Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II

"In theory it should be an awesome game, but it's really not that fun for some reason."

Man, after the masterpiece that was the first Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance, I sure was excited when I saw that Black Isle was making a sequel to their superb dungeon crawler. Not being rich, I waited until I finally found a cheap used copy. I picked it up immediately and popped it into my PS2 as soon as I got home. To be honest, I was kind of disappointed. It's certainly quite different from the first one in many ways, and that's what I'll be discussing in this review.

Graphics

A big surprise I experienced while playing this game was that nothing had changed graphically. Nothing. At all. Not that the graphics were really that bad before, but I had expected some sort of improvement. Or change. Or something. But it was not to be. It seems the developers just used the exact same graphics engine to make new areas and characters, which, while still impressive, could be better. Granted, there were some areas that I was quite impressed with, and the new character models are pretty cool (specially the dwarf, what a pimp), but there's really nothing else worth noting.

Graphics 7/10

Game-play

This is where the game excels with many new and interesting features. It uses the same level up system that the original did, but now there are many more feats and spells as well as secret ones that you can unlock later in the game by completing character specific side quests. Also, because the game is longer you will probably finish it at about level twenty seven or twenty eight as opposed to sixteen or seventeen which means you get to power up your characters a lot more. Weapons, armor, and accessories work on the same system as before, but now shops have a nifty new feature known as the workshop where you can use the previously useless gemstones to power up your weapons and give them magical properties such as fire or poison. This is cool. Other new features include the ability to equip two one handed weapons at once, as well as a two handed weapon and a long range weapon which you can switch by pressing right on the direction pad. Bows and crossbows (a new feature as well) also have unlimited arrows which makes them much easier to use, and the feat Hail of Bolts becomes very useful. Also, long range weaponry now includes throwing knives and axes as well. Let's see, what else? Well, there's more characters, and the game is about twice as long, but you probably already knew that. There's a lot more, but for the sake of not boring you I think this will suffice. Overall, these features are pretty neat, but they still don't save the game from being mediocre at best.

Game-play 9/10

Story

The story of this game is actually fairly good. The beginning movie is a continuation of where the first game left off and explains a few things. Then you gain control of your new character who has no knowledge of what is going on in the big picture but gradually finds out during the course of the game. One of the nice things about the game is that it is a lot less linear than the first one and there are a lot more optional quests as well which allows you to play the game pretty much as you wish. I won't get into story details, but let it suffice to say it's decent.

Story 8/10

Music/Sound Effects

Much like its predecessor, this game doesn't have a whole lot of music and unfortunately much of what it does have is just remixed (or sometimes not even that) tracks from the first game (minus the Elf song Tavern theme, arguably the best song from the original). Anything new is pretty standard stuff, not that good, not that bad, not that memorable. So that's the music for you. Sound effects on the other hand are pretty good, and the voice acting is superb. Each playable characters voice fits their character perfectly and the voices of the non-playable characters are equally as good.

Music/Sound Effects 6/10

Rent/Buy?

I would have to say rent on this one. Even though many individual areas of the game are good, what it sums up to is pretty mediocre, maybe even boring. It's too bad, the first game was so great, but in the tradition of most sequels, this game just doesn't stand up to the original.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/31/05