adventure

Firstly, a few of the reviews below this one state that this is a sequel to the first Baldur's Gate which came out on PS2 and other consoles. This is not true, this is the FOURTH Baldur's Gate game and it is absolutely incomparable to the first two in the series which were very strategic party based rpgs which focused on exploration and character growth in a brisk and extremely difficult real time combat system based on strict AD&D rule sets. Black Isle were the makers of the first two games and they are now the designers of this sequel to the first Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, which was designed by another company who are now creating Everquest: Champions of Norrath (which looks like it will be awesome, by the way).

That said, this game is an amazing sequel to another great game. While the original two Baldur's Gate games were extremely long and challenging as each should take well over 100 hours to complete, the console versions are the opposite in that they are short and relatively easy, with a play time of around 15 - 20 hours. PC games are usually much longer than console games, so that is to be expected. I do not think the console BG games would be fun for that long duration because the game play is extremely simplified and streamlined. Gone are the enormous maps that could feature as many as 20 side quests in each. Gone is the monstrous entirety of Baldur's Gate that could take 20 hours alone to explore and which you could engage in lengthy conversations with every single inhabitant. Instead, you can only converse with the townspeople who will give you quests or sell you items.

Instead of further comparing BG:DA2 with the pc games, I think it would be best to compare it to another pc series, Diablo. Diablo 2 featured 5 characters that seem to have mostly found their way to BG:DA2. There's a necromancer, a cleric (paladin by another name for this game), a barbarian, a rogue (archer skills, similar to the Amazon of Diablo 2), and a monk, which is the only character not almost directly stolen from Diablo 2. They all play differently, but not nearly as differently as the characters did in Diablo 2. Characters share a lot of skills and while there are a lot of feats and spells, they are not as important as Diablo 2's. The highest level you can make a spell is 5, while Diablo 2 you can get a spell up to level 27 with the right equipment.

The majority of the game takes place in a vast variety of levels which include sewers, forests, other dimensions, haunted mansions, and the usual ilk. While you can go to town to stock up on equipment and receive quests, it is not like the traditional rpg town in that you can only talk to certain people who are easily noticable. This makes the town sections of the game fairly brisk; you will not spend much of your time in town. There are a great variety of skills to use, but many of them are passive so you won't have a large array of spells to choose from in battle. You can program 4 feats or spells onto a menu with the L1 button so choosing a spell to use in battle is much easier than the previous game. Each of the characters has a different type of feat or spell to utilize. For example, the cleric is more of a co-op character in that she casts spells which increase damage, armor, etc. for you and your partner while the barbarian's damage increasing skills can only be used on himself. This makes the game a lot of fun to play as each character, which greatly boosts the replay value.

The game itself is rather easy for the most part. While certain sections can be a pain, only one player has a reasonable difficulty in normal mode. This is the same as the first game, which I would say was actually even easier. Normally Black Isle's games have insane difficulty, but they obviously did not carry this attribute over to the console environment. This is a help, as their games on the pc allowed saving at any location, so you could retry a battle with a few clicks endlessly trying out different strategies.

Basically, this game is a simplified version of Diablo 2 without random dungeons and with a much smaller variety of skills and equipment. This works for the console, but if this game were changed to an online environment it would need some vast beefing up. But for what it is, a hack and slash game with a great co-op mode, it's the best out. It's well worth the price and it should provide at least 20 hours of entertainment, but closer to 100 if you decide to play as every character and get the most out of the game.

My fiancé and I (two not-quite-completely-ashamed-to-be-25-year-old gamers)had very high expectations for this sequel. The Baulder's Gate Franchise and Black Isle Studios are responsible for most of the best games on the PC; with Dark Alliance 1 they proved their magic was portable. Though definitely "light" for a dungeons and dragons campaign, the game left us hungry for another game of anything near the same quality. BGDA2 did not disappoint. A true sequel, this title builds seamlessly on its predecessor, while incorporating subtle but definitive improvements on the old design. Playing this game you can only surmise its designers are true gamers themselves. It's as though they made a laundry list of their fans most consistent complaints and systematically resolved them all. The only sour note this game could possibly strike is the sad realization that other production companies do not care about their fan-base as much as the folks at Black Isle.
The story, the graphics, the interface, the acting, the dialogue, the flawless two player co-op feature - there is no aspect of this game that disappoints and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We crave more games like this one!

It was an awesome first game, but the second didn't have as much action. The graphics were sweet, as well as the levels. DA2 had some fun stuff, and I keep playing it. I have to recimend playing with another person, it's more fun and a lot quicker, inless the other is an unexperenced gamer. You should pick it up.