Author: Fred Wan
Editor: Howard Ha
Publish Date: Tuesday, November 5th, 2002
Originally Published on Neoseeker (http://www.neoseeker.com)
Article Link: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Games/Reviews/icewinddaleii/
Copyright Neo Era Media, Inc. - please do not redistribute or use for commercial purposes.
Icewind Dale II (hereafter Dale II) is a Real-Time Role-Playing Game. Based on the same engine as Baldur’s Gate, Dale II is set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, in particular the Forgotten Realms. Playing a party of six adventurers, you travel through and around Icewind Dale itself, solving quests, slaying monsters, and so forth. Starting as a band of mercenaries looking for employment, you disembark from a riverboat to find the town you are visiting under attack from goblins. As the story unfolds, you wander through mountains, forests, the Underdark (the below-ground part of the world, complete with civilizations, for non-D&D fans), and several cities. As is usual for RPGs, the scale and scope of the game becomes progressively larger as you move on, and by the end of it, you feel like you are fighting for the fate of the world (or Icewind Dale, at least).
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“Welcome to the D&D World”—Notes on Dale II’s Source Material
Dungeons & Dragons (D&D, (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/splash.asp?x=dnd/splash)) is the first, and most well known, Role-Playing Game (RPG) currently on the market. Currently on its 3rd edition, D&D is a fantasy game where players take on the roles of various characters (“Player Characters”, or PCs), while an extra player, the Dungeon Master (DM), narrates the events and arbitrates the result of PC actions. Functionally, in most PC RPGs, the computer takes the role of the DM.
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D&D is a fantasy RPG, and has spawned a great many separate universes, including but not limited to Oerth, the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Darksun, and Planescape. Most of these universes have had separate RPG supplements, novels, and PC games produced for them. In fact, while some games are based directly off of D&D, most RPGs have been largely influenced by D&D—regardless of their separate stories.
Terminology like “Hit Points” and “Experience Points” trace their gaming uses back to D&D. The same holds true for concepts such as “character classes” as distinct professions with tightly defined skills (such as you find in the Diablo series). Nearly all RPGs owe a great deal to D&D—it is more a question of “how much” rather than “if”.
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The Mechanics of Dale II, and Character Generation
Dale II is modelled on D&D, 3rd Edition. The basic rules of the game, in terms of character generation, combat resolution, spells, and so forth, are based on those of D&D. In fact, the game very closely echoes D&D—not only does is use the same attributes, spells, classes, and so forth of D&D, but the new feat system has also been included. Likewise, the effect of each skill, attribute, and so forth is largely the same in Dale II as it would be in a regular tabletop session of D&D.
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Basically, character generation goes through several steps. You start by choosing a name, gender, and race for your character. While the name and gender have very little effect on the mechanics of the game, you can choose from a variety of races (Human, Elf, Dwarf, etc.) each with distinctive special abilities and disadvantages. The races are more-or-less balanced with each other, although there are several (such as the Drow, or Dark Elves), that are powerful enough that they are penalized in terms of gaining levels (more on that below).
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After you have made these basic choices, you choose a photo and voice for your character. The voice selections are from a variety of pre-generated voices, while the photo can be chosen from either the game’s built-in database or one that you import yourself. The option to include a photo (either drawing or real photo) that you supply helps to customize your character and help you build an attachment to him or her—all in all, a nice touch.
Once the preliminary steps are complete, you assign attribute points to your six attributes (Strength, Wisdom, Charisma, etc.), choose a class (Fighter, Sorcerer, Monk, etc.) and select skills and Feats. The number of skill points you receive to assign to the various skills (such as Wilderness Lore or Intimidate) will be based upon your Intelligence and class, with certain skills being listed as “class skills”—which will be easier for you to learn. Likewise, Feats (such as Ambidexterity) represent extra special abilities that you can learn, most of which are open to any character class. Lastly, where it is appropriate, you will choose any Special Abilities (for example, Rangers can choose “species enemies” that they receive bonuses when fighting against) and spells for your character.
Overall, Dale II’s character generation system feels almost identical to designing a Third Edition D&D character.
Graphics
The majority of Dale II is portrayed in a top-down, slightly angled view, similar to that found in games like Baldur’s Gate and Diablo. Like most other games of the genre, you can scroll your mouse cursor over a building or person to get more information about it. Overall, the feel of the graphics helps communicate the “fantasy” feel, although the straight aesthetic impact of the game is not extraordinary.
However, one area where the game excels is in having multiple objects/characters moving at once. It is very common to have your party of six characters, enemies (I have experienced a half-dozen or so at a time), and spell animations all at the same time. Thankfully, the graphics keep moving along, maintaining the pace of the game. Given that Dale II’s combats require you to be able to keep running control of your entire party, this was an important graphical detail, and I’m glad it works well.
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An additional area where the graphics help communicate the feel of the game happens later in the story. As your characters gain levels, they gain the ability to unleash multiple attacks per “round” (a given span of time). As you would expect, characters with more attacks receive more attack animations, but again this helps differentiate Fighters swinging away with swords from Wizards poking enemies with daggers.
Music & Sound
Frankly speaking, I usually do not put a great deal of emphasis on musical scores in RPGs. I find that, while a good score adds to the mood of a game, an average one is just background music—something that is nice to have, but also nice to shut off, depending on your mood. During the rare occasions when a musical score is exceptional, such as in Planescape: Torment, I appreciate the fact. However, on the whole, I and most other RPGers do not expect the music for an RPG to be exceptional.
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That being said, I feel that Dale II has a very strong musical score. The music is quite emotive, and helps present the epic feel of the game. As a whole, I found Dale II’s musical tracks supported the game and enhanced the mood quite well. One concern I have, though, is that Dale II is a long game. Even though the music is pleasing to the ear, after a few hours in an area you may become tired of it.
The digitized voices and voice acting were also quite good. Although I found the voices and speeches for the Player Characters to be somewhat repetitive, the NPC voices were acted well, and the dialogue was well written. This added quite a bit to the believability of the conversations within the game.
Controls
The majority of Dale II’s interface is done through point-and-click, where you select the character(s) you want to act, select the skill or spell you want to utilize, and the object or creature you want to act upon. While this is quite effective when you only need to control one or two characters at a time, or when you are in a “low stress” situation, this is simply too slow and cumbersome for situations like combat.
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Fortunately, a detailed hotkey system has been programmed into the game, allowing you to select characters and skills/actions/spells quite a bit more quickly. This streamlines the interface and allows you to save valuable seconds during combat. However, there is a quite a bit to memorize, as you have multiple hotkeys that apply to each of your six characters—but it does make the game manageable without forcing you to “freeze” the action, which would ruin the real-time aspect.
I do think that it is worth pointing out that building up enough familiarity with the system to react quickly and effectively in a combat situation takes quite a bit of effort. Although people familiar with Baldur’s Gate and/or Icewind Dale will already have this knowledge, players jumping on during Dale II, even those familiar with D&D, will face a fairly steep learning curve to master the interface. This is not to say that the interface is badly designed—rather, it is simply that there is a lot there to master.
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Learning Tactics
Even after you have mastered the interface, you still need to learn the “rules” of the Forgotten Realms. What creatures are vulnerable to what attacks, how different spells have different effects on the environment, and so forth. In this, veteran D&D players have quite a bit of an advantage—since Dale II adheres very closely to the Forgotten Realms setting, the “world laws” and monster behaviours are largely the same. D&D as a setting has been built up over 2 decades, and Dale II keeps much of that history and tradition. While this makes the game wonderfully consistent internally, a new player who has no idea what a Red Dragon is vulnerable to may not be quite so appreciative.
Interacting with NPCs
While you will need to learn how to fight monsters, you will also need to learn how to get along with neutral characters—NPCs. The game uses a system of dialogue choices for PC-NPC conversations—after an NPC makes a statement, you can choose from a menu of responses. What is rather interesting about Dale II is that certain menu options only appear if you meet certain requirements, such as being a Druid or having a high intelligence. Likewise, NPCs react to your choices differently based upon your skills and class—it is far easier to bully someone if your Intimidate skill is high, for example.
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Overall Thoughts
Dale II is a rich, deep, and involving game set in D&Ds Forgotten Realms. The interface is well designed, and there is a great deal of variety and customizability to your characters. However, there is a lot to learn, and a lot to pick up. Fabulous choice if you enjoy RPGs, although you need to be prepared to spend a few hours learning the game if you are new to D&D or the Baldur’s Gate game engine.
Summarized Points
Overall Score: 75%
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