Okay, I just passed Baldur’s Gate II, and now I’m back to that “real world” thing I’ve heard so much about. But I’d rather be playing games…
So, which of the following should my next game be?
Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal
Pools of Radiance II
Arcanum (with patch, of course ;))
You might want to stay away from PoR2 for a while. It’s got some pretty bad bugs right now, and got pushed out the door by the publisher before it was done. I don’t think it’s as bad as the press it has been getting, but be careful.
I have had Arcanum for a while but haven’t played it - my computers were messed up and I couldn’t get it to install, and I just yesterday got a new computer. I lent it to a friend and it’s going to be hard getting it back. There are some negative reviews, but if you like big open-ended RPGs this is probably the one for you - most of the gripes I have seen are due to balance (the game is challenging UNLESS you play a melee character, which makes it quite easy) and some rather long dungeon crawls that supposedly get monotonous.
Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhall was a quality expansion, lots of neat features, new spells and abilities, insanely difficult monsters. If you liked BGII I’d get this eventually, unless you were starting to get bored with BGII by the end…I was and I appreciated how goood ToB was but I didn’t get far into it, was tired of the whole thing by then.
Answer me this - have you played Fallout or Fallout 2 yet? They are some of the best RPGs of all time and if you haven’t, you should. Both of them are available together for $9.99 in the bargain bins of various stores that sell computer games - I’ve seen the package at Target and Wal-Mart, even. If you are a fan of RPGs, you owe it to yourself to get those games. If you have played either of them and liked them, I’d definitely recomend Arcanum, made by many of the same programmers and it’s got the same open-ended play to it, with even more customizable characters.
Are you kidding me? I have been looking for EXACTLY this item. I played the original Fallout on my dormie’s computer my first year at college, but only got about halfway through it, and never got around to getting the 2nd one. But I’ve been searching bargain bins at stores around my area like Comp USA and Best Buy, I thought I had looked at Target, but maybe I should check again. Because I have to get that game.
Go with Arcanum, its so incredibly awesome. Also, have you played the Fallout RPGS? not Fallout Tactics(I spit on that name). Fallout 1 is the greatest roleplaying game I have played in my entire life, and Fallout 2 is a amazing as well. I would recomend Fallout to anyone at all interested in computer roleplaying games.
Definitely get the Fallout titles if you haven’t played them yet.
Planescape: Torment is a title that cannot be recommended highly enough. One of the best crpgs ever made.
I’m looking forward to Morrowind, which has been pushed back to '02 the last I heard.
You want to get Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. It qraps up and ends the earlier games to what is supposed to be a satisfying finish.
I’d recommend Baldur’s Gate II:Throne of Bhaal as well, especially if you’ve played through the whole series, but even if you’ve just played the last game. It’s a very good expansion pack, as mentioned above, and it wraps the story up… Though, like Badtz Maru mentioned, you might want to wait at least a month or so after playing BGII, or you might get tired of the whole thing.
S.
I heard somewhere that Arcanum was a fusion of the best of Baldur’s Gate and the best of Fallout. Now, I’m not sure if the review I read was written by someone who decided that steampunk=Fallout or not, but if it is a successful union of the two, then I’m all for it.
Unfortunately, no, I haven’t played the Fallout games (yet) - are they that much better than the three options I listed above?
Hm, ToB… I don’t know if I’m tired of BG2, yet. I feel like I might be, but that’s because I passed it last night at 3:30 AM and woke up this morning at 8:45 AM (just goes to show how quickly I get tired of this “real world” thing, huh?).
That being said, I really do want to see what my lvl 10 kensai/lvl 15 mage can do after getting all the bonuses (not to mention experience) from the end of BG2:SoA.
Oh, and as a fourth (well, fifth, counting Fallout), I have yet to play the Diablo 2 expansion. Keep in mind that I wasn’t that terribly impressed with D2 (passed it on normal difficulty, with a lvl30ish necromancer, then quit). Still, it would be nice to see that new act.
Oh, and I have Madden 2002 to play on my now-dusty PS2 (damn BG2!), with other games on the way…
Heaven forbid I ever get a girlfriend, I’d have absolutely no idea how to allocate my time, then… :sigh:
Fallout 2 (the only one I’ve played) comes about as close to a true pen and paper RPG as any PC game I have seen yet. Character creation is entirely non-random, you have points you can assign to stats and you can choose three skills to specialize in. You can pick a couple of special traits at character creation that give your character special advantages but with drawbacks - i.e. if you choose Small Frame you get more action points but you can carry a lot less, if you choose Fast Metabolism you heal faster but are more susceptible to damage from radiation or poison. After the game starts you get to choose ‘Perks’ every few levels, which are bonuses that don’t have drawbacks. These vary widely, from gaining an extra level to having particular combat advantages to being a ‘Kama Sutra Master’. Many of the perks require certain prerequisites - to be a Kama Sutra Master you have to have a certain dexterity and endurance, and I believe your character has to have had sex but I’m not sure on that one.
Combat is turn-based and rather detailed - you can make aimed shots that increase your chance of getting a critical and have other, non-HP related effects on the opponent - you can blind a creature by aiming for it’s eyes, shoot it in the arms to reduce it’s chance to hit, or if it’s running away from you popping it in the leg can slow it down. The armor system is well thought out, armor protects against different kinds of damage differently, and in three ways - it can reduce damage by a fixed amount, reduce damage by a percentage, and reduce the chance that you are hit for damage at all. There is a wide variety of weapons, ranging from primitive melee weapons to real-life modern weapons to futuristic ones.
Conversations are far more important than in any other CRPG I have played - the choices given to you in conversation are based on what your character has found out or done in the game, what your skills are (i.e. if you have a high Science skill you might get more options when talking to a scientist), what your reputation in the game world is, how effective a liar you are, what your intelligence is - basically conversation can have just as many factors effecting it as combat. If you try to tell a lie, it will roll against your Fast Talk skill, if you have a certain Perk you can talk about things you don’t really understand (effectively getting the same conversation options that you would get if your Intelligence was a few points higher). If you make a Charismatic, Intelligent, Fast-Talking character you will get a LOT more out of talking to people than if you make an unlikable dull person - you can talk your way out of fights, get people to do things for you they normally wouldn’t, etc. What you say to people will effect your reputation, if you are rude to the wrong people word will get around and people will react differently to you.
The game also has a detailed reputation/karma system. Your reputation is based on what people see you doing. If you help people out a lot in one town your reputation will increase and people will treat you like a hero eventually. If you behave villainously the opposite will happen. You can outrun your reputation to an extent, but word gets around - if you stick around in one town for a while doing good deeds, you may see that in neighboring towns you haven’t even been to yet your reputation is increasing as well. Likewise, you may do some really evil stuff and then skip town, and be OK for a while in the new town, until word starts getting around how you acted in the last town, I’ve actually had a character enter town and have the townsfolk be OK with me, and then the next day they are hostile to me because they heard about what I did in the last town. Karma is somewhat like reputation, except that your acts don’t have to be witnessed to effect your karma, and it follows you around. It doesn’t have as big an effect on how people react, but if you have a really high or low karma it will effect how people treat you regardless of your reputation. Many characters can sense your karma more than others - in one game I did lots of good acts, then travelled far south to a town where nobody had heard of me. I tried to get some training from an evil kung-fu master but he could tell that I was good and refused to help me. There are also special little Karmic Titles that you can get for doing certain things, like Grave Robber or Child Murderer.
The game is also very open-ended. There is very little that you actually HAVE to do to finish the game, and tons of side-quests. Many of the side-quests can be completed in several different ways, with different results. If you’ve played the game before you can use player knowledge to go pretty much straight to the end-game, though at your low level you won’t be able to finish it. It’s open-endedness frustrates some people more used to linear RPGs, they don’t know what they are supposed to be doing, you have to realize that you do what your character WANTS to do, and no matter where you wander you will pick up information, experience, and gear that will help you finish the game. You can play it like a more linear game, go to the first town, finish all the quests, then go to the next town you have heard about, but you definitely don’t have to and I usually don’t. You can also play the game as an evil character, though a majority of the quests seem to have a good slant to them and you get a good deal of your experience from finishing quests.
NPCs that join your party are not controlled directly as in Baldur’s Gate - you can give them general orders from a menu (like stay close to me, only use burst fire if there’s no chance I’ll be hit, and use healing kits when you are seriously hurt), but some of the menu options are not allowed for certain characters - you can’t order the timid trader to wait until he is about to die before healing himself, nor can you order the crazy tribal to run away at the first sign of danger. You can finish the game without any help from NPCs at all. Some of the NPCs are almost completely worthless (there’s an opportunity fairly early on to get married, and your spouse isn’t really good at anything but getting killed - you can always sell him/her (or any NPC) to a slaver though).
The game has a lot of dark humor in it, and tons of little pop-cultural references. It’s got a few absurd bits, like one character that will explode if you keep fucking him repeatedly, and more than a few Monty Python references. It’s quite possible for your character to get addicted to drugs, and depending on the drug this can be very bad for your character, though it can lead to interesting character development (one of my character’s first priorities upon entering a new town was to find a dealer for her particular addiction, otherwise she suffered serious penalties).
From what I hear, Arcanum is a lot like the Fallout RPGs, but with a different setting and even more detail.
How about on-line RPG? I’ve beta-tested Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) and sadly the test period is almost over, but I have had very good experiences with the game.
To my further anguish I do not have a credit card nor access to one, so I will lose my character…
Torment would be my another recommendation.
Regarding Throne of Bhall, I was pretty disapponted in the expansion packs for BG1 and Icewind Dale. While they added some cool items and such, I found that they didn’t add much else except insanely difficult battles and were only intended to be played more or less after you finished the main game. I guess I was thinking more of expansion packs like the ones for Ultima 7, where more mid-game stuff is added.
Anyway, is Throne of Bhaal more of the same type of stuff - big hard battle for the end of the game? I mean, I’ll probably get it anyway, but I’d just like to know what I’m in for.
Throne of Bhaal adds two things to the game, an Add-In section and an Add-On section.
The Add-In is a new dungeon that you can explore any times in chapters 2, 3, or 6 - basically, when you’re toolin’ around the surface of the world. It’s called Watcher’s Keep, and I’m exploring it now with my 15th level party. I’m learning that they raised the XP cap to 40th level for a reason. Sheeeeit, it’s got some tough monsters. Conversely, it’s also got some puzzles to solve, so it’s not just “Well, we need an expansion, so let’s make … BIGGER monsters!”
The Add-On adds chapters 7, 8, and 9, and continues after your matchup with Irenicus. (That’s no spoiler; you know the whole game you’re after him.) I haven’t gotten to this yet, but I damn well better in the next three weeks, since Civ3 will take all of my gaming time…
So, basically, there’s a relatively large mid-game dungeon added to BG2, much like Forge of Virtue or Silver Seed for U7 and U7:II.
FO2 definitely gets my vote–that game pretty much destroyed two weeks of my life.
I’ve been playing a lot of Daggerfall recently–prepping myself mentally for Morrowind. 
It’s old, but it’s a heck of a lot of fun. It’s probably the most open-ended RPG ever created. Rather samey in most parts, but the size and sheer variety of things you can do makes up for it, IMO.
Lotsa good suggestions so far, but let me add one more: Icewind Dale.
Very similar to Baldur’s Gate I/II - uses the same game engine, same AD&D 2nd (+ a little 3rd) edition rules. An expansion for it is out (Heart of Winter), as well as a free download expansion to the expansion.
If you liked Baldur’s Gate, then it’s definitely worth a look.
I also plan on checking out Dark Age of Camelot sometime soon - should be very good.
Slight nitpick- it uses the BG1 engine plus some doodads, not the BG2 engine.
I enjoyed Icewind Dale / Heart of Winter because it was deliberately mindless. Yeah, there was a ‘story’, but it was little more than a vehicle to get more and more combats in the game. Going into it knowing that I wasn’t going to get a Baldur’s Gate-type epic made it enjoyable.
Sort of like reading a cheap fantasy novel; you know it’s not aspiring to anything great, so you appreciate it for what it is.
MY GOD MAN! Don’t DO IT! Save yourself!!
If you had a choice to play Pool of Radiance or gouge your eyes out with rusty spoons that were infected with ebola, a thoughtful man would have to think hard before making a choice*
Fenris
*It’s not all that bad, but it was a funny line and, Lord, it ain’t good.
Okay, maybe not PoR2.
And that is a great line.
I cast another vote for Fallout 1 and 2. Very cool games. It’s kinda funny if you make a character that’s dumber than a brick, you get lots of verbal abuse from everyone except the super mutants, 'cause they are dumb too. Not to say they might not still kill you, mind. I played the Arcanum demo, and it’s similar in that game. I’m torn between buying it and passing my classes… Might and Magic 7 is pretty good too. It’s more of a standard CRPG, but still addictive. If you want real old school, get Crusaders of the Dark Savant if you can find it. It’s #7 in the Wizardry series I think. Basic hack y slash action, but it has a good selection of skills and classes to choose from. Your characters can change classes and gain new abilities too, but your base stats drop to the minimum for the new class.
I started playing Arcanum today, and it’s a lot like Fallout. I had a bit of trouble with the interface at first, but I’m catching on. The character creation system is pretty sweet…I chose a background of Idiot Savant for my half-elf gambler/thief - he has a very high intelligence, but everybody thinks he’s stupid because of the way he talks. It made conversations COMPLETELY different than with my first character, an soulless elven mage (chose a background where your character sold his soul for magical power). Some people are annoyed with my idiot savant, some are extra nice to the ‘imbecile’…it’s great.
Yeah, here’s another vote to skip Pool of Crapulence. I’m bitter about it. Very bitter. Fuckers.
Personally, I’m playing ICO and Dark Cloud for the PS2 while waiting for some more decent RPGs to come out for both the PC and PS2. FFX please!