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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Microsoft Settles
Oh boy 🙂 …
I have absolutely no idea how to comment that.
The first thing that came into my mind were those B or C movies where the main (female) character, dressed almost in bikinis would beat the living shit out of 120 kg bouncers.
This game somehow captures and purifies that down to the essence: almost naked girls, weird screams and fighting.
How did it sell? 🙂
Oh boy 🙂 …
I have absolutely no idea how to comment that.
The first thing that came into my mind were those B or C movies where the main (female) character, dressed almost in bikinis would beat the living shit out of 120 kg bouncers.
This game somehow captures and purifies that down to the essence: almost naked girls, weird screams and fighting.
How did it sell? 🙂
Wow, Derrick finally makes a non-podcast post. Used to be, he’d make sure there was at least one article between ‘casts. 🙂
Wow, Derrick finally makes a non-podcast post. Used to be, he’d make sure there was at least one article between ‘casts. 🙂
@Herr_Alien : I’m not sure how it sold but I know it’s still on their website selling in a bundle with the “making of” style DVD.
@Jonah : I used to post when I used to have time to post. With two-to-three audio shows a week, 7 cocktail video’s and a 40+ hour a week job it gets challenging. I also like to spend time with the kids between show notes, posting video content, updating recipe wiki and managing the day-to-day for five or so websites.
@Herr_Alien : I’m not sure how it sold but I know it’s still on their website selling in a bundle with the “making of” style DVD.
@Jonah : I used to post when I used to have time to post. With two-to-three audio shows a week, 7 cocktail video’s and a 40+ hour a week job it gets challenging. I also like to spend time with the kids between show notes, posting video content, updating recipe wiki and managing the day-to-day for five or so websites.