Lets not even mention the PS2 version...

I decided today i would talk about one of my favourite games of all time.

Baldur's Gate.

This to me is one of the greatest RPGs ever. It works off the old AD&D system and follows the same conventions and is in my opinion the best translation from the pen and paper version to date.

Rather than being a pure "hack and slash" or "press this button to kill" game it involves a large amount of strategy. Some fights are impossible to win (even with the best gear and at the highest level) if you do not micro manage each character and have a defined strategy to beat the enemy and you can often find yourself in a lot of trouble without doing so, whether its a gigantic dragon or a horde of tiny spiders...

As with most RPGs there are several ways to go about the game and hundreds of side quests to compliment the main storyline. There is a massive range of items, armour and weapons that add huge flavour to the gameplay too. You can get some really cool looking sets of armour with good situational stats (such as the dagonslayer set) that you might find yourself giving up "better" gear in order to keep.

The character NPCs that you can recruit all have indepth stories and backgrounds (and quests that relate to them), some more interesting than others. You will find yourself picking some characters over others as you develop favourites amongst them (such as the brain damaged ranger with a miniature giant space hamster or the depressive suicidal half elf mage)

The locations you go through are fairly varied and unique (i mean how unique can a forest be...?) bringing you through cities, forests, mines, deserts, ruins and island villages. As well as several dungeons that aren't just duplicates of one another and have been created individually.

The entire game has been balanced nicely so that you do not have to grind for hours in order to progress through the storyline and even if you do complete the side quests and kill a lot of enemies you will not overpower all the enemies easily.

The storyline in this series is fantastic and there are a lot of twists that you would not expect however there are times where you will think one way but the story makes you go another way (often contrary to what you want) but as the story continues it becomes less of an issue as it is scripted together so well.

I have a couple of issues with the game one being that you are somewhat expected to play in a specific way. If you decide you hate someone and kill them it will usually result in not being able to proceed as every character in a hundred mile radius hates/fears you and will attack on sight.
Another being that some of the characters are somewhat story critical and even if you decide not to bring them along through the game they will pop up as if they were there all along.
My final issue is that a lot of the time some areas cannot be accessed until you complete a certain quest or reach a certain point in the story. In a game called "Baldur's Gate" where Baldur's Gate is the main city in the continent and is on your map at all times you would expect to be able to reach it as soon as you set out...

Despite these hindering issues this is still a fantastic game and i would advise Everyone, not matter what your preferred type of game is, to play it (at least the main storyline) because you will enjoy it.


There Was a PS2 game with the name "Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance" which should have just been called "Pile of Shit Dark Alliance" as it has NOTHING to do with the original title other than being an RPG. It has more in common with Diablo than Baldur's Gate. It barely had a story, terrible controls, no character development of any kind and i would advise never playing it unless you enjoy brain damage...