Icewind Dale

"Excellent and Innovative"

Graphics: 10
The graphics for this aren’t what you call ''up to date'' but they are very phenomenal in there own ways. Icewind Dale's graphics are 2D drawn backgrounds with some animation and texture. The games biggest achievement in the graphics is the detail. An enormous amount of detail is within the game. The Vivid backdrops almost make you seem like your living the world. Almost every real life detail was included in the backdrops...from rough gritty rocks to smooth snow on the surface of a tall and ash colored mountain. The character graphics are probably the best sprite graphics on the market. Detailed to every inch, wear a helmet and the color of the helmet will ''change'' to the color of your character main outfit color, which goes also for armor, boots etc. Character movement s very well depicted to even the smallest of detail, like the arms swinging when you slash a foul troll or when you slay a snake like creature (Yuan-Ti) green oozing blood sprays everywhere, very detailed. As for the spells...the best...colors everywhere and dazzling flashes burst from the character like fireworks, lights radiate from every corner with magic and gleaming icicles that form from nowhere to fall on your enemy bursting and shattering with florescent blue and white bursting everywhere.

Sound: 10
One word. Astonishing. The sounds are extremely real, from the clash of a swords with armor to the wind howling in the background, they are all depicted very well and realistically. Casting of spells is extremely well made sound wise...through the chanting of a summon to the spell crushing your foe with extreme power and finesse. Very powerful sound in many ways. 10 will seem very reasonable for this.

Gameplay: 9
Very well put together for everyone D&D fans as well as hack and slash fans. This game equally divides the gameplay between the two. Stats, dice rolls and saving throws are very well incorporated and also is the run-in-a-room-kill-everything is well incorporated. The only lack in this is the movement. You seem to get “stuck” everywhere and lose you characters because they can’t find a path around a object (unless dither is turned on…but it still poses a problem). This game uses 2nd edition D&D rules and so therefore there are “rules” in order to do stuff. For instance, if u want to be a mage/fighter than you cannot wear armor and cast magic at the same time…its one or the other. These benefits and loss’ go through most of the game, from choosing your character to talking to a NPC with a different race. Apart from getting stuck everywhere and jitter like movements this games gameplay deserves a 9.

Re-play: 7
As with most RPG’s there is only so much can do until everything done. This game follows the traditional RPG’s very well (with exception to the battle style). The game starts you out in a town and you start to “investigate” a problem in the near by town. Then realizing that a greater threat to the whole world is behind this and so you start to find out what that is and so on. You are basically on a leash and the game makers tell you were to go next and what to do (some puzzles are thrown here and there…but nothing to divert you from the main story) There is hardly any sub-quests and if there is they are very short and easy to do (most of the sub-quests a re in the beginning of the game). The only thing you can do to get some replay value is to try beating the game with different characters and upping the difficulty.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/15/02, Updated 12/15/02