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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Launch Day Xbox
@Nintendo Drops DSi and DSi XL prices:
Lol! Thing is, Don, I don’t like hand held consoles anyway, so 130 is pricey for me too.
As for sharing consoles between kids, dunno about that. We (me and my brother and sister) used to fight over toys.
Jennifer, with the iPad, iPhone and the other hand held consoles, how much does your purse weigh? 😛
@Acclaim:
Derrick, you could be right. Brands do tend to get resurrected, if they have a good history.
@Best Buy and Target getting into the used games business:
Derrick got it right: “[GameStop] is burned into your brain”.
In order to get something else to replace GameStop (and the brain burns it caused :P), that competitor must stay in the market for quite some time.
Do you see BestBuy keeping their used games section for an extra 6-12 months despite it not being that profitable? I think not. They’ll just use the space to promote new games.
@Xbox Live subscription increasing:
This is an interesting sales strategy but it might just backfire.
It will definitely generate a boost in sales in the short run, but it will also generate a low demand in the period following. I mean if you stocked up on prepaid, no reason to buy in the upcoming time period, right?
@Bit of history:
Oh man, I did use to record BASIC programs on cassettes. One thing that I did was to do both the recording and replaying of such cassettes at higher speeds. You got better fidelity (and that mattered!), at the expense of the amount of storage.
@Question of the week:
A big, solid YES.
In single player, the story behind the game matters a lot to me. I played (and still play) STALKER on low detail, and I enjoyed it a lot.
I started to play recently Deus Ex, and man, that’s a cool game, despite its age.
As for the best story in a game, man … dunno … perhaps the first Max Payne?
@Nintendo Drops DSi and DSi XL prices:
Lol! Thing is, Don, I don’t like hand held consoles anyway, so 130 is pricey for me too.
As for sharing consoles between kids, dunno about that. We (me and my brother and sister) used to fight over toys.
Jennifer, with the iPad, iPhone and the other hand held consoles, how much does your purse weigh? 😛
@Acclaim:
Derrick, you could be right. Brands do tend to get resurrected, if they have a good history.
@Best Buy and Target getting into the used games business:
Derrick got it right: “[GameStop] is burned into your brain”.
In order to get something else to replace GameStop (and the brain burns it caused :P), that competitor must stay in the market for quite some time.
Do you see BestBuy keeping their used games section for an extra 6-12 months despite it not being that profitable? I think not. They’ll just use the space to promote new games.
@Xbox Live subscription increasing:
This is an interesting sales strategy but it might just backfire.
It will definitely generate a boost in sales in the short run, but it will also generate a low demand in the period following. I mean if you stocked up on prepaid, no reason to buy in the upcoming time period, right?
@Bit of history:
Oh man, I did use to record BASIC programs on cassettes. One thing that I did was to do both the recording and replaying of such cassettes at higher speeds. You got better fidelity (and that mattered!), at the expense of the amount of storage.
@Question of the week:
A big, solid YES.
In single player, the story behind the game matters a lot to me. I played (and still play) STALKER on low detail, and I enjoyed it a lot.
I started to play recently Deus Ex, and man, that’s a cool game, despite its age.
As for the best story in a game, man … dunno … perhaps the first Max Payne?
@Derrick re : Kid taking his $200 item to school -Sounds a bit rich from th guy who took his iPad to college the minute he bought it, then told us all on the podcast how he liked all the whispering about it? I think you saying you have 3 kids is your way of telling Jennifer that YOU are the 3rd kid in the house!
@ Acclaim – It is sad news, but lets face it, they were responsible for some of the WORST games ever. You surely remember BMX XXX, (Surprised you haven’t done a flashback on that!) and Generation X (The on rails shooter with Aerosmith in it, which was released on consoles like the SNES who couldn’t even play the music, making the game seem even more ludicrous!
@ QotW – Storyline wins over graphics every time for me. I’m not mad keen on FPS games, which typically are made to be more and more realistic and lifelike. I put forward to you the games of World of Warcraft and Plants vs Zombies. I have been playing WoW on the lowest graphical settings since forever. Do I enjoy it any less than my friend who has just spent 2000 notes on his new pc? No. It just means he can benefit from sparkles and light effects from spells, and more definition on the floor and characters.
Plants Vs Zombies – The graphics are somewhat irrelevant. You could scale this right back to 8-bit sprites and the game would still play the same. Surely that’s the reason that it is on of the most in-demand casual game (feel free to argue Jennifer).
As for best storyline? Legend of Zelda – Ocarina of Time. No explanation needed. I win this discussion!
@Derrick re : Kid taking his $200 item to school -Sounds a bit rich from th guy who took his iPad to college the minute he bought it, then told us all on the podcast how he liked all the whispering about it? I think you saying you have 3 kids is your way of telling Jennifer that YOU are the 3rd kid in the house!
@ Acclaim – It is sad news, but lets face it, they were responsible for some of the WORST games ever. You surely remember BMX XXX, (Surprised you haven’t done a flashback on that!) and Generation X (The on rails shooter with Aerosmith in it, which was released on consoles like the SNES who couldn’t even play the music, making the game seem even more ludicrous!
@ QotW – Storyline wins over graphics every time for me. I’m not mad keen on FPS games, which typically are made to be more and more realistic and lifelike. I put forward to you the games of World of Warcraft and Plants vs Zombies. I have been playing WoW on the lowest graphical settings since forever. Do I enjoy it any less than my friend who has just spent 2000 notes on his new pc? No. It just means he can benefit from sparkles and light effects from spells, and more definition on the floor and characters.
Plants Vs Zombies – The graphics are somewhat irrelevant. You could scale this right back to 8-bit sprites and the game would still play the same. Surely that’s the reason that it is on of the most in-demand casual game (feel free to argue Jennifer).
As for best storyline? Legend of Zelda – Ocarina of Time. No explanation needed. I win this discussion!
@Xbox Live – I tried Xbox Live Gold for 1 year and sure, it works better than Sony and Nintendo’s online systems, but I don’t play online that much so it’s not worth it for me. And I’m not interested in all the facebook, twitter, netflix, last.fm stuff they have on Gold either.
@QOTW – Yes, story is definitely much more important than graphics. Sure, awesome graphics are nice, but I’d rather have awesome gameplay or an awesome storyline.
It’s extremely hard to pick the best storyline in a game… Portal had great characters and told the story in an indirect kind of way, which was interesting. I also love the Sam and Max series for it’s hilarious characters and crazy storylines. And although Mario games aren’t exactly renowned for their storylines, I’ve always thought the Paper Mario series did well.
Overall, though, I think the best storyline would have to go to the space combat sim, Descent: Freespace and it’s sequel. A thrilling and mysterious sci-fi story with great suspense. There were also some really top quality fan-made mods for freespace with great stories that expanded on the official storyline. Too bad that genre is dead these days 🙁
@Xbox Live – I tried Xbox Live Gold for 1 year and sure, it works better than Sony and Nintendo’s online systems, but I don’t play online that much so it’s not worth it for me. And I’m not interested in all the facebook, twitter, netflix, last.fm stuff they have on Gold either.
@QOTW – Yes, story is definitely much more important than graphics. Sure, awesome graphics are nice, but I’d rather have awesome gameplay or an awesome storyline.
It’s extremely hard to pick the best storyline in a game… Portal had great characters and told the story in an indirect kind of way, which was interesting. I also love the Sam and Max series for it’s hilarious characters and crazy storylines. And although Mario games aren’t exactly renowned for their storylines, I’ve always thought the Paper Mario series did well.
Overall, though, I think the best storyline would have to go to the space combat sim, Descent: Freespace and it’s sequel. A thrilling and mysterious sci-fi story with great suspense. There were also some really top quality fan-made mods for freespace with great stories that expanded on the official storyline. Too bad that genre is dead these days 🙁
Hey cast, few weeks behind but he’s my Question of the past:
Yes, to me story is the core of the game, everything else (Graphics, Music, sound & Game play) is also important because it’s the means of presenting the story to the audience. I guess I have high standards because the most influential games are always games that have a great story but succeed in all elements of Video games. I have found myself grinding through painful game play just so I can experience the text dialog because the story was so damn good. But I find myself disappointed that the developer failed in some areas. To me Game elements need to be fit for purpose for their genre. For example FPS graphics are essential for effective game play compare to a Turn based strategy game where game mechanics are more important the graphics). To wrap this up best story driven games (which used all game elements to make a great story) were Legend of Zelda (N64), FF X (PS2), Fire Emblem (Game Cube) & one which isn’t finish but most enjoying is Assassins Creed =D.
Hey cast, few weeks behind but he’s my Question of the past:
Yes, to me story is the core of the game, everything else (Graphics, Music, sound & Game play) is also important because it’s the means of presenting the story to the audience. I guess I have high standards because the most influential games are always games that have a great story but succeed in all elements of Video games. I have found myself grinding through painful game play just so I can experience the text dialog because the story was so damn good. But I find myself disappointed that the developer failed in some areas. To me Game elements need to be fit for purpose for their genre. For example FPS graphics are essential for effective game play compare to a Turn based strategy game where game mechanics are more important the graphics). To wrap this up best story driven games (which used all game elements to make a great story) were Legend of Zelda (N64), FF X (PS2), Fire Emblem (Game Cube) & one which isn’t finish but most enjoying is Assassins Creed =D.