Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 Review
Played on:
Xbox
Interplay and Snowblind Studios released a surprise hit in 2001 with Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, the action/RPG that took the world of Baldur's Gate and infused it with a Diablo style of gameplay. Its excellent graphics on the PS2 were almost unmatched to date, and the action was fast and furious. The two-player cooperative mode was plenty of fun, and it was an easy to pick up game - for these reasons it was both a critical and commercial success, spawning ports to both the Xbox and GameCube. It also managed to start up its own mini-genre of games, as D&D Heroes, Champions of Norrath, and even Interplay's own Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel are trying to ride on the coattails of BG:DA's success.
Interplay only just released Fallout: BOS a week or two ago, and after a couple of delays that made them miss the holiday season, the sequel to BG:DA is out. This time around, the original three characters have been scrapped in favor of your pick between five new playable characters. These are all pretty different from the first game's three, and many of the skills are totally brand new. While the label says Black Isle is the developer, this is really only in name; none of the original Black Isle employees that were responsible for Planescape: Torment or the Icewind Dale series worked on this game.
The controls for BG:DA2 are almost exactly the same as in the first game, but we do get a couple of improvements. As before, the left stick controls the character while the right stick rotates the camera (and the camera can also be zoomed in now, but only a tad). A is your attack button while X opens doors and picks things up. Y jumps and B is used for triggering a spell or special ability. The white and black buttons are your health/mana potion buttons, and the right trigger allows you to block.
What's new to BG:DA2 is the new shift-type function that's set to the left trigger. When you hold this down, the A, X, B, and Y face buttons become shortcuts to four more abilities you have set up, thus solving my biggest control gripe from the first game - using the D-pad to switch skills. This allows you to set up four skills that can be easily accessed with the press of one trigger and one button.
The engine used in Baldur's Gate: Dark Allaince was surely impressive for its time - while the GameCube port had some frame rate issues, both the PS2 and Xbox versions looked great. It's now been over a year since the Xbox port of the first game was released, and the engine hasn't seemed to have changed much. While there isn't quite the wow factor we had in the first game, the art is genuinely what makes the sequel a pleasure to look at.
As with any self-respecting fantasy game, you'll be traversing quite a few different kinds of environments. Most of these look convincing and as good as one would expect out of the Xbox, but I do have a couple of gripes. First, the city of Baldur's Gate itself feels very dull and empty. Almost all of the side streets are (quite conveniently) blocked off by barrels and crates, and we are left only with one section of the town with a scant few exits off of it. I'd really like to see the whole city depicted in full 3D - but we'll have to wait for Baldur's Gate 3 (if it ever gets made) for that. Second, we see way too many goblins this time around; in fact, the game simply relies on one or two types of enemies for far too long at a time. Expect to be fighting only about two kinds of enemies at once for pretty much the whole game.
The animations for all five characters are great, and many of the monsters are well animated. The two-player mode can become a little confusing, as enemies will now work together in a group and even get "buffed" by priests in the back. Add onto this all the special effects flying around, and you might find yourself swinging blindly while trying to get behind the enemy's front line. Still, it's all in good fun, and it does look good pretty much all the time.
This game sure does play a lot like the first one, and I have no complaints about that at all; aside from a few familiar faces and other bits and pieces, it's the same gameplay in a brand new set of levels with mostly new skills, spells, and enemies.
The plot in BG:DA2 follows directly after the first game's cliffhanger ending, and actually does continue on the same storyline but with these 5 new characters at the helm. Eldrith's tower is now being taken over by Mordoc, a vampire trying to destroy Baldur's Gate. You'll start out on the road to the city, and within a couple of hours you'll be doing all kinds of quests involving the city's various denizens.
While the first game only barely hinted at different dialogue options for the three different characters, this one includes some mini quests and unique dialogue for them. This, along with the very different styles and skills that each one has, means you'll want to replay the game as all five. This is the kind of replay value I found missing in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, as the three playable characters there looked plenty different but actually played pretty much the same.
The new characters include a human barbarian and dark elf monk who are the melee fighting types, a human cleric who is good when solo and even better in two-player mode, and a dwarven rogue who can sneak attack as well as use a bow pretty well. Finally, there's the necromancer who can raise a skeleton to help fight as well as do all kinds of unique damage to monsters. One new thing I appreciate is that at least a few of the characters can now wield two weapons, and the barbarian can even swing a "great" two-handed weapon in each hand! Two weapons always beats one, and BG:DA2 delivers in this aspect.
The workshop is a major game feature, and it allows one to upgrade weapons in a style similar to socketed items from Diablo II. Here, though, you can only do this in the actual workshop, and you will have to pay to get the work done. Any upgrade will require a runestone first, which has no special effects. There are two other slots in each weapon, though, and these are where you can throw in any selection of many jewels. The jewels and runestones are found in the game world as well as in stores, and they allow you to creat all kinds of custom items. The problem comes with cost - adding or removing these jewels costs you a ton of gold, so you might want to save before any operation, try out your new formula, and load the game if you're not happy with it.
Before long you will notice that blocking is essential in BG:DA2's single player mode. You might have been able to get away without blocking through most of the first game, but you'll find out early on here that the block-then-counterattack strategy will keep your health bar up far better than just tapping buttons all day. It does make for some interesting tactics you'll need to use, as the game does get pretty hard - even on Normal difficulty - by the time you reach the end. I noticed that in two-player mode, though, blocking isn't so important, and you can even break through enemy blocks much easier when someone is behind the monster while swinging.
BG:DA2 does wind up being more of the same action from the first game, but I find that this is good enough for me. The action is entertaining and frantic and even though there isn't that much new here, Interplay has added just enough in terms of gameplay, new gear to play with, and the all-new characters. It's a worthy sequel for anyone who enjoyed BG:DA.
The sound effects in the first game were excellent, and while there are a few that seemed rather familiar here, I can find no major fault with this game's sound. The music is as sparse as it was before, and sort of goes in and out with strange timing, but it's pretty good stuff.
BG:DA's voice acting was far better than what one might expect from a hack and slash game, and the quality has been maintained here. I don't recall hearing any notable actors, but they all deliver the game's dialogue (not that there's a ton, but much of the game is voiced out) nicely.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 builds on its predecessor with new characters, challenging gameplay, plenty of new items, and the workshop system. The lack of four-player action or online play is a minor disappointment, but this game sticks to its roots and delivers a fun experience that's easy to pick up and hard to put down.
