Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn Demo

As video games become more and more complicated, thanks to the technological advancements that allow them to portray the real world in a much more convincing manner, the impact they have on the people who enjoy them tends to get stronger as well. However, it was possible to obtain powerful reactions from the players even before DirectX 11-powered character animation techniques, although the games had to play their cards in a slightly different manner in order to make an impression.

Hence, the story itself was the centerpiece around which all the other elements orbited steadily and a lot of effort went into creating convoluted plots, complex characters and ample dialogue trees to help the players interact with the world. From time to time, something truly astonishing was released, whether it was a tale about futility and mortality like in Planescape Torment, or a riveting story of good versus evil and the power of destiny, as it is presented in the game that happens to be the subject of this review.

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is an isometric role-playing game based on the AD&D rule set that came out as a sequel to a great first part, although it manages to surpass it in every aspect. Created by the master storytellers at Bioware, with a great deal of help and input from the legendary Black Isle studios, the game ends the saga that begins in the first episode, by expanding on what was already there and introducing a lot more intriguing characters and fascinating events to excite your imagination.

The story itself is centered around the same main character, who is played by you in both titles and it basically continues to push the idea that you are the child of a powerful god and there is tremendous power hidden inside you, which can be brought out if the circumstances are just right. Over the course of the main quest, a lot of things are revealed about your past, your future and the nature of your powers, since there are many choices to make as you go along, depending on how you choose to deal with your destiny.

However, the other characters have a great impact on the story as well, since they come with their own interesting and complicated tales, which can also be followed through if you want do so. Moreover, some of the old friends from the first game return in this sequel too, such as Minsc and his weird pet hamster Boo, as well as Jaheira and Imoen. Naturally, your choices affect the relationship between you and the characters, which means that you can lose their company at any time, if certain decisions do not sit well with them. In the worst cases, you might even be forced to kill them, which is yet another way the story can get through to you and create some pretty powerful moments.

Now, this exciting quest would not hold too much value if you weren't able to experience it properly, due to gameplay flaws or annoying mechanics that made progress very cumbersome and tiring. Fortunately, the game does not suffer from any of these, thanks to the fact that it uses a very refined and old-school AD&D-driven gameplay. Thus, you get to create a character at the start of the game, choosing from a variety of classes and sub-classes, such as Paladin, Cleric or Monk, as well as your primary talents regarding the weapon of choice, or the preferred school of magic.

Since it would be downright impossible to finish the title by yourself, the party you travel with is very important as well, especially during combat sequences. Speaking of which, the combat is also controlled by D&D mechanics, meaning that it is all based on dice rolls and you have a certain chance to do a certain amount of damage, depending on your skills and abilities from the character sheet. The good thing about it, though, is the fact that you can pause the game at any time and organize your party, choosing exactly who attacks who, the spells that need to be cast and even use the appropriate potions whenever the situation requires it. Naturally, these actions only take place after the game is unpaused, so you still have to watch closely and witness the skirmish evolve in real time.

Finally, the technical aspect was not overlooked either, since massive amounts of work went into the graphics and the sound departments. While the game does use a pure 2D graphics engine and a classic isometric point of view, the environments are incredibly detailed and expertly drawn, which is especially impressive when you see the scale of the world and the large number of locations you get to explore along the way. While not every dialogue is voice acted, since it would have required an incredible amount of time and work, the music is sublime and every important character has a lot of spoken material as well.

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is indeed timeless, in the sense that it remains just as inspiring and fantastic, as more and more time goes by. The characters are memorable and unique, while the story manages to teach you a few things that should remain stuck to your brain for a very long time, regardless of what path you choose to follow in your quest and how you deal with the situations that arise along the way.

In retrospect, there are barely any bad things to muster regarding this game, especially if this review was to be written at the time of the official release. Hence, it can now be rather annoying that the game only runs at a 800x600 resolution, but a lot of patches, both official and unofficial, have dealt with that problem a long time ago. If the game did happen to have one flaw, on the other hand, then it would probably be the fact that the difficulty level is a bit high, especially for those who are not familiar with the AD&D rules.