Baldur's Gate Original Saga with Tales of the Sword Coast Expansion Pack
by Black Isle Studios
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Video Game Reviews of Baldur's Gate Original Saga with Tales of the Sword Coast Expansion Pack
Customer Review: Brings back the AD&D nostalgia, and a pretty good RPG too.
Summary: 4 Stars
Buying this recently, long after the furor has come and gone about BG resuscitating the RPG genre, definitely puts a different spin on how the game looks to me. When the game originally came out, I got the feeling it was hack and slash, not to the extent of Diablo, but still nowhere near the plot and character-oriented style of Fallout (which had come out shortly before and I really enjoyed). I stayed away from it.A few months ago, my brother borrowed the game from someone and I saw him playing it for a while; I was in the mood for an RPG and no really good ones have come out lately, so I decided to pick it up. For as old as this game was, I have had a ball playing it, although I have gotten pretty frustrated in certain places (usually because I was not powerful enough to go up against the enemies I was trying to fight).
The game is not a graphically stunning masterpiece -- the 640x480 graphics are...well, dated, but still plenty good for an RPG (which shouldn't be about eye candy anyway). The spell effects are fun to watch though, and to me, the game _feels_ right, being an old AD&D player from back in high school. The plot....well, it's not as open as Fallout, but it is still a big improvement on the hack and slash genre. Combat is necessary, and a pretty big part of the game, but I didn't find myself getting really annoyed with the fact. Some of the voice work is really good -- listening to all of Minsc's lines is a hoot (although I know there's a lot of people who find it annoying -- depends on your tastes, I guess). Bioware seems to have done a good job importing the AD&D system to computer form.
Now, there are some annoyances...having to explore all the wilderness tiles in order to get all the special encounters is a real pain and I wish they had found a better solution. The fact that you have to explore the big city in the game (Baldur's Gate) is also a bit silly, and it is annoying that the game does not stay paused if you go into the inventory screen. These were fixed in the sequel.
One thing I do want to say is that it is not clear that you are supposed to go to the expansion areas _prior_ to beating the game. I don't know if this was clearer in the original Tales of the Sword Coast box, but it was not clear to me -- most expansions I've played you play them after beating the original game. In TotSC, you need to go to Ulgoth's Beard and play them through at that time, because when you beat the main plot of the game (I won't spoil it here, even though the game is pretty old now), the game is over and you can't go back and wander the world, completing the expansion quests. Besides, the extra experience you will get from completing these quests (not to mention the items you will pick up) will make the final chapter of the game much easier.
Customer Review: Great Game
Summary: 5 Stars
This game is deep in every way. It is true that it is definatly not a hack and slash game, but that is it's trade mark feature. If you are an avid Diablo or Final Fantsy fan you will probably not like this game a whole lot. If you play Diablo then play this game you will not find many similarities. They do both have the scrolling game screens and you can get awsome equipment. The story line is quite good and you have alot of freedom. You can choose to follow the main storyline and do some of the numourous side quests or you can just play for fun and kill everyone in the entire game. You can be a nice young man or an evil backstabbing women it is all up to you , you can do anything you want , there are no rules. Once you play this game one time you will play it many more times , I guarentee, it never gets old and is a great overall gaming experience!Customer Review: This Game isnt all that great.
Summary: 2 Stars
When i got this game i was expecting something good, like a good hack and slash game or at least a game that i can get involved in. But the truth is the game leaves little free room, as the charactors you get are not all that smooth to begin with. The storyline is really smooth but the overall experience leaves a RPGer such as myself...how should i say it, dissapointed. If you are into D&D and all that then by all means play it, but myself not caring much for D&D cant stand this game...in short if your are into games like diablo and Final Fantasy dont play this game, it will be a waste of your time and a waste of money.Customer Review: good if it plays on modern machines with Audigy
Summary: 4 Stars
BG/ToSC are excellent games. Excellent. But They have a few problems running on modern sound cards. Audigy and Phillips Acustic Edge. 'Odviously' Phillips didn't make sound cards when these games were released and Audigy certainly wasn't around.(niether was the Live! 5.1 for that matter) I hope this release includes some kind of patch to run on modern machines. If it doesn't I won't be buying it, most anyone who would be interested in Baldur's Gate has a copy(hopefully legit) And re-releasing the already released is pointless unless it has improvements and/or fixes.