"Hmmm....I thought this would be better....."

Baldurs Gate 2: Shadows of Amn was hialed pretty dang high in gaming magazines but it was not as good as I thought...

Storyline 6
First things first. We shall talk about the lack luster storyline. After you go through the baseline charecter generating you awaken in a dungeon. You are tortured by some guy for a couple of seconds then a golem walks in and some stuff happens. Then Imoen who seems to have gotten a makeover while in the dungeon rescues you. Then you can talk to Jahiera who seems to have gotten the same makeover. There is also Minsc who is the same as he always was. You then spend time wondering about this little dungeon looking for items and fighting for the most part Mephits. You learn very little while here seeing as this place is pretty annoying. Eventually you get out and more stuff that has nothing to do with anything happens. As you can see the first half hour is spent doing nothing of great importance as that is how most of the storyline is. It is chalk full of side quests but for the most part you have no real direction. The game ccontains all in all about 3 hours worth of interesting storyline. The rest of the time is spent with side quests required for the storyline.

Charecters 5
Whoever designed the charecters for this game must really love multiclassing. Out of the 16 charecters in this game exactly 10 are a single class. Most not very good though. The game is chalk full of thieves and people who just plain suck. Imoen who was my main thief in the last one is now a mage/thief which makes her useless. She cannot wear the really good thief armor that they put in this game and she sucks with magic. She also recieves a weakening in the field of thievery thanks to her magic. EVERY thief in this game is multiclassed. Most charecters also have an irritating little side quest they have to go on. Also all the good charecters have constant questions and issues with one another this can somethimes lead to combat within the group. Which is a real pain in the neck. they also have a knack for choosing THE worst time to argue. I.E. Danger laden dungeon in the middle of a fight. I actually lost a relitivly easy battle with some orcs because Viconia and Keldorn chose to fight while they were nearby. Needless to say the charecters in this game really really stink.
Except for Minsc.

Graphics 9
The graphics in this game are an improvement. They are way better than the originals but do have some flaws.So keep on the lookout but for the most part are good. Some spells have also gotten a face lift so they are no longer an eyesore.

Misc stuff 8
The game contains some new and interesting little things. Such as during the loading screen where it shows you a little tip at the bottom of the screen while this can be interesting and even helpful it becomes quite boring. Another big problem is dragon treasure. Most dragob hoards contain alot of gems and gold and items the hoards in BG:2 strangely lacks these to the extereme. A dragon hoard in BG:2 consists of 1500 gold, a silver necklace and a magic weapon or something. Definatly not worth an extreme amount of cpmbat required.

In conclusion BG:2 is good but has some problems but are small enough to be overlooked though they do pose an irritation.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/21/02, Updated 02/21/02