Release Date: 1998
Developer: BioWare Corporation
Publisher: Interplay Productions, Inc.
My love for role-playing games began with tabletop Dungeons & Dragons campaigns with some like-minded friends in the early 80s. It was a fleeting experience, since the DM ended up moving a couple of weeks after he introduced me to it. But I seriously enjoyed the experience.
Fast forward nearly 20 years, and a steady diet of awesome JRPGs sated my urge to role-play. Then a co-worker clued me in that there was a PC RPG game that adhered strictly to D&D’s 2nd Edition core rules. The game, Baldur’s Gate, would become my obsession for a good month-plus. It was like the old days of tabletop RPGs, except there was no DM poring through books and making shit up as he went along.
Just like a tabletop game, players start Baldur’s Gate by rolling a new character. There are six classes players can choose from: druid, fighter, mage, priest, ranger, and thief. Players must select their new character’s alignment from the familiar Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic and Good-Neutral-Evil alignment axes. Lastly, the player must assign points to weapon specialties and special skills.
Once the newly-minted character is made, he or she is dropped in Candlekeep, a town in the Sword Coast. The gates of Candlekeep have remained locked because mercenaries have been wanting to enter and pillage. The target of their wrath seems to be your character. As a child, he or she was orphaned and cared for by a man named Gorion. The man raised the orphaned player alongside Imoen, another orphan that became like a sister to the player.
One night, Gorion decides to flee Castlekeep with them both. After they leave, they are ambushed by a group of brigands. Gorion sacrifices himself to allow the two to escape. Now alone, the player and Imoen must travel the Sword Coast, looking for allies and trying to figure out the evil that is so interested in a young orphan.
The player controls a party of up to six characters. Their chosen character is the only real constant in the game, as companions can be switched in and out at any time. There are quite a few potential companions, each with their own alignment, class, and personality. In addition to companions’ skills and class, players must factor the potential companions’ alignment and temperament when shaping a party. Having a Lawful Good character partied up with a Chaotic Good one won’t be too productive, but it’s good for a few laughs.
Managing the skills and inventories of up to six characters is made somewhat simpler with Baldur’s Gate’s menu system. The inventory screen shows everyone’s gear and allows players to switch gear with relative ease. There are also screens that keep track of any spell caster’s learned spells. The screens try to make keeping track of everything easier, but people who don’t understand concepts like THACO and Armor Class will feel lost.
Combat is handled in a quasi-real-time manner. When the party encounters enemies, they can attack in a scripted manner that the player selects ahead of time. Players can set fighters and thieves to get in melee range, mages and rangers to attack from range, and priests to lay back and heal. Sometimes, however, a player may want to target specific enemies or handle trickier foes differently. For those situations, the game allows players to pause the action with the spacebar. Specific attack plans can then be devised without the frantic pace of combat rushing them.
The great thing about Baldur’s Gate’s combat is that it takes all the complexity of the 2nd Edition D&D core rules and reduces it to simple point & click play. When a player targets an enemy with their mage and casts Magic Missile, all the players sees is the mage take a few seconds to cast the spell and unleash the projectiles. Under the hood, however, the game is simulating all the dice rolls that would take place on the tabletop. You can see all the virtual rolls and results in a text window below the action. It’s interesting to see the number crunching for a bit, but it’s gets boring real quick.
Everything is rendered using BioWare’s Infinity Engine. It’s the graphics engine that powers BioWare’s earlier D&D titles: the Baldur’s Gate series, Planescape Torment, and the Icewind Dale series. It was a great graphics engine for its time, but it looks incredibly dated now. There is a fair amount of graphical detail, but it’s pretty primitive overall.
The same cannot be said for the game’s sounds and music. The score is typical orchestral fare, and it is well done here. It’s the characters’ speech that really gives the game serious personality. Every potential party member you come across has a rich script, and some of their lines are uproariously funny. My favorite is Minsc, a Russian-accented brute who carries a small “giant space hamster” named Boo in his pocket. His lines are sometimes the best thing about the game.
Another thing that’s beyond reproach is the game’s campaign story. The Sword Coast is bursting with locales, NPCs, and well-woven story elements. The first thing an RPG must do is deliver a great campaign, and Baldur’s Gate does so.
Does the game still hold up? Barely. As much as I loved this game when it first came out, it’s a bit tedious now. BioWare’s adherence to the core D&D rules is noteworthy, but some aspects of the core rules are tedious. The visuals are a bit grungy, and that adds to the clunky feeling. Diablo II, looks similarly grungy today, but the gameplay more than makes up for the visuals. In my opinion, Baldur’s Gate doesn’t.
Still, it’s good for a try. Baldur’s Gate is easy to find and inexpensive. In addition to the original version, available for both PC and Mac. there is an Enhanced Edition that ups the graphical fidelity and adds a few things, but got grilled by hardcore fans for what they called “social justice issues.” Having not played the Enhanced version (I still have my original discs), I cannot speak about that. I will say that despite its flaws, I believe Baldur’s Gate is a game worth playing.
Good: Faithful to D&D 2nd Edition core rules; reduces tabletop dice-rolling to simple actions; phenomenal voice acting; great campaign
Bad: Dated visuals (on original); tedious party management; some concepts are too esoteric for most
Final score: 7/10
