I think Icewind Dale surprassed Baldur's Gate in the media department, the graphics were even better, and I still think its music was among the best ever in a video game. It's too bad the storyline was so stale.
I have to say BG, BG2 and IWD are some of the FEW games I left the Music on and audible while I played.
Umm??? You lost me @Bjjorick, we were talking about the look......it is beautiful, and it doesn't feel empty to me...so umm what are you talking about with the int/wis?
@immagikman sorry, guess i missed a few parts, skyrim was a beautiful game, but the people were lifeless and dull, the enviroment seemed like a copy paste in alot of places, and while it was big and open with lots to explore, nothing ever felt epic.
kinda like if everything you ever see is a beautiful and awe inspiring, it gets mundane. so the absolutely beautiful woman without a thought in her head isn't balanced, she's pretty, and she's always pretty, but that's all she's got going for her.
Edit: sorry i think faster then i type/talk/write, so i usually leave out large parts as i'm just not able to keep up.
@immagikman sorry, guess i missed a few parts, skyrim was a beautiful game, but the people were lifeless and dull, the enviroment seemed like a copy paste in alot of places, and while it was big and open with lots to explore, nothing ever felt epic.
kinda like if everything you ever see is a beautiful and awe inspiring, it gets mundane. so the absolutely beautiful woman without a thought in her head isn't balanced, she's pretty, and she's always pretty, but that's all she's got going for her.
Ahh I can see where you are coming from with that. Some parts and some characters were better writtent han others, it feels like different writers were responsible for different parts so you get an uneven feel. AND there are tons of people to talk to yet....90% have nothing at all interesting to say.
Well, get back to us in 10 years. For now we have the infinity engine with hand drawn scenery!
Did you even read what I wrote? Baldur's Gate games are NOT hand drawn (aside from the interface, portraits and inventory). They were created using 3D modeling software, by rendering 3D scenes into 2D images. It is okay to prefer hand-drawn art, but this is not the place. If you like the look of Baldur's Gate, you also like 3D art to an extent.
No, pretty much all of them are cold and soulless. I can't think of a single one that actually competes, artistically, with a finely done pre-rendered game like Baldur's Gate. Even modern games like Skyrim and Dark Soul's environments look like sterilized movie sets compared to the locales in Baldur's Gate.
"Soulless" is not a valid criticism. Games have no souls. Some people even argue that souls do not exist at all. Don't you like the textures? Is the lighting off? Don't the models have enough polygons? Do they have bad animations? Is it that you prefer a more fantasy-focused art-direction, instead of trying to recreate reality, or is it not realistic enough? Now that would make sense.
Out of genuine curiosity, how would you rate Starcraft 2 / Diablo 3? Graphics wise of course, it is quite obvious that BG has more story, content and depth.
Did you even read what I wrote? Baldur's Gate games are NOT hand drawn (aside from the interface, portraits and inventory). They were created using 3D modeling software, by rendering 3D scenes into 2D images. It is okay to prefer hand-drawn art, but this is not the place. If you like the look of Baldur's Gate, you also like 3D art to an extent.
They most certainly were hand-drawn. You think the scenery in Baldur's Gate was autonomously created by some 3D renderer using copy/paste geometric models ala Neverwinter Nights? BS, a real human being drew those images, even if they were "drawn" in 3D software.
"Soulless" is not a valid criticism. Games have no souls. Some people even argue that souls do not exist at all. Don't you like the textures? Is the lighting off? Don't the models have enough polygons? Do they have bad animations? Is it that you prefer a more fantasy-focused art-direction, instead of trying to recreate reality, or is it not realistic enough? Now that would make sense.
If we're talking Skyrim, Diablo 3, or Starcraft 2, the textures sucked, the lighting was horrible, and the models most certainly did not have enough polygons. The entire world of Skyrim is like some copy/pasted nightmare. Almost every inn is identical, dungeon assets were reused over and over again, models are stiff and phony looking. So, yeah, soulless is a pretty good term to describe the game. It's like I know I "can" explore the next dungeon, village or mountain, but why should I? I know what I'll see there is pretty much what I've seen already.
Compare that to Baldur's Gate. EVERY region, town, dungeon, etc, is 100% unique. I'll never see the same wall template, puzzle template, bookshelf, table, chair, candle, rock, or inn template copied over and over again. It's all visceral, full of realism, and unique.
They call it Computer Generated Imagery for a reason. It's generated by a soulless machine that's great at running math equations through geometric shapes in 3D space and it's great at repetitions and calculations, but it can never replace the artistic quality of a human being. That's why I don't think that 3D rendered models will ever fully out-do the artistry of hand-drawn environments in games unless we get some kind of AI that thinks and feels like a human. True art is lost on machines.
There is currently a huge limit on creativity with what you can do with a point-and-click modeling engine compared to what you can do with a pencil or stylus. Compare the random nuance of a rough, water stained surface, broken/warped corners of a aged desk created by a human with a pencil to a computer model with vertices of height, width, and depth. The temptation to reuse assets over and over in a modeling simulator is become the norm in modern games. Objects lose their artistic charm.
Just out of curiosity, what are people's thoughts of Final Fantasy VII? Some locations seemed completely 2D, with hand-drawn backgrounds, while others looked 3D with a moving camera, but it seems like most of the locations were hand drawn. For example, sometimes you might move to one part of the screen, and the camera changes, which could either be due to a 3D environ, or two seemlessly connected 2D environs.
They most certainly were hand-drawn. You think the scenery in Baldur's Gate was autonomously created by some 3D renderer using copy/paste geometric models ala Neverwinter Nights? BS, a real human being drew those images, even if they were "drawn" in 3D software.
"3D Environment Artist Overhaul Games is looking for a great artist to work on new content for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. The right artist will be passionate, have excellent communication skills, strong in 3D modeling, lighting and materialing, an understanding of composition, color and a good base in environmental modeling.
All submissions must contain a render of the provided area concept, done to match the style and theme of the supplied Baldur's Gate imagery. The render should be a 5120x3840 PNG file, and the source file should be in 3D Studio Max."
The first image is hand-drawn art. The second image is computer generated. Of course, all the models were hand-placed by an artist, but this is the case for pretty much every real-time 3D game as well.
They most certainly were hand-drawn. You think the scenery in Baldur's Gate was autonomously created by some 3D renderer using copy/paste geometric models ala Neverwinter Nights? BS, a real human being drew those images, even if they were "drawn" in 3D software.
You may not like to hear this, but BG is pretty much entirely 3D (except for some post-processing) rendered to isometric 2D.
The difference is that baldur's gate didn't have to be rendered real-time. This had several advantages: - "Unlimited" amount of detail. Every house in BG is filled with furniture. PC's back when NWN was released couldn't handle this amount of 3D geometry yet in real time, especially because you can see much further in 3D than in 2D. - True physical lighting. For a long time, 3D games couldn't render many lights (or rather: they rendered 1 "omni" light and that's it), whereas every torch in BG casts its own shadows. This also allowed for reflections on polished ground & water, all making the 2D graphics look real.
It's only very recently that 3D games started having complex real-time lighting & reflections.
Another thing that is very apparent is the "instancing" problem many 3D games have: many 3D games recycle a lot of their models. In BG, most models are unique. Most buildings are unique. For example: in the Docks district in Atkhatla, there's only one building that is used twice. All other buildings are unique. The only place that instancing is really visible in baldur's gate is in interiors, where you'll often find the same furniture.
We're finally reaching the point where graphics hardware is getting powerful enough to render a large amount of detail in real-time. You should see the crysis 3 tech trailer.
Just out of curiosity, what are people's thoughts of Final Fantasy VII? Some locations seemed completely 2D, with hand-drawn backgrounds, while others looked 3D with a moving camera, but it seems like most of the locations were hand drawn. For example, sometimes you might move to one part of the screen, and the camera changes, which could either be due to a 3D environ, or two seemlessly connected 2D environs.
Mixing 2D/3D or real-time/pre-rendered can certainly combine the best of two worlds.
For example, The Temple of Elemental Evil (and isometric RPG like BG) used pre-rendered backgrounds like BG, but real-time 3D models for characters, monsters, trees, water and other things with a high degree of movement.
On the other side, Diablo 3 had quite some actual hand-painted backgrounds to provide more detail at a distance.
Personally, I hope Baldur's Gate 3 takes the Temple of Elemental Evil approach.
If I could run Bg in two different windows I could show that MANY pieces were "re-used" And I believe Trent reported that the Graphics were not hand drawn but pre-rendered. Maybe I see beauty where others do not, but I think Skyrim looks great. BG looked great for the time but to me it looks dated in the eye candy department.
Again, you claim that the art (3D or not) was not "hand-drawn". That is plain false. They were drawn with a real artist, using real artistic skill likely using a digital pen for much of the art. A computer algorithm, alone, could not do much of the art we see in Baldur's Gate, a lot of it was done by a real *shock* person!
It is very common for modern games to duplicate assets over and over again, letting the computer do the work to fill in empty space. This was, in most cases, not done in Baldur's Gate. Most was created by hand. That's the difference, and point, I'm trying to make.
Look at Oblivion. Great example of fail. Dungeons are comprised heavily of chunks that are rearranged in different formations using, in many cases, an algorithm. Same with the rocks, trees (speedtree), etc. Much was done by the computer, not human hands.
I always prefer 2d pre-drawn art over 3d any day. Its the same for pointy clicky's (ie: Lucasarts/Sierra). When Monkey Island™ 4 came out I dyed my hair black and started listening to Fallout Boy
If I could run Bg in two different windows I could show that MANY pieces were "re-used" And I believe Trent reported that the Graphics were not hand drawn but pre-rendered.
I'd like to see that. Then I'd like to compare that to the number of times assets were reused in a game like Skyrim. The difference, I think, would be staggering.
But in that case *all* art is hand-drawn. Literally ALL art in NWN was made by a real artist too. So do you consider NWN to be entirely hand-drawn too?
If I could run Bg in two different windows I could show that MANY pieces were "re-used" And I believe Trent reported that the Graphics were not hand drawn but pre-rendered.
I'd like to see that. Then I'd like to compare that to the number of times assets were reused in a game like Skyrim. The difference, I think, would be staggering.
Well now thats a bit unfair, Skyrim has a HUGE number of locations compared to BG.
But in that case *all* art is hand-drawn. Literally ALL art in NWN was made by a real artist too. So do you consider NWN to be entirely hand-drawn too?
That's a ridiculous comparison. Putting blocks on top of each other in a modeling editor, and throwing a crappy green texture on top of it and calling it a goblin is not in the same league of the art done in BG. The latter was largely done with a stylus while the former was done with a mouse and keyboard. Big difference there.
Again, compare the number of times art is re-used in BG with the number of times it's reused in a game like NWN, Oblivion, or Skyrim. You can't tell me that you notice the repetition nearly as much in a game like BG as you do in a game like Skyrim.
@MississippiGhost@AlkaluropsAgain, you claim that the art (3D or not) was not "hand-drawn". That is plain false. They were drawn with a real artist, using real artistic skill likely using a digital pen for much of the art. A computer algorithm, alone, could not do much of the art we see in Baldur's Gate, a lot of it was done by a real *shock* person!
And you think real-time 3D games like Skyrim are not produced in this manner? Do you think a programmer writes some code and after he compiles it there are graphics? In what world do you live?!
No, the models for Skyrim and Baldur's Gate and designed in the same type of 3D modeling software. Texture artists paint the textures. 3D modellers create models and apply said textures. The difference is:
* For Skyrim these textures and models are exported and rendered in real-time by the game, creating 30+ images per second to simulate a real-time 3D environment. * For BG the the textures and models are rendered by the 3D modeling software itself. It only needs to create 1 image in the time window of minutes or hours, hence the source scene can contain alot more detail.
The fact that there is a lot of repetition in real-time 3D games does NOT mean they are computer generated on the fly. The environment is hand-placed like for BG, just with less detail. Every cave, every tree, every wine-bottle is hand-placed in Skyrim.
The exception to this are vector-based graphics, and, to an extent, procedurally generated graphics, where only the textures are created by an artist, but the landscape is generated by a computer algorithm on the fly. Skyrim or any other game you have quoted are not examples of this.
The fact that there is a lot of repetition in real-time 3D games does NOT mean they are computer generated on the fly. The environment is hand-placed like for BG, just with less detail. Every cave, every tree, every wine-bottle is hand-placed in Skyrim.
The exception to this are vector-based graphics, and, to an extent, procedurally generated graphics, where only the textures are created by an artist, but the landscape is generated by a computer algorithm on the fly. Skyrim or any other game you have quoted are not examples of this.
#1, that's not true. There are systems in Skyrim that were generated by the computer - trees, clouds, river flows, surface flora on the ground, etc. My brother works for Disney Animation Studios and uses loads of algorithms to generate much of the random flora in movies like "Tangled", "Wreck-it Ralph", and the upcoming "Frozen". These autonomous rendering principles are widely known and used in modern video games as well, no matter what BS the PR department sold you at Bethesda or EA or Bioware.
#2 - You think that every inn in Skyrim was individually hand crafted? No sir, they were created once, then plopped down repeatedly all over the world ad nauseum. The world is soulless because, unlike BG, the assets were copy/pasted too many times. Guess how they were copied and placed? Yes, with mouse/keyboard using a computer over and over and over again. In Baldur's Gate, you'll find this process far less manufactured and far more "hand-crafted" or "hand-drawn".
I see here an intractable problem...people dead set in their views and refusing to admit that in the end, like beauty, art is in they eye of the beholder.
That's a ridiculous comparison. Putting blocks on top of each other in a modeling editor, and throwing a crappy green texture on top of it and calling it a goblin is not in the same league of the art done in BG. The latter was largely done with a stylus while the former was done with a mouse and keyboard. Big difference there.
The ridiculous comparison comes from you. Do you know why they used that crappy green texture in the first place? Because PC's couldn't run high-res textures in real time yet.
If the 3D art assets of Baldur's gate weren't lost, I could assure you that you could import BG into - for example - the source engine and walk through the city of BG in 3D. So my question to you: given the EXACT SAME 3D models used in Baldur's Gate, would it look crappy if they were imported into a state-of-the-art 3D engine?
Again, compare the number of times art is re-used in BG with the number of times it's reused in a game like NWN, Oblivion, or Skyrim. You can't tell me that you notice the repetition nearly as much in a game like BG as you do in a game like Skyrim.
All right then, let's have a look at another area. http://postimage.org/image/5831xppjr/full In my opinion, spellhold is one of the prettiest areas of BG2. But seriously, they're instancing like crazy here. Oh, and I can guarantee you: when it comes to furniture, BG does just as much instancing as any 3D game. Go take a look at a couple of houses in BG. You'll notice the same beds, the same armoires popping up *all* the time. Hell, baldur's gate literally copies entire houses. That's something I haven't even seen in skyrim.
@Alkalurops No fair bringing in niggling details like "facts" and "examples" sheesh. Oh you missed one of the pointy spires by the way it is obviously the same as the rest but the view is obstructed by the roof.
The ridiculous comparison comes from you. Do you know why they used that crappy green texture in the first place? Because PC's couldn't run high-res textures in real time yet.
Uh, YOU compared BG to NWN, not me. So don't put it on me when you made the poor comparison to begin with. It doesn't matter if PCs hadn't caught up, the result SUCKED. Which brings me back to my point, BG's art design is STILL miles ahead of modern rendering practices.
If the 3D art assets of Baldur's gate weren't lost, I could assure you that you could import BG into - for example - the source engine and walk through the city of BG in 3D. So my question to you: given the EXACT SAME 3D models used in Baldur's Gate, would it look crappy if they were imported into a state-of-the-art 3D engine?
I really have no idea, all I know is that the art in BG blows anything out of the water even by today's standards in the 2D isometric format it was present in. Why are you asking me this question?
Oh, and I can guarantee you: when it comes to furniture, BG does just as much instancing as any 3D game. Go take a look at a couple of houses in BG. You'll notice the same beds, the same armoires popping up *all* the time. Hell, baldur's gate literally copies entire houses. That's something I haven't even seen in skyrim.
Really? I haven't seen it. Even if what you say is true, Skyrim's art still looks manufactured, repetitive crap compared to Baldur's Gate. I seriously cannot play another minute of Skyrim because so much of it is NOT hand-drawn like BG is. It's all pre-rendered, and placed by algorithms.
Really? I haven't seen it. Even if what you say is true, Skyrim's art still looks manufactured, repetitive crap compared to Baldur's Gate. I seriously cannot play another minute of Skyrim because so much of it is NOT hand-drawn like BG is. It's all pre-rendered, and placed by algorithms.
Dude, that is why it is called an "opinion" MOST people disagree but because art is subjective as is beauty you are not "Right"....nor are you "Wrong" you just have an....Opinion. Altho it is a fact and proven now that you were wrong about BG not re-using set pieces of art.
Dude, that is why it is called an "opinion" MOST people disagree but because art is subjective as is beauty you are not "Right"....nor are you "Wrong" you just have an....Opinion. Altho it is a fact and proven now that you were wrong about BG not re-using set pieces of art.
I never claimed BG never re-used art. I claimed that it wasn't as frequent as what is used in modern games. I've yet to see evidence to the contrary. Most people will tell you that after a while everything in the world begins to feel copied. You hear that far less frequently in IE games like BG. There's a good reason for that: it's true!
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it probably is one. People here trying to argue that what everyone sees before them doesn't exist. It does!
Someone please look up the number of "resources" in BG and then compare it to the number of resources in Skyrim or any other modern RPG Like Fallout ....you are talking "kilo bytes" versus Gigabytes....Modern games reuse things more because the area involved is massively larger and even in the real world theres a lot of reuse...mountains all start to look the same after you see a few million of them, streams look similar, trees? Aspen is an aspen is an aspen. Re-use is inevitable and I believe no more prominent now than ever if you scale the areas to be comparable.
Here's another example of what I'm talking about: Texture and bump map generation.
Take a look at a dungeon, cave, or castle wall in Baldur's Gate. You see an amazing amount of detail over its surface, each brick or piece of stone practically has its own story to tell, completely assymetric from each other. An artist hand-drew that entire piece of texture art.
Now compare it to a texture or bump map in a more modern game like Oblivion or Skyrim. You see a brick and the entire wall is covered in the exact same brick! Guess what, a "computer" did this! - repeated the same brick over and over again into a jpg, gif, or png file.
Is there some repetition in Baldur's Gate? Sure. To the degree as it is there is repetition in a modern game? No way.
Now you can argue all day long until your blue in the face that this was done because of limitations for rendering 3D art computing power. That may be true, but it also means that FAR MORE art was hand-drawn, and not computer generated in the Infinity Engine games and their ilk. That, by default, means the art is of a higher quality. Period.
Comments
kinda like if everything you ever see is a beautiful and awe inspiring, it gets mundane. so the absolutely beautiful woman without a thought in her head isn't balanced, she's pretty, and she's always pretty, but that's all she's got going for her.
Edit: sorry i think faster then i type/talk/write, so i usually leave out large parts as i'm just not able to keep up.
Out of genuine curiosity, how would you rate Starcraft 2 / Diablo 3? Graphics wise of course, it is quite obvious that BG has more story, content and depth.
Compare that to Baldur's Gate. EVERY region, town, dungeon, etc, is 100% unique. I'll never see the same wall template, puzzle template, bookshelf, table, chair, candle, rock, or inn template copied over and over again. It's all visceral, full of realism, and unique.
There is currently a huge limit on creativity with what you can do with a point-and-click modeling engine compared to what you can do with a pencil or stylus. Compare the random nuance of a rough, water stained surface, broken/warped corners of a aged desk created by a human with a pencil to a computer model with vertices of height, width, and depth. The temptation to reuse assets over and over in a modeling simulator is become the norm in modern games. Objects lose their artistic charm.
"3D Environment Artist
Overhaul Games is looking for a great artist to work on new content for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. The right artist will be passionate, have excellent communication skills, strong in 3D modeling, lighting and materialing, an understanding of composition, color and a good base in environmental modeling.
All submissions must contain a render of the provided area concept, done to match the style and theme of the supplied Baldur's Gate imagery. The render should be a 5120x3840 PNG file, and the source file should be in 3D Studio Max."
The first image is hand-drawn art. The second image is computer generated. Of course, all the models were hand-placed by an artist, but this is the case for pretty much every real-time 3D game as well.
Thank you for the civil discussion.
The difference is that baldur's gate didn't have to be rendered real-time. This had several advantages:
- "Unlimited" amount of detail. Every house in BG is filled with furniture. PC's back when NWN was released couldn't handle this amount of 3D geometry yet in real time, especially because you can see much further in 3D than in 2D.
- True physical lighting. For a long time, 3D games couldn't render many lights (or rather: they rendered 1 "omni" light and that's it), whereas every torch in BG casts its own shadows. This also allowed for reflections on polished ground & water, all making the 2D graphics look real.
It's only very recently that 3D games started having complex real-time lighting & reflections.
Another thing that is very apparent is the "instancing" problem many 3D games have: many 3D games recycle a lot of their models. In BG, most models are unique. Most buildings are unique. For example: in the Docks district in Atkhatla, there's only one building that is used twice. All other buildings are unique.
The only place that instancing is really visible in baldur's gate is in interiors, where you'll often find the same furniture.
We're finally reaching the point where graphics hardware is getting powerful enough to render a large amount of detail in real-time. You should see the crysis 3 tech trailer.
For example, The Temple of Elemental Evil (and isometric RPG like BG) used pre-rendered backgrounds like BG, but real-time 3D models for characters, monsters, trees, water and other things with a high degree of movement.
On the other side, Diablo 3 had quite some actual hand-painted backgrounds to provide more detail at a distance.
Personally, I hope Baldur's Gate 3 takes the Temple of Elemental Evil approach.
Again, you claim that the art (3D or not) was not "hand-drawn". That is plain false. They were drawn with a real artist, using real artistic skill likely using a digital pen for much of the art. A computer algorithm, alone, could not do much of the art we see in Baldur's Gate, a lot of it was done by a real *shock* person!
It is very common for modern games to duplicate assets over and over again, letting the computer do the work to fill in empty space. This was, in most cases, not done in Baldur's Gate. Most was created by hand. That's the difference, and point, I'm trying to make.
Look at Oblivion. Great example of fail. Dungeons are comprised heavily of chunks that are rearranged in different formations using, in many cases, an algorithm. Same with the rocks, trees (speedtree), etc. Much was done by the computer, not human hands.
By the way: here's an example of how 3D art in BG2 was duplicated:
http://postimage.org/image/3zaftv2gf/full
http://postimage.org/image/8dj5linbx/full
I'm pretty sure that house appears in several other places too.
No, the models for Skyrim and Baldur's Gate and designed in the same type of 3D modeling software. Texture artists paint the textures. 3D modellers create models and apply said textures. The difference is:
* For Skyrim these textures and models are exported and rendered in real-time by the game, creating 30+ images per second to simulate a real-time 3D environment.
* For BG the the textures and models are rendered by the 3D modeling software itself. It only needs to create 1 image in the time window of minutes or hours, hence the source scene can contain alot more detail.
The fact that there is a lot of repetition in real-time 3D games does NOT mean they are computer generated on the fly. The environment is hand-placed like for BG, just with less detail. Every cave, every tree, every wine-bottle is hand-placed in Skyrim.
The exception to this are vector-based graphics, and, to an extent, procedurally generated graphics, where only the textures are created by an artist, but the landscape is generated by a computer algorithm on the fly. Skyrim or any other game you have quoted are not examples of this.
#2 - You think that every inn in Skyrim was individually hand crafted? No sir, they were created once, then plopped down repeatedly all over the world ad nauseum. The world is soulless because, unlike BG, the assets were copy/pasted too many times. Guess how they were copied and placed? Yes, with mouse/keyboard using a computer over and over and over again. In Baldur's Gate, you'll find this process far less manufactured and far more "hand-crafted" or "hand-drawn".
If the 3D art assets of Baldur's gate weren't lost, I could assure you that you could import BG into - for example - the source engine and walk through the city of BG in 3D.
So my question to you: given the EXACT SAME 3D models used in Baldur's Gate, would it look crappy if they were imported into a state-of-the-art 3D engine? All right then, let's have a look at another area.
http://postimage.org/image/5831xppjr/full
In my opinion, spellhold is one of the prettiest areas of BG2. But seriously, they're instancing like crazy here.
Oh, and I can guarantee you: when it comes to furniture, BG does just as much instancing as any 3D game. Go take a look at a couple of houses in BG. You'll notice the same beds, the same armoires popping up *all* the time.
Hell, baldur's gate literally copies entire houses. That's something I haven't even seen in skyrim.
No fair bringing in niggling details like "facts" and "examples" sheesh.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it probably is one. People here trying to argue that what everyone sees before them doesn't exist. It does!
Take a look at a dungeon, cave, or castle wall in Baldur's Gate. You see an amazing amount of detail over its surface, each brick or piece of stone practically has its own story to tell, completely assymetric from each other. An artist hand-drew that entire piece of texture art.
Now compare it to a texture or bump map in a more modern game like Oblivion or Skyrim. You see a brick and the entire wall is covered in the exact same brick! Guess what, a "computer" did this! - repeated the same brick over and over again into a jpg, gif, or png file.
Is there some repetition in Baldur's Gate? Sure. To the degree as it is there is repetition in a modern game? No way.
Now you can argue all day long until your blue in the face that this was done because of limitations for rendering 3D art computing power. That may be true, but it also means that FAR MORE art was hand-drawn, and not computer generated in the Infinity Engine games and their ilk. That, by default, means the art is of a higher quality. Period.