An Honest Review of Siege
darkcrab34
Member Posts: 19
Lets be honest, with all of the political drama circling this game, finding a fair review of this game is actually becoming annoyingly hard. Worse yet, the reviews I do find, which are negative are generally for the most baffling reasons, or are just plain shortsighted at worse.
For the record, My views on the political front are....well don't care. Im here to enjoy the game, the role playing adventure. The whole nonsense is just a few dialogue boxes, and have now been confirmed for editing, so lets get on with this.
Gameplay: Feels like a mix between BG classic and icewind dale, in that theres a lot of swarm based fights. I don't honestly mind this to much, as I really enjoyed Icewind dale, and given the nature of the campaign, makes sense. Combat still feels nice, and theres plenty of room for strategy depending on party makeup and spell selections. Word of advice though, fireball for days, heck....fireball for months :P.
SO yea overall, I understand that for folks who don't like icewind, the larger swarm fights may be annoying. Personally I don't mind it at all, as long as theres room for strategies etc.
Graphics+UI: The new areas look nice, given the engine and are well detailed, not much else to say. Im aware that with 2.0 a lotof folk are unhappy with how the new UI/models look at times. To that, all I can say is its a preference thing, and theres PLENTY of ways to change it back to the original style. Do I personaly approve, as a BG vet? It'll take some getting used to, but its hardly a deal breaker to me...as I can change it back, and with ease once its all patched up.
Story: Heres were I get confused by all the negativity. The story itself is competent enough in its own right, the antagonist is cool and its interesting to finally connect some dots between the end of the first game, to baldurs gate 2. Now there are some miss's here and there, but it isn't like all the writing in BG 1 and 2 was golden. But now comes the caveat...
It wasn't written as well as BG 1/2....and that's FINE. Please remember, this is just an expansion pack, and comparing the story to those two games is incredibly unfair. A better test would be to compare it against ToB Or TOSC, in which case it not only stacks well, but even beats them in some regards. Compare expacs to expacs, not the full blown games.
The Ending: While I do agree it had some deus ex to it, I can't imagine for one second that ANYONE whos played BG didn't know how siege was gonna end. Reading folks cry about the ending is like folks who complained that the titanic still sunk at the end of the movie, or that the star wars prequels ended with evil winning. WE ALL KNEW that it would end with our CHARNAME....well, spoilers.
THe only thing I'd say could've been done is have siege mentioned a bit more in BG2, but how and by whom I don't know. Im more than willing to however buy into the theory that the torture your CHARNAME endured would lead to some mental issues, but idunno that's theory land now. Maybe have your char filled in on it during the first area when your recapped on BG1.
Bugs: Im sorry, that's just how games are released nowadays, I hate it to death but its reality. In fairness though, other than some latency stuff, I never hit a game crashing bug, maybe im lucky, or its cause im not modding.
Concluson: Comparing a $20 expansion to the full release BG1 and 2 is quite frankly, unfair. Its a solid game on its own, a LOT of fun and when you compare it to the RIGHT things, aka other bg expansions it beats them in several ways. The 1% of the game that's political nonsense seems to have blinded everyone to the rest of the game here, the other 99%
Had beamdog charged $40, or afull $60 for the game I would have been far more annoyed at some of these issues, but for a $20 expac, The game is great, and even better as patches fix technical issues.
Thank you for your time.
For the record, My views on the political front are....well don't care. Im here to enjoy the game, the role playing adventure. The whole nonsense is just a few dialogue boxes, and have now been confirmed for editing, so lets get on with this.
Gameplay: Feels like a mix between BG classic and icewind dale, in that theres a lot of swarm based fights. I don't honestly mind this to much, as I really enjoyed Icewind dale, and given the nature of the campaign, makes sense. Combat still feels nice, and theres plenty of room for strategy depending on party makeup and spell selections. Word of advice though, fireball for days, heck....fireball for months :P.
SO yea overall, I understand that for folks who don't like icewind, the larger swarm fights may be annoying. Personally I don't mind it at all, as long as theres room for strategies etc.
Graphics+UI: The new areas look nice, given the engine and are well detailed, not much else to say. Im aware that with 2.0 a lotof folk are unhappy with how the new UI/models look at times. To that, all I can say is its a preference thing, and theres PLENTY of ways to change it back to the original style. Do I personaly approve, as a BG vet? It'll take some getting used to, but its hardly a deal breaker to me...as I can change it back, and with ease once its all patched up.
Story: Heres were I get confused by all the negativity. The story itself is competent enough in its own right, the antagonist is cool and its interesting to finally connect some dots between the end of the first game, to baldurs gate 2. Now there are some miss's here and there, but it isn't like all the writing in BG 1 and 2 was golden. But now comes the caveat...
It wasn't written as well as BG 1/2....and that's FINE. Please remember, this is just an expansion pack, and comparing the story to those two games is incredibly unfair. A better test would be to compare it against ToB Or TOSC, in which case it not only stacks well, but even beats them in some regards. Compare expacs to expacs, not the full blown games.
The Ending: While I do agree it had some deus ex to it, I can't imagine for one second that ANYONE whos played BG didn't know how siege was gonna end. Reading folks cry about the ending is like folks who complained that the titanic still sunk at the end of the movie, or that the star wars prequels ended with evil winning. WE ALL KNEW that it would end with our CHARNAME....well, spoilers.
THe only thing I'd say could've been done is have siege mentioned a bit more in BG2, but how and by whom I don't know. Im more than willing to however buy into the theory that the torture your CHARNAME endured would lead to some mental issues, but idunno that's theory land now. Maybe have your char filled in on it during the first area when your recapped on BG1.
Bugs: Im sorry, that's just how games are released nowadays, I hate it to death but its reality. In fairness though, other than some latency stuff, I never hit a game crashing bug, maybe im lucky, or its cause im not modding.
Concluson: Comparing a $20 expansion to the full release BG1 and 2 is quite frankly, unfair. Its a solid game on its own, a LOT of fun and when you compare it to the RIGHT things, aka other bg expansions it beats them in several ways. The 1% of the game that's political nonsense seems to have blinded everyone to the rest of the game here, the other 99%
Had beamdog charged $40, or afull $60 for the game I would have been far more annoyed at some of these issues, but for a $20 expac, The game is great, and even better as patches fix technical issues.
Thank you for your time.
18
Comments
If they make BG3....Compare THAT to bg 1/2. Stack expansions against expansions.
On topic, I think that what brings about the comparison to the main game on a similar level is the (now) identical price-tag on the Enhanced Editions. Since they cost the same, they should be able to offer the same, is what some reviewers might think. But that is certainly omitting the fact that Beamdog did not CREATE the original games, but just picked them up and worked on them, rather than having to create them from scratch. It's a huge deal that gets left out far too frequently.
@justtravelinthrough
Yea that's a pretty huge point, and your right that people seem to forget that rather large detail.
That is, of course, if you've played the game.
b) the -why- wasn't mentioned in Purdaya's post either, so go complain about that. Durlag's way beyond anything I've seen in SoD - even the most epic shiny new black borders surrounding the map, so just no, SoD isn't better than ToTSC.
And yes, unfortunately I've played SoD .
To say "Tales of the Sword Coast and probably about on par with Throne of Bhaal. Both of which felt different to varying degrees from their base games" when comparing SoD to these two expansions sounds as if you're the one who hasn't played SoD.
If you're happy with it and enjoying SoD, then bless ya, keep doing it.
While I enjoyed Durlags to a great deal myself, so did I do with SoD, where, for example, I believe the item-designs are just stellar. And yes, the writing is sometimes corney or cheesy, at other times evil options are lacking (I'm not an evil player myself, but couldn't help but notice), but then again it has it's great moments, especially in side quests (The spectacles are a personal favorite). I do not love this game because of its flaws, but in spite of them.
The new NPCs are nice (liking them more than I thought I would) and the voice acting is on par with BG1. Writing is solid, overall -- some really nice bits, some klunky bits. Compares quite favorably with BG1.
Surprisingly, zero bugs encountered so far (on OS X, GOG version). Maybe it's just luck, or maybe the PC/Steam versions are buggier, but I'm not complaining
I'd put BG1 in second place though. It did a whole lot more than just start this series. It sparked a whole new generation of interest in D&D through videogames (myself included) and for all its dumb moments and limited narrative, the story was awesome.
SoD should probably go in third, followed by ToB and then Tales in last place. I've never been satisfied with ToB as an ending since 2001. It had some seriously stupid twists, bad villains, and played mostly like a scorch and run. Not to mention the gameplay was ridiculously unbalanced (2nd Ed. AD&D does not scale well into epic levels). And Tales, while a very fun adventure, isn't really all that consistent and doesn't have much to do with the main storyline. It just felt tagged on. For all its issues, SoD tells a more compelling narrative I think.
BG 1 and 2 are not fair comparisons, as they are full games while SoD is like a big expansion.
TotSC was just a dungeon crawl expansion not connected with the main events.