their attitude towards you which makes it all the sweeter.

Still, there are some problems: it can be easy to get stuck if you miss one object. For example I left a book behind on one occasion which I needed to advance to the next part of the game. Problem is, I forgot where I dropped it and, unlike NWN, you can find all essential objects in a pool. So I had to reload and replay a big part of the game.
Also, fighting is often based on chance - which is only logical as the original pen & paper D&D games were also based on chance. Except it can get frustrating at times here and it can feel as if you don't have enough control over your party members.

But all in all this is a great game that any fan of the original should definitely buy. Especially the ending truly is great which is unusual for a game using the Infinity Engine. Just give this one a chance, even if you love NWN and think you won't be able to return to plain 2D. Because, this game just might prove you wrong.

When you first load the game up and start playing, you might feel nostalgic, but you certainly wont be particularly impressed with the tiny sprites, limited animations and begrudging use of transparency. After many hours of play however, I'm very glad the designers stuck by the infinity engine, in fact I'm wondering if the designers of Neverwinter Nights got it all wrong. In single player, Icewind dale 2 plays so much better than NWN it really makes you think that maybe Dungeons and Dragons is better in 2d.. Bioware got it right the first time.

The background graphics are lovely, varied and athmosheric. Its much easier to navigate when the backgoround orientation isnt constantly changing, so you don't need to use a minimap constantly to see where you are, you eyes rarely leave the action so, oddly, its easier to feel immersed in the game. The interface is perhaps not as powerful as it could be, but its easy to understand and looks great. Sprites, however, are average, a little small perhaps, but they do the job. There are some nice finishing touches.. like daylight and weather effects, even snow. Some things are a little grating though, the infinity engine seems to impose limits on colour (even on 32 bit mode), so shading tends to be dithered. This is particularly noticable on the edges of the 'fog of war', the black cloud obscuring unexplored areas, wich has pixelated edges rather than smooth shading. This looks very ropey in 2003.

Sound is good.. with great voice acting and spot effects. Some of the music is a bit poor, although its fine in terms of quality, its just not to my tastes.. not enough of it either.

Having a tried and tested game engine has allowed the developers to concentrate on gameplay much more. IW2 is simply the best Dungeons and Dragons RPG to date. The emphasis on managing an entire party is great fun (and a pleasent change from most recent RPGs) and combat is exciting, strategic and never feels out of place. Best of all, however, is that the game design in terms of storyline and balance is simply superb.. nothing ever feels there 'just because'.. everything fits together beautifully, and the plot is as well thought out as any good fantasy book.

The only flaw with the game is that it sometimes feels very 'pre-ordained'.. particularly after something like Morrowind, which was so free-form. Until, that is, you remember two things.. (1) that IWD2 is a Dungeons and Dragons game, whith the computer taking on the role of the dungeon master.. and (2) if the game is still immersive, varied and fun, its not important wheather or not you can go where you like, when you like. IWD2 sticks to its limits and excells within those limits.

Much like your in-game party of adventurers, the graphics, sound and gameplay in Icewind-dale work togeher beautifully to really fire the imagination. In the end, the 2d 'representative' graphics draw you into the game rather like a good book. IWD2 succeeds by not spoon feeding you flashy graphics that try to look real, so that most of the action takes place in you head.

I've used the word 'beautiful' quite a few times in this review.. IWD2, like football, is a beautiful game.