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Icewind Dale II Review October 08, 2002 Patrick Paik |
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Summary: Icewind Dale II has hit the market full force. With the strong Icewind Dale legacy and an updated version of the Infinity engine behind it, expectations are high. Patrick takes a look to see if Black Isle has hit the mark yet again!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 8 ) |
Developer: Black Isle Studios
Publisher: Interplay
Icewind Dale II official page: http://icewind2.blackisle.com/
An Old Friend
Who could’ve predicted the awe-inspiring success that Infinity-engine games from BioWare (Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II) and Black Isle (Icewind Dale, PlaneScape: Torment) have enjoyed for the last four years? Indeed, it’s now hard to remember the days when gamers would’ve felt blessed with just one or two solid PC RPGs a year. In 1997, there were gaming magazines that would decline awarding a ‘PC RPG Game of the Year’ due to a lack of worthy entrants. Things have changed drastically ever since Black Isle decided to take the bull by the horns. Now, it’s a common sight to see an RPG on a top10 weekly best-selling list, a far cry from the niche-gaming segments SSI Gold Box/Ultima/Wizardry fans would be quarantined in.
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It’s been almost four years since the original Baldur’s Gate was released. Back then, Baldur’s Gate was easily one of the best looking RPGs of all time. Nowadays, surrounded by contenders such as Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights, the Infinity engine is looking much like a Porsche that’s lost its initial luster and shine. Black Isle’s decided to give the old girl another run around the local track.
History Revisited
While the original Icewind Dale failed to garner the critical acclaim Baldur’s Gate II and Planescape: Torment did, it was an extremely polished product in its own right. The battles were meticulously planned and character development was almost perfectly matched to the increasing difficulty of encounters. The well-paced gameplay was matched by sumptuous artwork reflecting the somber, almost gothic nature of Icewind Dale, and a stirring soundtrack by Jeremy Soule, nominated for numerous Soundtrack of the Year awards. Despite the lack of marketing muscle behind it, Icewind Dale became a sleeper hit for many gamers in the know. In almost all respects, it was far more than the plain-vanilla dungeon crawl it was advertised as. Icewind Dale II, unlike the highly ambitious Baldur’s Gate II, chooses to continue its tried-and-true dungeon crawl roots with mixed results.
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A New Template
The most anticipated feature of IWD2 was arguably its integration with the 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. The most prominent implementation of this is seen in creation. Players finally have the ability to make parties with full drow, tiefling, duergar, and svirfneblin, just to name a few. These sub-races have substantial advantages over ‘normal’ Dungeons & Dragons races. For instance, drow receive a +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma, +2 Search, Spell Resistance of 11 + character level, +2 to all Will Saves, +2 to saves against Enchant Magic, Immunity to Sleep Spells, Faerie Fire 3/Day, and the Large Sword, Bows, and Darkvision feats. Conversely, they receive penalties of –2 to Constitution and –1 to hit, damage, and saving throws when outside in sunlight. These sub-race advantages come at a huge disadvantage, however. Dark Elves are treated as though they’re two levels higher than they actually are when computing levels. This may not initially sound as much of a penalty, but it’s far more significant when it’s taken into account that XP for monster kills are scaled to a character’s level in 3rd edition rules. That means, killing at goblin at level 1 would net you a respectable amount of experience points, whereas killing that same goblin at level 7 would garner no experience. This creates a dramatic disincentive for playing sub-race characters, as they’ll lag a few levels behind their traditional counterparts for the entire game. Many players have noted that the normal game is far easier with a party of all humans, especially given that the beginning of Icewind Dale II is far more difficult than any other Infinity engine RPG to date.
SIDEBAR: There is considerable dispute whether ‘Homer’ was a single person who created the Greek classics, or someone who collected the stories and wrote them down, or simply a pseudonym for many writers.
| Gameplay Overview | Page:: ( 2 / 8 ) |
And A New Story
Icewind Dale II is set a generation after the original Icewind Dale. Indeed, there are numerous references to the original game, from various NPCs telling amusing, abridged versions of your previous exploits, to returning to old haunts such as Kuldahar and Dragon’s Eye. The Prologue unloads you quite unceremoniously into Targos off of a ship named the Wicked Wench, into the middle of an impending goblin invasion. What ought to be a fairly accommodating introduction chapter is instead one of the most difficult areas in an Infinity-engine game if your party is not well-constructed. Unlike past RPGs from Black Isle or BioWare, Icewind Dale II is notoriously stingy with its magical items early-game, forcing you scavenge from goblin corpses and barbarian merchants in order to have a fighting chance against the invaders. Being placed in the middle of an invasion could be a thrilling start to a game, but Black Isle's IWD2 squanders this opportunity and the game, unfortunately, never manages to completely take off or exhibit the urgency that BioWare's Baldur’s Gate II did.
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The game begins in the docks which have been overrun by goblins. After exterminating the pests, the remainder of the chapter devolves into fetch-and-run errand quests. Though this is an easy way of gaining experience, it does a poor job of preparing newer players for the rigorous boss battles to come. From there, the game turns into a fairly conventional dungeon crawl. The original Icewind Dale, despite harboring no illusions that it was anything but a hack n’ slash adventure, usually had a very strong adherence to the storyline, giving a fairly logical and significant reason for each set of encounters and goals. Icewind Dale II, unfortunately, feels as though it forces the player through encounters for the reason that it’s a dungeon crawl, rather than intermingling plot and gameplay.
Sumptuous, Yet Recycled Atmosphere
The graphics in Icewind Dale II, in many aspects, surpass the overwhelmingly high, near-artbook standards established in the original. This time around, the landscapes have a much grittier, harsher look to them, while the new portraits have a substantial helping of abstract surrealism, much like the original Planescape artwork in the Dungeons & Dragons campaign. The new monster models look noticeably better than those taken directly from Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale, such as Hook Horrors, Half-Dragons, and Ferys. The creature graphics are larger, exhibit more frames of animation, and move more realistically than Black Isle’s earlier models (which they tend to generally recycle through their games).
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Though the new graphic work in Icewind Dale II does an admirable job of keeping the Infinity-engine looking decently modern, it too seems as though the developers were giving an aging model a half-hearted makeover. Regardless of any way you cut it, it appears as though a good number of the models, portraits, and textures are simply re-used from earlier previous games without hardly any touch-up work given to them. Back in the days of the original Baldur’s Gate, the graphics looked fantastic, but it’s been nearly five years from then, and we’re still seeing the exact same model and animation from the goblins. In addition, the 32 new portraits for Icewind Dale II just feel inadequate given the sudden wealth of sub-race options. One such example of this is the inclusion of only three drow portraits. It’s hardly contested that Black Isle is one of the 2D powerhouses of the PC gaming industry; given its close ties with Wizards of the Coast, one can only feel let down at the relative lack of options considering the resources Black Isle could presumably draw upon.
SIDEBAR: Patrick and Jakub share a passion for Icewind Dale art, particularly the character portraits.
| Sound | Page:: ( 3 / 8 ) |
Majestic Sound, Painfully Flawed Implementation
The sweeping, orchestral soundtracks that accompany Black Isle games could easily be heard accompanying something like The Lord Of The Rings Movie. Baldur’s Gate II: Throne Of Bhaal, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment have indisputably some of the most luminescent, vibrant PC RPG soundtracks of all time, and Icewind Dale II, just possibly, trumps them all. Inon Zur, the composer of Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, returns in IWD2. Upon entering the first town in the game, the subtle, mourning tones of violins gradually cascade into a mournful, yet resolute dirge of horns, restrained choral work, and measured drumming.
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It’s the superb work of Inon Zur that only makes the way the game developers implemented music into the game even more deplorable. When you enter any sort of building, the music cuts off abruptly. Unlike LucasArts’ old iMuse system used in the Monkey Island games, the music doesn’t even attempt to reach some sort of short conclusion... it simply stops, dead in its tracks, mid-beat, mid-measure. When a battle is completed, the music stops just as ignominiously.
Not only that, Inon Zur’s soundtrack is on such a grand scale that the traditional Black Isle ‘atmospheric’ sounds, such as birds chirping and leaves rustling, only grow all the more annoying since the music is far preferable to these tired old reused effects. Game Developers seem to be listening to the clamor for neoclassical, orchestral soundtracks from PC RPG gamers with only one-ear. While the quality of game soundtracks have undeniably increased, gamers have been short-changed one way or another, from criminally short Jeremy Soule soundtracks (Morrowind) to the complete lack of attempts to harmoniously mesh game environments with lush soundtracks.
Reused Sounds
In a similar trend with the graphics, there are approximately a dozen new speech effects for the player-controlled characters. Black Isle, characteristically enough, chose to simply throw in Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter’s character voices, with the seeming assumption that gamers new to the series would marvel at the seemingly large options available to them. The voices, while not bad, are typically cheesy, though the drow voice acting is actually quite good... it’s quite satisfying to hear your Wizard hurl out some epithet in drow while hurling a fireball into a nest of goblins. The sound effects are typical high-quality fare we've seen from Black Isle (and BioWare) in the past. They’re nothing terribly new, but they get the job done well.
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While the narrator for Icewind Dale II is quite good (as they are in all Black Isle games), one significant criticism is that the narrative detail in between the chapters have very little to do with the story. She relates her future experience with the region the next chapter partakes in, but there is no immediate relevance to your party’s next task at hand. It’s almost like giving away the punch line to a joke before knowing what the joke is. As a result from this poor decision, the nature of the narration lacks the urgency exhibited in BioWare's competing titles, like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights.
SIDEBAR: Patrick played cello for 12 years, piano for 3, and is an aspiring progressive/trance DJ.
| Gameplay | Page:: ( 4 / 8 ) |
A Retailored Suit
We finally come to the most significant change in Icewind Dale II: the actual effect 3rd edition rules have on the gameplay. Accompanying this is a facelift to the traditional Infinity-engine layout. All the tools and menus have been re-located on the bottom of the screen, contrasting the ‘framed’ view Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale had. The new interface takes a little while to get used to for Infinity-engine veterans, but otherwise has a minimal effect on gameplay, as the fundamental nature of the interface remains unchanged.
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As expected, Black Isle does a fantastic job of rolling the dice and handling all calculations without player interaction. 3rd edition rules, holistically speaking, are not a huge deviation from 2nd edition Dungeons & Dragons. In general 3rd edition rules help smooth the wrinkles in the older rulesets, while greatly expanding character dynamics, allowing for possibilities such as multi-classed Monk/Sorcerers and Paladin/Necromancers. From a pragmatically perspective, however, these much-vaunted freedoms aren’t terribly relevant to IWD2, for two significant reasons.
Firstly, due to the limitations of the Infinity-engine, the implementation of 3rd edition rules are much more limited than those we experienced in BioWare's Neverwinter Nights. Icewind Dale II is definitely showing the engine’s age, demonstrating quite conclusively that there still is a wide gap between tabletop roleplaying and computer gaming. While the concept of a Paladin/Necromancer could be fascinating in a roleplaying or literary sense, when the concept is reduced to mere character sheet, it looses a great deal of its allure. This leads directly into the second point. Due to a character point-buy system (where you have a static amount of points in creation, and form you character by distributing them however you please), most multi-class combinations are extremely inefficient and impractical since the base classes typically have very little overlap with one another.
A Retuned, Not Supercharged, Engine
With the inclusion of 3rd edition rules, actual combat itself remains significantly unchanged. The scaling of hit points and damage (with respect to weapons, spells, and items) remains almost identical to the 2nd edition roots. You’ll be seeing your longswords, fireballs, and arrows all doing virtually the same amount of damage. One of the most noteworthy changes in 3rd edition rules is how spell resistance is handled. In 2nd edition rules, the ability to resist a spell was based upon a single percentage. In 3rd edition rules, the chance to resist a spell is directly compared against the caster's level (in addition to many other modifiers), making spell resistance an ability that's insignificant unless it's significantly contributed to. The monsters are roughly scaled to their 2nd edition counterparts as well. Goblins, orcs, slimes, and other familiar denizens of Forgotten Realms will be at approximately the same difficulty level experienced Dungeons & Dragons players would expect them to be.
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Unbalanced Scaling
Unfortunately Icewind Dale II has to have some of the sloppiest difficulty scaling ever present in any of the Infinity-engine games that BioWare and Black Isle are famous for. This is partially due to the nature of the new sub-races, as the races that receive level penalties will be noticeably weaker than humans and the like for the majority of the game. Asuming that nearly every quest and monster has been summarily completed and vanquished, by the end of the game, the typical party should able to finally begin casting those ultimate ninth level spells. If you’re a handicapped sub-race, however, you’re out of luck as you’ll be unable to make the hefty level requirements for the most powerful spells if you play through the regular campaign normally.
Quite possibly the most annoying aspects of Icewind Dale II is the pathetic pathfinding. This reviewer had the number of nodes set to 400,000, the maximum the game would allow you to set, and characters, upon encountering any sort of obstacle, would suddenly turn around and begin walking away from their party, taking the longest, most roundabout route possible. In many cases this would have them stumble into inopportune monster ambushes, forcing frequent quickloads. This is especially surprising, given that Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal had such strong pathfinding. We’re confused as to why there would be such a regression.
It is worth noting a number of bugs that exist in the game. People have posted on the official Icewind Dale II message boards various bugs that can completely crash your game, most of which have not been properly addressed in a patch yet. In addition, this reviewer found numerous minor bugs, such as unintended, free feat points in creation. Some major bugs were found as well. For example, if you reload to a game saved in the middle of a boss battle, all the bosses will disappear. They’re presumably scripted NPC events that are ‘reset’ in the case of a reload, rendering it impossible to progress any further unless a save prior to the battle initiator is reloaded. Many of the bugs that have been found have not yet been addressed in an official patch.
The difficulty of the game itself is completely out of sync, as well. By far, Icewind Dale II is the hardest Infinity-engine RPG, discounting the Heart of Fury mode. The difficulty is quite erratic as the game progresses. Notably, numerous players have complained about how unforgiving the Prologue and first Chapter are. Without substantial experience with Black Isle RPGs, the boss battles could be very frustrating for a casual gamer, forcing them to resort to lowering the difficulty level or cheating outright through the debug mode. Later on the game levels off for awhile, but near the end it again scales to ridiculous proportions. This is especially exasperating, considering that Icewind Dale II is a completely linear game. The developers can approximate the level progression of the party’s with a good deal of accuracy, as: 1) there are no random dungeons 2) monster locations do not randomize and 3) monster experience is scaled to character level. There is absolutely no excuse for such haphazard development, given how one of the original’s strongest points was meticulous pacing and character buildup.
SIDEBAR: It’s a tough call on taking screenshots in linear games, RPGs specifically. You want to show as much as possible, but without revealing the entire game.
ProblemsPage:: ( 5 / 8 )
Stumbling Backwards
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In addition, magic items are not balanced at all. While there is a good assortment of weapons and armor, the game’s as stingy as Scrooge with its magical items early-game. Yet by the late game you’re absolutely swamped with magical armament, most of which is completely unnecessary. Gold, as can be expected, is almost trivial. After Chapter 1, assuming the player’s been diligently picking up every magical item that drops (and continues to maintain good corpse-looting habits), monetary wealth will never be an issue.
The game just doesn’t go far enough to develop and promote its plot. For instance, the story either progresses very slowly as to the point where it seems to be a chore to play, or the game simply throws everything at the player simultaneously, like the end of a bad anime. It's not well-paced at all. The first three chapters of Icewind Dale II essentially build up to the main storyline. You’ve played through over half the game before you have any real idea about what you’re doing. While the story is well-conceived, it never manages to hook the player, partially due to a complete lack of roleplaying elements in the game. Already accentuated by the temporally displaced narrator, it can be easy for most players to feel detached and unaffected by the story. Unlike Baldur’s Gate II, where the player could follow a good or evil path, Icewind Dale II offers no interactivity whatsoever.
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The various quests offered in the game are fairly drab and uninspiring. Sadly enough, the experience reward at the end of each quest is a far greater incentive to complete them than any real desire to be rewarded with a particular bit of dialogue or plot revelation. A number of attempted roleplaying features come off as being tired and greatly annoying for the player. One of these is that Paladins and Monks refuse any sort of monetary reward at the end of a quest. Therefore, by necessity, most players will simply not let a Paladin or Monk lead their team. Finally, Icewind Dale II, much like its predecessor, is an extremely Fighter- and Cleric-heavy game. Near the end, massively spell-resistant adversaries abound, and Wizards will be nothing more than meat shields. Over 95% of the traps in the game deal only single-point damage, making the point of thieves completely negligible, and monks have been drastically toned down from their Baldur’s Gate II and Neverwinter Nights overpoweredness. Simply having Fighters with supporting Clerics casting healing, buffing, and summoning spells is more than enough for all the game’s encounters (and near the end, will be very necessary due to the liability of Wizards).
A final imbalance to note is that the most potentially powerful spell in the game is a mere level 3 Cleric spell: Animate Dead. At high levels, a Cleric can summon an Apocalyptic Boneguard, two of which can decimate an entire map without any difficulty. Meanwhile, Mass Heal is the other spell du jour: with a ~2 second casting time, your entire team will be healed to max health and all status ailments summarily removed. By the time you’re done with this, it’s quite understandable that a player might not wish to deal with the ‘enhanced’ Heart of Fury mode, where goblins reportedly strike as accurately at 30th level fighters. There really is no incentive to go through the game a second time other than the enhanced armor and weapons available in Heart of Fury.
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We did not have a chance to test the multiplayer aspect of the game. However, importing parties from the original Icewind Dale was a relatively hassle-free experience, though imported characters will lack the refinements brand-new 3rd edition characters enjoy.
Nasty Bugs
SIDEBAR: Would titanium weapons be better than +1 items in the fantasy world?
Ballistics ReportPage:: ( 6 / 8 )
Pros
Graphics. Highly detailed, lovingly rendered gothic and gritty graphics. Black Isle continues to spoil us with some of the top 2D artwork in the gaming industry, period.
Soundtrack. A positively sublime experience, courtesy of Inon Zur. Grand, somber, and demanding, Icewind Dale II’s soundtrack manages to partially make up for its roleplaying shortcomings, drawing players closer to the game.
Length. Easily a 30+ hour game, Icewind Dale II will take even the most experienced gamer many sleepless nights to explore all its obscurities and quests.
3rd Edition Ruleset. The new Dungeons & Dragons rules give the Infinity-engine a much needed facelift, allowing it to be a somewhat viable alternative to Neverwinter Nights. The ability to play sub-races that are an intrinsic part of Forgotten Realms lore such as drow, gray dwarves, deep gnomes, and aasimar, will undoubtedly be received well by fantasy fans.
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Cons
Unpolished Product. Many aspects of the game, from the pacing, story, music implementation, and character development represent quite possibly the sloppiest Infinity-engine game to date. Given the strength of its predecessor, it’s all the much harder to accept. Finally, seeing this many bugs in a Black Isle product is rather distressing. We hope that this will not be a continuing trend.
No Replay Value. It’s unlikely you’ll wish to save Ten-Towns again after the first time. The encounters are uninspired and the plot feels as though it drags its feet for too long. This is a game, not a novel.
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SIDEBAR: Icewind Dale was Drizzt’s home for a long time.
Final VerdictPage:: ( 7 / 8 )