I'm going for BG1:EE, because it is arguably the title that profits the most from the various EE improvements and options when it comes to making it accessible to players new to the Infinity Engine games (or those who are returning to the games, but have never gone deep when it comes to the D&D ruleset). With the EE, there's no need anymore to install mods for improved resolutions or BG2 content such as kits and spells, and I've heard many people talking about the fact that they had heard a lot about Baldur's Gate but never played it, eventually picked up the EE and liked it a lot but would've never been able to get through it without the Story Mode option (which may sound weird to veterans of the game, but there is such a huge difference between BG1 and modern RPGs that getting into BG1 seems to be very difficult to players who are only used to modern RPGs).
BG2 was, arguably, less in need of the EE options to make it accessible, and the other enhanced games simply aren't as popular as the BG series. NWN has a lot of fans, but it doesn't have the same legendary reputation as the BG games, such as topping many "best cRPG of all time" lists etc. - I think many people have been picking up the BG games based on this reputation alone.
I think this is what you're looking for by opening this poll. Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition probably has the best reputation of the Beamdog remasters.
- Drama-free release - Relatively bug-free - Brings over kits and the quality-of-life features from the Baldur's Gate EEs - Actually stable multiplayer (at least in v1.4, as I played it with a friend from start to finish with very few crashes/disconnects compared to BG1EE, SoD, and BG2EE, which were all exercise in frustration).
My personal favorite is moderately-heavily-modded BG2EE. But BG1EE is special to me because it was the first EE and actually got me to like BG1. I preferred to just start the series at BG2 instead of playing through BG1TuTu because I thought BG1 was boring.
I voted BG2 because it is right in the center of the BG saga which is my main interest. If we are talking about original content though it would go to SOD, being that it is the only game built from the ground up by Beamdog.
IWD:EE was pretty much the most flawless release Beamdog has ever managed to relase to date.
no playthrough-killing bugs, even in its first release
including the direly needed half-orc race, as well as the Barbarian and Shaman classes to the Frozen North (clearly all features which should have been present from the start since 2000)
no overly intrusive custom NPC's coming along for a free ride
and having arguable the best looking GUI of them all
A close second would probably be PS:T:EE due to the fact it stayes almost true to the original. (I still weep for the loss of the handy mouse wheel GUI feature. May it never be forgotten!)
The BG saga is more of a mixed bag. Some communities love it, some hate it, and a couple others are pretty much lukewarm to it. Personally, I see it as Beamdog's learning curve of what exactly customers want or do not want.
NwN:EE has potential along the road. But it's no secret that its main focus are mostly already established PW's and player bases. It needs to start to focus more on polishing its singleplayer campaings in order to really be of interest to new players. From what I saw in both English and German communities, NWN:EE is currently the least favourite Beamdog title of the bunch.
out of all the games that beamdog did ( except for planescape because i never played it ) BG 1 has to be my favourite
although i dont really like all the BG 2 influence that the EE has on BG 1 EE , beamdog made it so you can play BG 1 on modern PCs with no problems ( as in hardware wise ) and at least the SoD UI is sexy as hell holy crap, i actually love the SoD UI ( not a fan of SoD itself, but that UI mmm mmm )
sometimes i think to myself: maybe i will go back to the original BG just for the nostalgia lulz and try and reminisce of the good ol' days, but then, you realize something when you go back to vanilla bg1; its basically unplayable garbage compared to it's EE counterpart, while all the other titles in their vanilla version can still run relatively smooth these days ( although dont know about PS ) BG 1 really struggles hard
and the only way to "fix" that is to download a mountain of mods and this and that, and before you know it, you should just get the EE and be done with it
even to this day i play the BG series with no mods ( except for my personal "mods" of getting rid of all those extra game saves, holy jesus was that getting ridiculous, game saves for this, game saves for that, game saves for picking your noise, seriously, that should be in the options menu if you want all that save game diarrhea)
but now that the new patch is out, the only thing in my opinion that needs to be changed to make the series a perfect playing experience ( not including the bug where party members get stuck on one another ) is this double click to sell stacks crap
oh, my, flippin', overlord is that annoying as hell, i remember back in the good ol' days when you had a stack you wanted to sell, you pressed on it, and then press sold and it was sold, and then one day, this "enhancement" came on without warning, and its been frustrating ever since, 999999999 times out of 1000000000 when someone is going to select a stack in the sell window, they are going to sell it, notice that 1 out of a billion chance you might now want to? yeah, that means that when that time arrives, we will gladly double click the stack first before going to the sell window and not sell part of the stack if we dont want to, because seriously, i swear that out of my almost 900 hour play time on steam for BG 1, 20 of those hours are wasted just double clicking on stacks to sell them, and this is at 60 fps
so, with that being said, get rid of this "forced to double click on EVERY stack to sell the whole stack" load of jargon ( and fix the "party members getting stuck on top of each other bug" ) and i would say that the bg ee games are a pretty flawless playing experience
@sarevok57 I agree with you on the SOD GUI. When it first came out I was not real happy with some of the layout but I got used to it. Could it be better? Probably, but the look of it is great and feels more modern. I use the option in EET that allows you to use the SOD GUI for the entire trilogy. Good stuff.
When I voted, I voted what I was interested in but I thought I would mention that Baldur's Gate 2 is what I think the majority would vote for as well so it's all the same regardless of what the poll was actually asking.
BG2, because party interaction, side quests, story, character development, self respect, epicness, and giving relevance to bg1 (second best). Now that's not much relating to beamdog or EE, that was all there before, but bd made it all more accessible and consistent.
SoD ... Maybe it will get me some time in the future when I have the time to appreciate it ...
PsT and iwd are just monoliths for their own. I love them, but the BGs come as a duo that is not beatable for me.
I made the same mistake as others and voted my own favorite. A clear testament that I need to read better before I post.
I would have voted BG2 because I tend to see it getting a little more love than BG1 overall. I've always loved BG2 more than 1 back in the day, but the more I played in recent years, the more I've come to prefer BG1. The snowflakey story that starts to wind up during BG2 is everything I dislike in RPGs. In BG1 you're still mostly just an adventurer, which is the way I prefer it. But I know many others who doesn't so that why I think BG2 wins.
@ehuhal has some very valid points though. BG1EE made that game way, way more accessable to me as a casual player who try to avoid modding. BG2 was playable with less mods even before EEs (though I would never ever go back. Ever.).
The snowflakey story that starts to wind up during BG2 is everything I dislike in RPGs. In BG1 you're still mostly just an adventurer, which is the way I prefer it.
This! Exactly this! And that's the a huge selling point for IWD in my opinion.
I've always loved BG2 more than 1 back in the day, but the more I played in recent years, the more I've come to prefer BG1. The snowflakey story that starts to wind up during BG2 is everything I dislike in RPGs. In BG1 you're still mostly just an adventurer, which is the way I prefer it. But I know many others who doesn't so that why I think BG2 wins.
I can relate to that. When I was a teenager (eons ago) I preferred BG2. Then as an adult for years I couldn't decide which one I liked more BG1 or BG2. But finally in recent years I have come to like BG1 much more than BG2.
For exactly those reasons. In a way BG2 tries to be special in every possible way, while BG1 manages to tell a fascinating story with very basic and simple means only.
Also I have never liked Irenicus as a villain. A villain that is displayed to be so overpowered throughout the game that defeating him in the end doesn't really feel believable to me. Not to mention that we only get the chance to fight him is because he neglects to kill us off personally in Spellhold. That leaves a very cheap taste in my mouth.
At least Sarevok recognizes the danger we could pose to him. Hence he tries to kill us even at level 1. He simply fails. But Sarevok wants us dead. Irenicus simply can't be bothered.
to be fair, irenicus steals your soul in spell hold, and just assumes that you would die off without it, that is why he is surprised to see you at the elven city
ah, but remember, BG2 was made in what 1999? 2000? back then irenicus' plot was still relatively new idea back then, and plus EVERY villian has to have some sort of weakness, or else they would always win and must as well just turn off the game
also i think his arrogance is more suited to the fact that he thinks he is so powerful that it doesn't matter if you live or not, he could easily slay you at his leisure so he simply just doesnt care, also remember a lot of him was stripped away when he became irenicus, and as he even says all he lives for is revenge there is nothing beyond that
for back in the late 90s, early 2000s i think irenicus was a marvelous villain ( even by today's standards he is still one of my favourites ) and i think one of the main reasons why is that there is so much passion in irenicus' voice acting, david warner is an extraordinary voice actor, and he is such a perfect fit for irenicus, i just can't picture irenicus with someone else
I have had the sense, from reading the forums all these years, that people prefer the open-ended nature of BG1 EE, and that balance issues tend to arise in BG2 in the later game. There is nothing scientific about my hunch, however. Even now I'm remembering all the enthusiastic posts about Planescape and IWD. Now that NWN is out, there seems to be a lot of fans of that game, too.
I suppose if I have to choose a favourite it's BG1. Before the EEs arrived I never would have envisioned those words coming from my mouth. Pre-EE BG1 was very clunky next to BG2, and I was in a long retirement from the BG games when Tutu came out. In fact, I'd never even heard of Tutu until the EEs came out and I read about it on these forums. Before the EEs, I never imagined I'd be playing BG1 again. But now that the EEs are here, and I can play BG1 in a more polished state and with kits and an improved weapon proficiency system, I've come to prefer that game. I just prefer the sandbox feeling and the wilderness exploration. I can actually finish a game of BG1.
BG2, on the other hand, has become a slog. After months without playing, I attempted a play through at the beginning of the summer, but once again I bogged down in the Under Dark. It's where restartitis nearly always hits me, and in that last play through I realized that I'll never make it through BG2 again. I just can't keep up my interest during that long section where you're railroaded through Spellhold, the shark city and the Under Dark. Add to that, I know longer enjoy Suldanessellar or the rest of the end game. TOB never did that much for me. So, with that in mind, I have to consider BG1 my favourite. I never did get into IWD, Planescape or NWN, but I'm glad their revival in EE form is giving so many people joy.
I liked Planescape Torment a whole lot but what made it special was it's story and characters. The gameplay was actually pretty bad and that's hard to mess up considering they were using the same engine and rules as the other infinity titles that all had great gameplay. That is the only reason I don't consider PST to be the best. It was one of the most powerful game experiences on the first play through but as a game it just doesn't hold up for me regarding replay value.
Regarding the conversation above about game villians....Final Fantasy 7 was also an old favorite of mine and the main villain was great without a voice actor. The little bit of info that was leaked about him made him extremely interesting and his look and mysterious background were enough to make him an extremely effective villain. The villains in Baldur's Gate were decent but none could hold a candle to Sephiroth in my opinion. Final Fantasy 7 was another game that had a very powerful initial play but the gameplay reached it's limit and felt thin after a second run of the game.
What makes the Baldur's Gate series so good is the gameplay and the continuous gameplay building and character building that occurs between all of the games and expansions. It has a huge world and a very solid, cozy, gameplay system with character options that keep the game fresh. Characters and story do matter and Baldur's Gate does a decent job but it's the gameplay that has caused the BG games to float to the top of the pile for me after all of these years. Another bonus is that the pre-rendered backgrounds don't age so poorly like NWN and other 3D games. They still look nearly as good as modern isometric games.
Very well put, @OrlonKronsteen! That is exactly how I feel about BG2 as well. It is a painful chore to play through, even in its early parts let alone the later parts, whereas BG1 is just fun to do a quick - and typically unserious - play through. I don't feel a need to have a "perfect" or "optimal" PC or party because I've beaten the game so many times already that I don't need to beat it yet again. So I play BG1 very casually, with 'quirky' PCs and party compositions, just wondering around aimlessly and enjoying the exhilarating and fun feel of low-level play, and then when I get to the last chapter I just quit.
also i think his arrogance is more suited to the fact that he thinks he is so powerful that it doesn't matter if you live or not, he could easily slay you at his leisure so he simply just doesnt care
Voting for BGEE instead of BG2EE because the original game is much more compelling from an RP perspective. Always tempted to imagine backstories for all the characters in a way that does not seem to trigger in BG2EE, perhaps because strong back stories have already been prepared.
As far as actually playing the game goes, BG2EE wins but the transformation of Charname from awesome Baalspawn Hero to Godlike Legend is not nearly as compelling as the journey from the sheltered innocence of Candlekeep after the death of Gorion at the hands of a mysterious villain.
I really really want to vote BG1 because of nostalgia reasons. This game is almost as dear to me, as is Marathon Infinity and Myth2. However, the truth is that I nowadays find lvl 1 to roughly 4 gameplay annoying. The low HP, especially for mages, is just... stupid and unfair! Add to that that a lvl 1 character (with low strength) can swing at a xvart for ten or so rounds without scoring a single hit. Some unarmored, toddlersized, weak and moronic subhuman armed with only a shortsword is an equal match for a human wearing chainmail and wielding a two handed sword?
As the title that benefited the most from Beamdog? I went with Baldur’s Gate EE because it fixed a lot of nonsense and back imported the classes and kits from BG2. To top it all off it added 3 new characters with there own personal stories which was largely missing in BG originally. I think it got the most out of the EE treatment.
After that I would have said Icewind Dale, Siege of Dragonspear, Planescape Torment, Baldur’s Gate II and Neverwinter Nights in that order. Baldur’s Gate II being a pretty complete package in it’s original form Beamdog have cleaned it up and I’ve never been a fan of the online component of NWN so I feel like I’m missing something with this release.
Planescape benefitted a lot by being made compatiable, a feat acheivable a lot easier with the other titles and also was a pretty stable release and included lots of neat small changes from original writer Chris Avellone.
Icewind Dale akin to Baldur’s Gate got a lot of revamp with the kits being ported it, got a lot of dialogue added to reflect those kits and was a really stable release.
Siege of Dragonspear was a unique spin on the Baldur's gate forumla by having it act as a campaign with stop off locations and quests until the big final area, also included arguably the best companions Beamdog have created thus far, unique situations created with the engine and a intriguing narrative with lots of love and callback to the series at large and would honestly be higher up if it wasn’t pitted against some of my favourite titles of all time.
Comments
Icewind Dale 2: Enhanced Edition.
BG2 was, arguably, less in need of the EE options to make it accessible, and the other enhanced games simply aren't as popular as the BG series. NWN has a lot of fans, but it doesn't have the same legendary reputation as the BG games, such as topping many "best cRPG of all time" lists etc. - I think many people have been picking up the BG games based on this reputation alone.
- Drama-free release
- Relatively bug-free
- Brings over kits and the quality-of-life features from the Baldur's Gate EEs
- Actually stable multiplayer (at least in v1.4, as I played it with a friend from start to finish with very few crashes/disconnects compared to BG1EE, SoD, and BG2EE, which were all exercise in frustration).
My personal favorite is moderately-heavily-modded BG2EE. But BG1EE is special to me because it was the first EE and actually got me to like BG1. I preferred to just start the series at BG2 instead of playing through BG1TuTu because I thought BG1 was boring.
(clearly all features which should have been present from the start since 2000)
A close second would probably be PS:T:EE due to the fact it stayes almost true to the original.
(I still weep for the loss of the handy mouse wheel GUI feature. May it never be forgotten!)
The BG saga is more of a mixed bag. Some communities love it, some hate it, and a couple others are pretty much lukewarm to it. Personally, I see it as Beamdog's learning curve of what exactly customers want or do not want.
NwN:EE has potential along the road. But it's no secret that its main focus are mostly already established PW's and player bases. It needs to start to focus more on polishing its singleplayer campaings in order to really be of interest to new players. From what I saw in both English and German communities, NWN:EE is currently the least favourite Beamdog title of the bunch.
although i dont really like all the BG 2 influence that the EE has on BG 1 EE , beamdog made it so you can play BG 1 on modern PCs with no problems ( as in hardware wise ) and at least the SoD UI is sexy as hell holy crap, i actually love the SoD UI ( not a fan of SoD itself, but that UI mmm mmm )
sometimes i think to myself: maybe i will go back to the original BG just for the nostalgia lulz and try and reminisce of the good ol' days, but then, you realize something when you go back to vanilla bg1; its basically unplayable garbage compared to it's EE counterpart, while all the other titles in their vanilla version can still run relatively smooth these days ( although dont know about PS ) BG 1 really struggles hard
and the only way to "fix" that is to download a mountain of mods and this and that, and before you know it, you should just get the EE and be done with it
even to this day i play the BG series with no mods ( except for my personal "mods" of getting rid of all those extra game saves, holy jesus was that getting ridiculous, game saves for this, game saves for that, game saves for picking your noise, seriously, that should be in the options menu if you want all that save game diarrhea)
but now that the new patch is out, the only thing in my opinion that needs to be changed to make the series a perfect playing experience ( not including the bug where party members get stuck on one another ) is this double click to sell stacks crap
oh, my, flippin', overlord is that annoying as hell, i remember back in the good ol' days when you had a stack you wanted to sell, you pressed on it, and then press sold and it was sold, and then one day, this "enhancement" came on without warning, and its been frustrating ever since, 999999999 times out of 1000000000 when someone is going to select a stack in the sell window, they are going to sell it, notice that 1 out of a billion chance you might now want to? yeah, that means that when that time arrives, we will gladly double click the stack first before going to the sell window and not sell part of the stack if we dont want to, because seriously, i swear that out of my almost 900 hour play time on steam for BG 1, 20 of those hours are wasted just double clicking on stacks to sell them, and this is at 60 fps
so, with that being said, get rid of this "forced to double click on EVERY stack to sell the whole stack" load of jargon ( and fix the "party members getting stuck on top of each other bug" ) and i would say that the bg ee games are a pretty flawless playing experience
When I voted, I voted what I was interested in but I thought I would mention that Baldur's Gate 2 is what I think the majority would vote for as well so it's all the same regardless of what the poll was actually asking.
Now that's not much relating to beamdog or EE, that was all there before, but bd made it all more accessible and consistent.
SoD ... Maybe it will get me some time in the future when I have the time to appreciate it ...
PsT and iwd are just monoliths for their own. I love them, but the BGs come as a duo that is not beatable for me.
I would have voted BG2 because I tend to see it getting a little more love than BG1 overall. I've always loved BG2 more than 1 back in the day, but the more I played in recent years, the more I've come to prefer BG1. The snowflakey story that starts to wind up during BG2 is everything I dislike in RPGs. In BG1 you're still mostly just an adventurer, which is the way I prefer it. But I know many others who doesn't so that why I think BG2 wins.
@ehuhal has some very valid points though. BG1EE made that game way, way more accessable to me as a casual player who try to avoid modding. BG2 was playable with less mods even before EEs (though I would never ever go back. Ever.).
I like BG1 best. Though the NWN module Witch's Wake is quite brilliant (even if it is short and hasn't really got a proper ending)
also i think his arrogance is more suited to the fact that he thinks he is so powerful that it doesn't matter if you live or not, he could easily slay you at his leisure so he simply just doesnt care, also remember a lot of him was stripped away when he became irenicus, and as he even says all he lives for is revenge there is nothing beyond that
for back in the late 90s, early 2000s i think irenicus was a marvelous villain ( even by today's standards he is still one of my favourites ) and i think one of the main reasons why is that there is so much passion in irenicus' voice acting, david warner is an extraordinary voice actor, and he is such a perfect fit for irenicus, i just can't picture irenicus with someone else
I suppose if I have to choose a favourite it's BG1. Before the EEs arrived I never would have envisioned those words coming from my mouth. Pre-EE BG1 was very clunky next to BG2, and I was in a long retirement from the BG games when Tutu came out. In fact, I'd never even heard of Tutu until the EEs came out and I read about it on these forums. Before the EEs, I never imagined I'd be playing BG1 again. But now that the EEs are here, and I can play BG1 in a more polished state and with kits and an improved weapon proficiency system, I've come to prefer that game. I just prefer the sandbox feeling and the wilderness exploration. I can actually finish a game of BG1.
BG2, on the other hand, has become a slog. After months without playing, I attempted a play through at the beginning of the summer, but once again I bogged down in the Under Dark. It's where restartitis nearly always hits me, and in that last play through I realized that I'll never make it through BG2 again. I just can't keep up my interest during that long section where you're railroaded through Spellhold, the shark city and the Under Dark. Add to that, I know longer enjoy Suldanessellar or the rest of the end game. TOB never did that much for me. So, with that in mind, I have to consider BG1 my favourite. I never did get into IWD, Planescape or NWN, but I'm glad their revival in EE form is giving so many people joy.
Regarding the conversation above about game villians....Final Fantasy 7 was also an old favorite of mine and the main villain was great without a voice actor. The little bit of info that was leaked about him made him extremely interesting and his look and mysterious background were enough to make him an extremely effective villain. The villains in Baldur's Gate were decent but none could hold a candle to Sephiroth in my opinion. Final Fantasy 7 was another game that had a very powerful initial play but the gameplay reached it's limit and felt thin after a second run of the game.
What makes the Baldur's Gate series so good is the gameplay and the continuous gameplay building and character building that occurs between all of the games and expansions. It has a huge world and a very solid, cozy, gameplay system with character options that keep the game fresh. Characters and story do matter and Baldur's Gate does a decent job but it's the gameplay that has caused the BG games to float to the top of the pile for me after all of these years. Another bonus is that the pre-rendered backgrounds don't age so poorly like NWN and other 3D games. They still look nearly as good as modern isometric games.
For shame people, for shame...
As far as actually playing the game goes, BG2EE wins but the transformation of Charname from awesome Baalspawn Hero to Godlike Legend is not nearly as compelling as the journey from the sheltered innocence of Candlekeep after the death of Gorion at the hands of a mysterious villain.
It has all great elements which makes game great:
- Emergent narrative through exploration and interactions fueled by mysterious plot
- Systemic gameplay design
- Unique characters interactions and personalities
BG2 is one of the best achievement in gaming history.IWD has very impressive art direction which enhanced edition makes even better on big screen.
I would like that BG3: The black hound (BG3) or IWD 3 could continue this legacy. Let us say then Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura Enhanced Edition
After that I would have said Icewind Dale, Siege of Dragonspear, Planescape Torment, Baldur’s Gate II and Neverwinter Nights in that order. Baldur’s Gate II being a pretty complete package in it’s original form Beamdog have cleaned it up and I’ve never been a fan of the online component of NWN so I feel like I’m missing something with this release.
Planescape benefitted a lot by being made compatiable, a feat acheivable a lot easier with the other titles and also was a pretty stable release and included lots of neat small changes from original writer Chris Avellone.
Icewind Dale akin to Baldur’s Gate got a lot of revamp with the kits being ported it, got a lot of dialogue added to reflect those kits and was a really stable release.
Siege of Dragonspear was a unique spin on the Baldur's gate forumla by having it act as a campaign with stop off locations and quests until the big final area, also included arguably the best companions Beamdog have created thus far, unique situations created with the engine and a intriguing narrative with lots of love and callback to the series at large and would honestly be higher up if it wasn’t pitted against some of my favourite titles of all time.