role-playing

If you like games from Interplay especially in the genre of Baldur's Gate, Fallout and Planescape Torment, I would highly recommend this gem of a game from Black Isle. The game is a very interesting and very fun to play fusion of a real time type game like Diablo or Nox and the more turn based character development type games like Fallout and Baldur's Gate. The story plays a central role as does the character development. The depth to which certain groups can be played is truly a role playing experience. Try your hand as an inquistor or a knight, or dable in the forbidden arts as a wielder or even the darker arts as a necromancer. The action is similar to Diablo, Baldur's Gate and Nox but its slow paced enough and the pause key allows you play more turn based. The role playing aspect and well written and interesting story make it a pleasure to play and the depth to which you can play an evil character is very very impressive. Do to the skill based system and parallel story lines the game has a great deal of replayability.

If you're a big fan of Fallout 1 & 2, and you also like games like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series, then this game is for you. For the magnitude of this RPG, the graphics are great. The characters, spells and monsters are fully 3D, while the highly detailed backrounds are 2D. This game is like Fallout on steroids; in preproduction it was called Fallout Fantasy. If you're like me then you're a person who doesn't like the limitations of a certain class. This game utilizes the Fallout's SPECIAL system to let you shape your own character. I have actually heard of a game tester from Black Isle studios who invested all his points into Speech, Barter and Sneak, and he passed the whole game hardly fighting. As you progress thru the game, you can invest your skill points into the sneak skill and never fight an enemy (by successfully sneaking past enemies you gain 75% of the experience as if you would have killed the enemy), or you can choose to be good at Unarmed combat (like Monks) and also be good at Magic (Magic Monk) . I've been reading these peoples previews and laughing the whole time. At least give this game a try, it is not the best RPG ever, but its a very, very solid RPG and i rate it 8.7 out of 10.
Remember, Ignorance is the epitome of stupidity.

As the title says, the first chapter of this game is very intruiging. You get to choose which factions to follow, how to develop your character and have an interesting world at your fingertips. Unfortunately, after that, the rest of the game is a major letdown. The plotline is obvious and very linear (your beginning choices no longer matter) and it quickly becomes boring and painful to play. If you can find this game cheap and used, go for it, play the first chapter and then stop. You'll be left with happy memories of a fun game.