Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

"Superb game....while it lasted"

I have always been a big A, D & D fan going back to the paper and dice versions. I think they still rank as the best in terms of RPG's. I hadn't played an A, D & D game since the SNES and I was very excited to play it on GameCube. My take:

Graphics (7): The water effects far and away steal the show and are the best I have ever seen in a video game. You play from top-down perspective. Your character is pretty small but most of the monsters are large and very well done. I wish your character looked as good as they do but is not bad. I like the fact you can actually see differences in your characters appearence depending on the armor and weapons you equip. A very nice touch. The environments are very well done but it seems everything has a fuzziness to it. NPC's you interact with are excellent if not sparse.

Sound (9): Excellent ambient sounds like the clang of weapons, spells, wind, animals etc. The voice acting is among the best I have heard for a console game. Music is very rare but fits the situation you are in. No real complaints here.

Gameplay (9): There is a certain clunkiness to the menus when you are looking at your inventory. I wish you could sort or combine items so you can see exactly what you have or I wish they would appear in the order of their strength. Its not terrible by any means and I'm sure will be addressed in subsequent games. The in-game controls couldn't be improved on in my opinion. I never was killed because the button layout was poor. Fighting, casting spells, healing yourself, are a snap in the heat of battle, although I think using the archer or bows in general is harder than it should be for aiming. I hated the jumping sequences in the game but they are few and far between but a certain part of the game I won't spoil for others was a real pain, in my opinion. I do wish you could create your own character and had more options for leveling up. Multiplayer is fun but the game isn't really all that hard as a single player game so having more than one would seem too easy. I like the very generous amount of save points. There is nothing worse than getting killed near the end of a level/floor and have to repeat huge chunks of the game. I wish all games did this but I can understand to some extent the designers intent to make the games challenging.

Final take (8): I enjoyed this game completely. It is a very well done game and is pretty faithful to the A, D & D rules. My only complaint is that the game is TOO short. I felt like I barely sat down and it was over....literally. My game lasted only 11 hours. It may be the shortest game I have ever played. I may have missed some side quests, or hidden secrets and I didn't attain the highest spells like the meteor one, so there may be more to the game I missed but even at that I doubt the game would last much longer. Unless you are determined to play using all three characters or like multi-player this might be a rental only game and maybe only worth a purchase if you could get it for $20 or less. I'm not sorry I bought it but wish it were twice as long as it was so darn fun, albeit short.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/06/03, Updated 05/06/03