Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

"More like: Boredom's Gate: Dark Alliance"

Baldur's Gate, a series that is legendary on the PC, makes it's console debut with Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, brought to you by Snowblind Studios. Previously released on the PS2, the Xbox port is identical to the PS2 version, with a few graphical touch ups here and there.

Basically, the Baldur's Gate franchise has been squashed down into a bite sized console version of it's PC counterpart, but for the most part it's a visceral hack and slash RPG with some painfully slow gameplay, slow character growth, and the worst mana recharge rate I have seen in a long time.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is based off of D&D Lore and rules. I've never played table top D&D, but I have played quite a few D&D games, including D&D Heroes fairly recently. I found D&D Heroes to be much superior to this game and an overall better experience.

In Dark Alliance, you will basically be dungeon crawling for most of the time, and visiting the town for quests and a break from the action. However, the breaks tend to not last too long, and you'll be back in the dungeons grinding away before you know it.

You'll be able to choose from one of three characters: a Dwarven fighter, a Human archer, or an Elven sorceress. Not very many choices but it doesn't really matter since they mainly play the same, the sorceress just has some more magic. I chose to play as the sorceress, and off I went, to the wonderful world of Baldur's Gate………or so I thought.

The game begins as you arrive in the quiescent town of Baldur's gate. After being there for a few minutes, you are mugged and robbed by a band of thieves. They take off with your stuff and so begins your quest to find the thieves. After this, you stumble into the Elfsong Tavern, which is the main area of town where you will be getting quests, doing your shopping, and listening to the cynicism of the townspeople.

The first person you come across is the extremely big breasted Alyth. She will give you the lowdown on the thieves and offer up some low level quests for you to perform in the basement of the tavern. You will converse with a few more characters, and off you go to the basement for some good old fashioned rat slaying.

While in combat, you can switch between a ranged weapon and a melee weapon at the touch of a button, so you do have a few options right off the bat. After killing rats for a while, you will progress further and further and end up heading to other areas which are adjacent to the town.

The actual gameplay is a rather slow paced affair. Walking around is rather slow, leveling takes quite a long time, and you will be traveling back to town quite often to sell off your loot. The pace of the game really doesn't change either, so if you don't like this style of gameplay, Dark Alliance is not going to change that.

I have played my fair share of dungeon crawlers, some of which I liked and some of which I did not like. Dark Alliance falls into the later category due to some incongruent gameplay features which always seemed to be holding me back and making me loathe the time I spent with the game.

The game has some redeeming qualities, so let's take a look at the breakdown of the game and see how it scores.

Graphics 6/10

It really pains me to score this game so low in this category since the game itself does not look bad at all, in fact it looks good for the most part, with a solid framerate, great particle effects, and fluid animations. The main problem I had with the game graphically is that you just can't get close enough to really enjoy it. You can rotate the camera fine, but there is no zoom feature at all, so the camera remains at a fixed point, far above the action.

The camera actually inhibits the game, since I was often unable to tell if my character currently had her ranged weapon equipped or her melee weapon. Simply put, the camera is bad in this game, and the bird's eye view really stops the player from getting into the experience.

The enemies actually look pretty good. Gelatinous cubes shake and quiver as they chase you, Bug Bears will run with fluid animation and enemy deaths will produce some really cool death animations, but the camera is just too far away to really enjoy any of it.

While talking to the folks in town, you will get a close up of the character you are speaking with and it looks really good. One of the best parts of the game IMO.

So the graphics are good, but it's hard to enjoy them since you seem so far away from the action.

Sounds and Music 6/10

The sounds and music are rather generic. The ambient music while in the dungeons isn't bad, but it's forgettable and there is really nothing special about it.

All of the townspeople are voiced and sound pretty good for the most part. Another one of the best things about the game.

While in the dungeons, the sound effects are un-inspired and barely reach the point of mediocrity.

Story 7/10

The story is actually fairly good for a dungeon crawler. There are plenty of in game cutscenes to keep things interesting and actual give you a purpose for being in the dungeons.

Questing is also well done, and when you see a new patron in the tavern, you can bet that he has a new quest for you to perform.

In spite of all of this, the quests can get repetitive and you'll more than likely stumble upon the quest items by accident. If you uncover an entire area, you will more than likely find what you are looking for.

Gameplay 4/10

This is where the game really drops the ball. The game starts off painfully slow, and continues this way for a long time. When you first start, your mana pool is incredibly small, and firing off 4 magic missiles will deplete it entirely. Your health and mana slowly recover over time…….slowly. It was so bad that I would whittle down my character's health and mana, find a safe spot, and go have a cigarette while it recharged. When I came back, my character was ready to go for another few minutes before having to wait again. You can use mana potions and health potions, but they are rare at first and you're better off hocking them for money, since money is scarce as well.

When you level up, you get to distribute a skill point and you get to up some stat points every 4 levels. Yes, you only get stat points every 4 levels, making it seem like leveling is worthless. Leveling also takes a long time. There is also a serious lack of elasticity in your stat point upgrades to their “supposed” in game effects.

The main problem I had with this is that I always felt like my character was lacking in some way. When I started, my mana regeneration and mana pool were a joke. I put some points into fixing this, but by that time, my character had acquired some heavier armor and my carrying capacity was a constant issue. I had to recall to town every 5 minutes to un-load my loot. It's around this time that I got fed up with the game and stopped playing.

Now we come to my favorite part of the game, the incredibly awful enemy AI. Dark Alliance has quite possibly the worst enemy AI I have ever seen in a game. You will begin to notice it when you're being chased by an enemy and you run through a door, yet it will take the enemy 2-3 tries to get through the door to continue pursuing you. Then there are the times when you are getting chased and for some bizarre reason, the enemy makes a sharp turn for no reason and will run straight into a wall and stop. Then there is the invisible wall which enemies often hit and just flat out stop. Then you will fire a spell at them and it will wake them up and they will start coming after you again. Seriously though, the enemy AI is pathetic in this game. More than likely the worst I have ever seen.

All things considered, the gameplay is a real drag on Dark Alliance. Some of the surrounding aspects of the game are decent, but these issues cannot be ignored while playing.

Longevity and Re-playability 4/10

Dark Alliance offers a pathetic 10 hour quest which you may be able to stomach or not. With so many other games out there, it's really tough to recommend this game. There are some extra modes and a new character which can be unlocked after beating the game, but why would you want to sit through this game again. Snowblind makes a valiant effort here, and some people may be able to look past these issues and enjoy it, but I was only able to achieve solace with Dark Alliance by turning it off and playing something else.

My review score 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/19/08

Game Release: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (Platinum Hits) (US, 2004)