Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2

THE BAD:
still a hack-&-slash, very linear (little freedom), and weird cam angles

SUMMARY:
3/5, why? because its been done to death; BA DA, Gauntlet Dark Legacy, and Heroes Might and Magic have all the same traits, and faults. What sets this apart is the fact that you can Mod. your weapons, armor, and change your spells to what you wish (with a cost.. of course!) The new NPC's are fun, and look great! the graphics are a step above the previous version, and allow for some very detailed maps. The voice acting is nice, and gives you a break from reading all the text from similar titles. The export feature is nice, allowing you to export a character to make use of him/her in another game (gave me a better chance of survival) when importing a character, you can start from the beginning and carry the imported character stats with you! Very nice! still this game does not deserve a four, or five due to the fact that they still didn't fix the fighting yet. To fight, is to be still! Unlike Gauntlet Dark Legacy, you must stay put whilst you fight. Another thing that bothered the heck out of me was the lack of Online capabilities. Xbox is dominating the online world with live, and companies should be taking advantage of this. Games have a higher replay the minute d/l content is added, or Online multiplayer modes. Look at Mech Assault for example; Beat it, and its worthless! Add Online, or multiplayer, and its still gold.

THE BAD:
No online, no third person camera and you cant create your own character, it looks a lot like the first (so what? xbox didnt had it) some char voices are a joke

SUMMARY:
Dark Alliance 2 is exactly what I ever wished in an RPG real time action, 3d cameras, a mapping system 2 player co-op, lots of scenarios, lots of weapons, lots of variety and lots of gameplay! is basically Diablo 2 in 3d with co-op action. You start by selecting an interesting pregenerated character of your choice, which can be a rogue, priest, necro mancer ,barbarian,etc while it may seem some char may have advantage over others they are pretty well balanced and designed, priests have the ability to heal themselves and shield attacks, necromancers can summon a skeleton and use dark magic, barbarians and rogues are extraordinary in combat and have some 1 hit kill and speed skills, etc. Combined in a 2 player team they are practically unstopable. To vary a bit the hack and slash combat, DA2 combat adds more elements like blocking (which is needed in most battles and to stop projectiles), quick weapon change (by pressing right on the controller) and of course 1 button feats (magic and skills) while they may not seem like much they make the combat feel a lot more varied and interesting. (it reminded me of castlevania:sotn for some reason) Besides those da2 has the following features (which are truly lacking in other rpgs). 1.-regenerate health: no need to restart a level if you are out of potions, you just need to find a place to rest and your health will regenerate. The control vibrates according the heart rate of your char, so you can know when you are in trouble or feeling fine. 2.-Smart save points. Not really a feature but very well designed levels with save points exactly where needed, whenever theres trouble theres a save point. 3.-Change your character! you dont feel like being a barbarian today? change to necromancer or any other char you like, each character saves its stats (and inventory) so you can change your char at every level and see how different is to use magic or brute force. Do not believe the "PRO" reviews! reviewers are having a field trip underrating DA2 (Im guessing to hype its everquest based clone) some even mentioned the game has 10 hours of gameplay, or the graphics are ps1 quality and lifeless not true! not only the gameplay is a lot longer ,the graphics are actually the best seen in a "isometric" RPG for the xbox (the water and other special effects are worth seing). Overall: The 0.5 point I took from the review is nitpicking because I would have liked to have a third person shoulder camera in 1 player mode, live support and a way to create your own char other than that this the best multiplayer action-RPG in the xbox to date! if you liked the D&D or Diablo series for PC go and buy this one now! you wont regret it.