In praise of the Enhanced Edition
Son_of_Imoen
Member Posts: 1,806
Even tough I pre-ordered Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition before it was released, I waited for two years before actually playing it, as I wanted to wait it out till bugs were crushed and essential mods went from beta's to official releases. Most important for me to wait for were Stratagems and the BG NPC-project. When it was announced NPC-project's BG:EE compatibility stepped out of beta and was now official, I planned a campaign.
I am stunned at how marvelous and addicting the game is. Even though the avatars are pixelated when you zoom in, I can see more detail now that with Tutu and the widescreen mod, the text is much better readable, character sheets convey way more information with the details on how the Thac0 is arrived at, split out per skills, weapon bonusses, buffs etc.
Astonishingly handy features have been added that I find hard missing now, notably the quickloot bar and most helpful by far the action icons on the portraits which tell you what action a character is busy with, making the timing of combat a much easier task.
There's many people on the GOG forum (which has become kind of my new homebase, while playing BG was practically on hold for two years) who derise the Enhanced Edition for being a costly way to do what is already done for free by mods, but BG:EE is a far more pleasant experience than playing Tutu.
I still got two Tutu campaigns and two BG2 campaigns unfinished:
The Tutu campaigns are built around a PC with a mod class - Hexblade from Sword and Fist and Gypsy from Song and Silence respectively
- one BG2 campaign has a tongue in cheek feel built round Saerileth and a PC with a Blackadder voice, the other is based on my first AD&D 1st Edition character from when I was young, Eriodal the elven fighter-mage, with NPC's picked that most resemble the kind of characters my schooltime friends used to play.
But my, I will find it hard to finish those games in the vanilla BG2 engine, now that I've come around to play the Enhanced Edition of Baldur's Gate. Enhancement is an understatement, even though the original models where lost which could have built it into BG:HD. Overhaul did a well-done job.
I am stunned at how marvelous and addicting the game is. Even though the avatars are pixelated when you zoom in, I can see more detail now that with Tutu and the widescreen mod, the text is much better readable, character sheets convey way more information with the details on how the Thac0 is arrived at, split out per skills, weapon bonusses, buffs etc.
Astonishingly handy features have been added that I find hard missing now, notably the quickloot bar and most helpful by far the action icons on the portraits which tell you what action a character is busy with, making the timing of combat a much easier task.
There's many people on the GOG forum (which has become kind of my new homebase, while playing BG was practically on hold for two years) who derise the Enhanced Edition for being a costly way to do what is already done for free by mods, but BG:EE is a far more pleasant experience than playing Tutu.
I still got two Tutu campaigns and two BG2 campaigns unfinished:
The Tutu campaigns are built around a PC with a mod class - Hexblade from Sword and Fist and Gypsy from Song and Silence respectively
- one BG2 campaign has a tongue in cheek feel built round Saerileth and a PC with a Blackadder voice, the other is based on my first AD&D 1st Edition character from when I was young, Eriodal the elven fighter-mage, with NPC's picked that most resemble the kind of characters my schooltime friends used to play.
But my, I will find it hard to finish those games in the vanilla BG2 engine, now that I've come around to play the Enhanced Edition of Baldur's Gate. Enhancement is an understatement, even though the original models where lost which could have built it into BG:HD. Overhaul did a well-done job.
17
Comments
Everything else, the new characters, the graphical improvements, the bug squashing, is secondary to just having it run. That would've been worth a lot more to me than the asking price.