Is Baldur's Gate I Any Good?

[Cartimandua]

If you want to play Baldur's Gate I, you could play the "Baldur's Gate Trilogy" or BGT mod. it allows you to play BG1 on the BG2 engine. Much better, IMHO.

You do need to have BG1, BG2, and both their expansions for it to work though. And probably a clean install.

I think it's at Spellhold Studios' website. Not sure though.

[VetLegion]

Thanks for the info Cartimandua! 800x600 is much better than 640x480. Is that mod official or unofficial? Something made by fans with quirks or something that runs without bugs?

[Vesayen]

Baldurs Gate 2 + expansion is held amoung many(myself included) to be the best video game ever made.

So that would be a yes.

[DirtyMartini]

I played BG I and II so many times - ridiculous fun. Agree that Neverwinter nights just doesn't measure up.

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Cartimandua
If you want to play Baldur's Gate I, you could play the "Baldur's Gate Trilogy" or BGT mod. it allows you to play BG1 on the BG2 engine. Much better, IMHO.

You do need to have BG1, BG2, and both their expansions for it to work though. And probably a clean install.

I think it's at Spellhold Studios' website. Not sure though.

I can vouch for this. You can find it here: http://www.shsforums.net/index.php?showforum=261
I'm pretty sure it's fan made, but it's not especially buggy, as far as I could tell.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Vesayen
Baldurs Gate 2 + expansion is held amoung many(myself included) to be the best video game ever made.

So that would be a yes.

Excellent. Working on acquiring it as we speak.

[East Street Trader]

Yes, it is excellent. Atmospheric, the characters are good, strong story line and some thoroughly challenging fights.

[TheStinger]

Those spiders scared the life out of me 1st time I encountered them.


I like doing stupid things like fighting the people at the temple- water nymphs IIRC

[Alinestra Covelia]

This is really weird.

I played BG2 for many years and loved it to bits.

Earlier this year, I played BG1.

What the hell went wrong? The game is quite possibly the most frustrating RPG I've ever played. Random encounters are very deadly, and even the scripted ones are enough to give you an aneurysm.

There was a mage (Tarnesh?) waiting outside the inn where you find Jaheira and Khalid. I was playing a cleric and I had Imoen on my team. Tarnesh easily killed all my characters. We were level 2 at around that time, and Tarnesh was casting enough Magic Missiles to show that he was level 5, easily. The inn is one of the first places you're supposed to go to, and thus for an encounter to be so overbalanced against you is damn annoying. What the hell were the designers thinking?

Another thing is that wilderness encounters are really, really deadly for your characters. Even taking on a bear is a major challenge for you at low levels. Don't get me started on the wandering encounters. You're up against fighters that can take out your entire party on their own singly - and the game throws a group of them at you!

When I came to the GameFAQs board with my grievances, they suggested I crank through a few bunnies and rabbits and squirrels for XP before going to Tarnesh. To me, that is not even a solution. It's just a workaround (and a bloody tedious one at that) to some very sloppy and uneven design work.

I play DnD 3.5 and I got started playing about 15 years ago on 2nd edition. This game would flunk every CR suitability test you could find in 3.5, with enemies far outranking your characters in power and the challenges so tough they're not even challenges - just an exercise in frustration. Having played as a live DM and as a PC myself many times, this game's automated flaws are all too clear - no scaling of difficulty based on party strength, and arbitrary encounters that just serve to crunch numbers (and also your party). Given that games like Ultima IV were already scaling encounter difficulties based on party strength way back in 1985, this is patently unforgivable of Black Isle studios.

BG1 is literally the only game I've ever played which sucked so badly that I physically destroyed it. Having played this seriously flawed game and hated it, I wonder that they ever had the balls to make BG2.

Of course, BG2 is an excellent game and I'm very glad they did. But if I were responsible for the creaking pile that was BG1 I'd be more likely to go hide my head for a few years.

[Kataphraktoi]

That was heated

On the topic, this is one of those games i hear about for years and havnt tried myself. I suppose i shall sometime....and graphics are very overrated, so that aspect never bothers me.

[VetLegion]

Alinestra, I can't believe it! You're describing my recent experience

I finally start playing, do a round in the keep and solve most quests there and I embark on my adventure. Only to arrive to the first city and be killed on the stairs by some guy

So I try again, load, do all the chores, start travelling only to be killed by a wolf 20 meters into the journey!

I didn't remember to save before going into the wilderness, so it's all over again if I continue.

[snoopy369]

Ali, I think BG1 is very much in the D&D edition 1 style - where a low level character should die regularly. (Or perhaps D&D ed1 with a mean DM... which most of them seem to be ) By BG2 they realized that for a mass market game they need to make it a bit ... easier ... in the early going (and overall, probably).

[Alexander I]

At the Friendly Arm Inn you've got to be ready. You actually have to click fast enough to make sure your party has killed him before he can shoot off his spell.

It helps if you've picked up Xzar and Montaron on the road outside Candlekeep. Along with Imoen and the main character, you should be able to take the lvl. 5 mage.

[Apocalypse]

Yeah, there are a crap tons of easy ways to beat the mage. The end all winner is just have Imoen dagger him to death before he gets off spells. Otherwise the guards can just kill him.

[East Street Trader]

He is tough and I too lured him into conflict with the guards.

I agree that such a tough fight so very early is a design flaw - but it is a great pity it put you off the game overall. It has a great deal to offer.