Baldur’s Gate isn’t too old, it was released in November of 1998, but that’s still a bit dated now. The gaming industry isn’t friendly to the years, often working in what seems to be accelerated “dog years” in terms of technological advancements. It figured this was worth covering because it’s one of the best selling and considered a top tier single-player RPG by most accounts.
It was also developed by BioWare, who, at the time, only had one other game under their belt from two years before called Shattered Steel.
The story begins just after a devastating event in the Forgotten Realms D&D campaign called the “Time of Troubles.” This was a great twist in the standard D&D campaign, it caused all curative magic (clerics) to lose their ability to heal unless near their deity, magic didn’t function correctly (I believe this is where the Wild Mage came from) and was unpredictable and gods walked the earth as mortals which caused magic to, in effect, die while the gods were away. Since the storyline starts slightly after this event, the game contains healing and magic but the storyline is impacted by prior events of course, people have trust issues.
The game was made great because it held “mostly true” to the 2nd Edition D&D roots so the learning curve for D&D player’s wasn’t so rough; some things were adjusted to handle the real-time effect of a video game RPG. You could party with up to six Non-Player-Characters (NPC’s) whom would swap in and out of your active party over time as part of the storyline (something also implemented by the US release of Final Fantasy 2).
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Mass Effect 2 Information Leaked
This weeks gaming podcast, emotions run wild while we talk about our initial
Great segment on the track and field game on NES. I think it was bundled with the console at one point. Great memories.
Have you ever covered Afterburner on the gaming history? That used to be my favorite arcade game.
My problem with compilation games for the Wii is that they usually aren’t designed with the Wii controls in mind.
Waiting on games: I do this as well like Mass Effect. I waited long enough it came down to 19.99 and comes with DLC instead of paying the 50 to 60 when it first came out. Hence Fallout 3 GOTY edition comes out this fall with all the DLC.