Graphics

As With All Things Infinity

In our years of familiarity with our old friend the Infinity Engine, two things have become abundantly clear. For one, it can display the most awesome backdrops in any game. The artists working on the games can (and often) do some spectacular work to help give the world you're playing in a real look. Unlike Diablo II or Fallout, Icewind Dale and its kin use pre-rendered art as the backgrounds on which the game is played. There are no tiles and thus you never feel as if you're in a "copy and paste" world. Scene after scene is new and original, following the theme, but not being a straight copy of what you just saw a screen ago.

Mapified

Goblins and Orcs? BG never had these!

Both outdoor and indoor areas are done with style, giving you a distinctly fantasy realm to explore. Jagged cliffs covered with snow, hot caves in a volcano and ancient tombs are just some of the places you'll be spilling blood, crushing undead bones, and running from fireballs in. The texturing is just... wicked - especially at 32 or 24bit color. There's a 16 bit mode available but even Voodoo3 owners will be able to enjoy it, since the game is all 2D. The unsupported OpenGL mode seems pretty useless, without a noticeable effect on graphical quality.

Mmm... Can I disrobe Laetitia?

Mountains. Big.

Icewind Dale also does water far better than any of its predecessors. Instead of being a dithered blue mess, water is now animated and clear. Though used sparingly, it often makes a good impression on you - enough for you to be distracted so that skeletal mage can get a magic missile off, for example.

The Second Issue

As good as the backgrounds are, the animations are bad. OK, not bad... just not good. Using the stock models and characters from Baldur's Gate probably doesn't help, but even "back in the day", BG's character animations weren't the best. There is a noticeable stutter and step whenever they move, especially during combat. The frame count is lacking, sadly. Details are still there - a different helmet/shield/sword in your inventory paper doll looks different in the game - but for eyes accustomed to 150fps in Quake III, this is pretty damn choppy. The new models are all monsters - like Lizardmen, Goblins and Giants - with a noticeable improvement over the imported Baldur's Gate ones. However, you're going to be looking at your party most of the time, and they are old models... too little, too late.

Green? WTF

This kinda looks like a tree

In other matters, gone are the Torment-style "pause" special effects for particularly cool spells. It's back to standard animations again. While we could almost swear that there seemed to be more spell effect animations in Baldur's Gate, it's probably just a figment of our collective imagination.

Lighting and color distortion are still a strong point, as the transition from night to day and back is smooth. Your characters will pulse in various colors depending on what effects they're under.

Shadows and the fog of war are disappointing after seeing Nox and Diablo II in action. The fog and "shadows" disappear in chunky pieces as you move forward, round a corner, and so on. They're not very elegant at all.