"A good piece of work....."

Let me first start out by saying that this game was a beautiful piece of art. The Interplay/Black Isle/Bioware people managed to come up with a fantastic sequel to Baldur's Gate. You know, I've always wondered, how come sequels to movies are never as good as the sequels to games? It's a mystery to me.

First I want to discuss the plot. You begin in a cell after being ambushed shortly after your adventures in Baldur's Gate. A mysterious man(but not really, because it shows his name in the dialogue box; don't know why they did that) shows up and begins to experiment on you. You end up being freed by Imoen and the story begins. Personally, I thought the plot by itself was weak. Here we go again on another adventure to kill some maniac who wants to become a god. The story is a little worn out. However, BG2 does do one thing that almost no other game has done: plot development for the NPC's. This is perhaps the defining point for BG2. Each NPC has his/her own plot and specific dialogue that will pop up soon after they join you. These quests are time specific, some with game day times, and some with real time. They are quite elaborate and really add to the replayability.

Secondly, the gameplay. BG2 still has the fantastic gameplay that the first did. You control your entire party's movements and actions, although you can set AI's to them. The autopause feature is a favorite of players; it comes with a list of consequences that will trigger a pause. This is a nice feature as one can never know what is around the corner.

The graphics for this game get both a 10 and a 0. That is why I would give this game a 9. Although the detail and depth is rich in beauty, perhaps they should have found a way to keep the framerate up. Now granted, the framerate is not terrible. It is playable if you have a good system. But there are certain spots in the game in which animations slow the game to a crawl. This is unfortunate as Interplay only released one patch, and it didn't cover this problem. But the increased resolution you can play on and the stunning beauty in monsters, items, etc. mostly make up for it.

I know that there is a little ''computer nerd'' war going on between Diablo 2 and Baldur's Gate 2. Fans of each refuse to play the other as it rubs them the wrong way. Personally, I found both very enriching and wonderful. They are two completely different games, but have many good qualities. One common complaint about BG2 is ''too complicated''. My brother likes only Diablo because ''you don't have to think''. Granted, BG2 does have its share of puzzles. And the D&D system is very complex. But once you start BG2, you will realize why it is so popular. And you will realize why it deserves a 9. But compare it to a game like Fallout 2 and it is blown away. But that's another story.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/17/01, Updated 08/17/01