So, what do you say? Is Beamdog in?
Arunsun
Member Posts: 1,592
BG2EE addicts should get the reference in the title.
I know the sales will be what determines, for the most part, whether Beamdog will be able to make a brand new game of their own, but I wanted to create that poll to collect your thoughts on how Beamdog fared with SoD.
If you can, please explain your vote with a short review of what's good and what's not so good.
Of course, do not forget that not everyone has explored every aspect of the game so please keep any spoilerish content under spoiler tags.
As always, though I have hardly ever been disappointed by the great community of these forums, keep any debate calm and polite.
Alright, I should open the thread with my own opinion.
This game is a plain success.
Graphically speaking, it is really nice and still very coherent with the original games. I really love the new UI. The original one really was too old and not quite practical enough.
Gameplay-wise, well, it is the game we all love, with 2.0 improvements, and one thing that Beamdog achieved which really is awesome is something they already implemented in EE: massive fights with like 25+characters on screen. I know it was not possible to achieve back then simply because computers were not powerful enough, but this really is refreshing though it might look like a big mess at first.
Concerning the scenario, it is really decent. I believe Beamdog passed this test.
Sidequests. I like how early sidequests actually affect the later stages of the game. This really is awesome. Besides that, I really think the optional content is rather good.
Now as to the point I, and I am sure I was not alone, feared most: the writing.
Beamdog's EE content writing was, not always good, and sometimes quite terrible. Yes, "bad cop" journal entry I am looking at you. You too Hexxat.
Well, once again, I was not disappointed. We are not quite yet to the level Baldur's Gate was, but we sure are much closer to it than what Beamdog used to give us.
Overall, I'd say this release is close to flawless, and this game is both a fitting tribute and a fitting conclusion to the best RPG ever. Beamdog really made it clear that they can produce very good quality games, and I certainly trust them to give us that good games in the future.
I know the sales will be what determines, for the most part, whether Beamdog will be able to make a brand new game of their own, but I wanted to create that poll to collect your thoughts on how Beamdog fared with SoD.
If you can, please explain your vote with a short review of what's good and what's not so good.
Of course, do not forget that not everyone has explored every aspect of the game so please keep any spoilerish content under spoiler tags.
As always, though I have hardly ever been disappointed by the great community of these forums, keep any debate calm and polite.
Alright, I should open the thread with my own opinion.
This game is a plain success.
Graphically speaking, it is really nice and still very coherent with the original games. I really love the new UI. The original one really was too old and not quite practical enough.
Gameplay-wise, well, it is the game we all love, with 2.0 improvements, and one thing that Beamdog achieved which really is awesome is something they already implemented in EE: massive fights with like 25+characters on screen. I know it was not possible to achieve back then simply because computers were not powerful enough, but this really is refreshing though it might look like a big mess at first.
Concerning the scenario, it is really decent. I believe Beamdog passed this test.
Sidequests. I like how early sidequests actually affect the later stages of the game. This really is awesome. Besides that, I really think the optional content is rather good.
Now as to the point I, and I am sure I was not alone, feared most: the writing.
Beamdog's EE content writing was, not always good, and sometimes quite terrible. Yes, "bad cop" journal entry I am looking at you. You too Hexxat.
Well, once again, I was not disappointed. We are not quite yet to the level Baldur's Gate was, but we sure are much closer to it than what Beamdog used to give us.
Overall, I'd say this release is close to flawless, and this game is both a fitting tribute and a fitting conclusion to the best RPG ever. Beamdog really made it clear that they can produce very good quality games, and I certainly trust them to give us that good games in the future.
- So, what do you say? Is Beamdog in?246 votes
- Awesome, just as good as the original BG44.31%
- Good, though it might have been even better30.49%
- Decent game, neither terrible nor terrific6.91%
- A disappointment. Beamdog could've done a lot better14.63%
- Baldur's Gate books tier (Which is really bad for those lucky enough not to have read them)3.66%
7
Comments
9.5/10 would buy again.
- Bad case of the railroads. I've always held the BG series in very high standards because it was very open, very free, I got to play and design my characters and could decide a lot of what I was going against, and when I wanted to further the story. I doubt I'll ever play the SoD chapter again for this reason alone, just like I've never replayed the Dragon Age games despite finding themto be good games in all aspects.
- Boring fights. Way too much emphasis on big fights, which just turned into fireball spamming with little to no challenge. The two large exceptions to this was the green dragon and the final boss fight. More of those, please.
- Buggy. Still havn't been able to run LoB mode because it returns to "insane" all the time. The fact that it was reported long before the game was released and still hasn't been fixed isn't helping.
Now, despite there being only one + and three -, I still thoroughly enjoyed the game. I expected quite a bit, and was yet pleasantly surprised. However, I still consider ToTSC and ToB to be better expansions, and content like Durlag's Tower and Helm's Keep to be better additions to the game. Challenging, top tier dungeons that are available whenever the player chooses. One of my pet peeves with "modern RPGs" are how linear they are, and how little replayability it leaves us with. I want to tell my story, with my characters and my decisions, not walk through a linear path and look at the pretty scenery.
So to sum it up, worth the money, I appreciated it, but I hope the next expansion is more actually expanding the game as opposed to adding an optional, linear story somewhere in it.
There were a lot of nice touches, but my favorite part is that the ending personalizes the conflict in BG2 in a way simply starting BG2 to find yourself imprisoned couldn't. If there are additions made to BG2 in the future, I hope finding that dagger is one of them.
Moreover, the expansion leaves me far more interested in what Beamdog could do in a BG3 than before.
It seems it has everything I wished for from a BG game, and many things come from a new perspective:
A non-party NPC telling about the in-game areas
AI is very challenging on the Insane
Items with new abilities, previosly unseen
Interesting puzzles
New lines and dialogues, very well written
Now, I would fully support Beamdog creating a BGNext game.
I've done much more of the story and still think it's amazing though so you've got good things coming I think.
Its a shame that the romances were not longer though. I wonder if there is any chance of a future patch to expand them a bit...or maybe a patch to expand BG2 EE with some BSoD romances like Corwin's continuing somehow.
Or both!!
Also its a bit of a shame that the last few chapters looked a bit short and sorta as if they rushed, but I really enjoyed them nevertheless so its not that big of a deal.
I think specifically for @bengoshi the game just gets better - the items, the monsters, the landscapes, the dialogues. The first dungeon sets a bar, that gets continuously raised.
Cry-bullies aside I think BD should be extremely proud of their game. And I will support their future works.
The best part about the game is by far the VO work. Safana is great, Corwyn is great, Glint is a Gnome, and we all know I am pro-gnome! And something tickles me surely whenever Skie is on screen and says "Whatever you do, don't tell Daddy!".
However, the two things Beamdog really has to work on are the issues without thze game: Marketing and Sales&Distribution. Announcing a game and then hide the release date until almost the very least and then releasing a game with install options of which not a single one worked for me like it should with crashes of the installers and the game itself, and quite some bugs. If it were just my own problem I might not bother anyone, but the forum shows me that it isn't. I'm a Gothic veteran of the first hour, though, and compared to the early releases of that game SoD was basically bug free
i'm just surprised how much backlash they receive.
even to an anti-sjw, like me it is irrational.
Yes, it does have bugs, yes there is one character in particular that a lot of people will have problems with, for me it's mainly because it wasn't approached in the right way. But that being said, it doesn't take much away from whats a terrific title so far and a pretty good story.
As a mage I do have issues with some of the fights, mainly because, as mentioned, fireballs end them before they begin. Never the less, it will have patches coming to fix the bugs so they are a moot point for me, as far as the writing goes, a re-write for that character could go a fair way.
Overall, pretty damn impressed.
Please, bring on Baldur's Gate III, but run a full beta!! :P Many of these issues could have been discovered early. You have on this board, at your disposal, some of the finest minds in the BG community and some pretty damn keen up and comers! Use them!
( Sign me up in advance! )
I do like the UI though, and whoever changed the code so that when I double click a gem I have multiples of in the gem bag so that it automatically gives the max count deserves a round of applause.
It would've been on par with other games, if only they didn't force upon us these issues about social justice...
And I'm not talking about transgender characters or one controversial line from Minsc.
I support the notion that female characters should have bigger roles in games. Not only as supporting characters, but as ones that carry the story. But that doesn't mean you have to portray most of the male characters as cowards, drunkards, villains and traitors.
Overall the game has been great to play. If they were to make a new expansion to BG2EE, a BG3 or an unrelated game, I would likely be lining up to buy it.
But from what i have seen so far the game is amazing, so yes in my opinion beamdog is in!