Icewind Dale

"It's an epic, that's for sure"

First off, Icewind Dale is an experience, not a simple game. It is a masterpiece, one of many in the D&D games, but still a masterpiece. Better then BG, and certainly the best of all the D&D games, no doubt about that. It has an immensely large gameworld and many weapons, spells, and items. The storyline is fairly strong, as are the sub-quests.

Graphics:
With amazing spell effects and very good looking items, characters, and backgrounds, the graphics are almost un-beatable! Even better, it supports OpenGL allowing for a smoothe gaming experience. 9.7

Gameplay:
A strong story line and loose gameplay allow for multiple ways to play the game. And with tons of different classes it offers an epic gaming experience. Also, the NPC's have their own stories and quirks to be uncovered, addind depth to the characters. 9.9

Sound:
Awesome music and wicked battle sounds give for a depth felt in few games. And the character voice acting is simply amazing! 9.8

Replayability:
Although there are different ways to play the games, nothing is random in the game, othre than encouters with creatures, and this makes it boring after playing it a lot, but you'll have to play it a lot. 8.8

Better than BG?
Yes. But it was a close race. It is slightly larger, but also slightly easier. The portraits are better, but new monster designs are worse, so it was very close.

This game certainly carries the torch of D&D well, better than most of the games before it did anyway. It's quite difficult to sum up how impressive this game was and still is. But I'll try.

Overall Score: 9.3, an excellent gaming experience, better than BG and all D&D games that came before it. Although the requirements seem high compared to BG, it is quite acceptable considering how good the graphics are.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/10/00, Updated 09/10/00