Nostalgia always clouds the mind. I just hope BG will be fun on the iPad 3, as that is what I plan playing it on. The touchscreen interface should make the gameplay interesting.
Oh, I don't know about nostalgia - I just finished playing Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers' - a 19 years old game! - for the first time ever (played parts 3 and 2 earlier) and it had the pixelization and clunky animations and I hardly even noticed, because, my goddess, this game is so incredibly GOOD! XD
So, if the game is really great, you don't need no nostalgia goggles to enjoy the heck of it.
I don't see how it is bad news... For BG fans anyway. I've played this game since I was brat, and I still love it. Hell, I also never played Diablo I, Fallout, Little Big Adventure, The Lion King (yes, that old PC platform game) etc. etc for graphic nor I ever will.
I might be wrong, but I think that game developers are focusing too much on how the games should look like, instead on polishing gameplay. Seriously, nowadays hardly ever I wait for game to be released, because gameplay looks just... not good enough (Aliens: Colonial Marines.). Saying all this doesn't mean that there's no good games nowadays.
Back to Baldur's Gate, enhanced edition will support hi-res widescreen resolutions, so problem with pixelisation will not exist. Unfortunately, source art has been lost, so there is no way to graphicaly improve some things.
I just played BG2 for the first time and I can't do it. The graphics are terrible and the UI is so clunky! Is this what the EE will be too? I know you guys love the game, I remember loving the game, but maybe modern graphics and games have spoiled me
I will play it for the story. I like nice graphics too but I started into the Computer field when "pong" was the height of technology :-D
I spent a long time playing Text Adventure games. Anyone remember Infocom? Wishbringer, Leather Goddesses of Phobos, Zork, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? I played 'em. Roguelikes, too. I still play Angband, the Macintosh version. That's old fashioned Nintendo Hard- no reloads after dying, your character just goes away... forever. And you're all by yourself, in a dungeon where everything wants to kill you. And every time you die, the colors of the potions, what scroll maps with what spell and so on all reset.
@LadyRhian First one I played was of Zork I have the entire infocom collection still Haven't tried to get it to run in some time, maybe time to create a virtual Box to run them in.
Back in my day the best graphics we had was a white bar on a black screen! I swear you kids today are spoiled with your fancy ultra high definition what-cha-ma-hoozits!
I kid, of course :P
man, pong was AWESOME when it came out, supporting 2 colors!!!! (before that, only one color on screen at any time), realistic movement, multiplayer functionality, and up to 3 things moving on screen at any given time. When i first played it, i was BLOWN AWAY!!!!
Then pac man came out, and i couldn't play pong anymore. I didn't understand why the pong ball looked like pac man with his mouth closed, and i worried that maybe we were slamming around pac man.
I kid, but lol, if gaming back then was more like gaming today, that's what people would be talking about. :P
@immagikman There's this one game which is built on a variety of wordgames. I remember one where part of it is that you go out for a meal in a restaurant and get stuck with a bad waitress. There is a carpet there, and one of the things you do is "Call her on the carpet". Ah, it was "Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It".
I think that BG2 has aged incredibly well for it's age, the detail they put into everything is pretty incredible imo. I legitimately feel that the graphics in BG2 fit the type of game it is perfectly. But I HAVE to run BG1 with tutu or i cant stand it. The low res is killer on it
I admit, there are some things in life In which I used to like, but nowadays I just can't get in to... But I assure you, Baldur's Gate is by no means one of those things. If Enhanced Edition wasn't coming out I would still be perfectly content playing the classic games, even with all the modern games I play, its just THAT good.
I just played BG2 for the first time and I can't do it. The graphics are terrible and the UI is so clunky! Is this what the EE will be too? I know you guys love the game, I remember loving the game, but maybe modern graphics and games have spoiled me
I have friends that love D&D and RPGs, but they cannot play Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale due to not playing it before and having no investment in the game that helps them "override" the older graphics. It's a shame that graphics to some are the most important part of a game, but at the same time, everyone has their likes/dislikes.
EDIT: Enhanced Edition will be improving the graphics via modern resolution support, but I would be surprised if that's enough to draw people in that did not play before.
Yeah, there will undoubtedly be gamers raised on exquisite 3D graphics that will regard the BG series as just too primitive visually, and in terms of its interface, to even consider giving it a go. They'll watch a video of it and be like, "no way, not interested."
But there are also young gamers who read of older gamers' reverence for the series, and their curiosity is piqued.
Hopefully, the improvements to the graphics will help somewhat for any who might be on the fence.
I like the BG graphics still... am I the only one? Hell maybe I play old games too much... I play BG and IWD a lot... and Dragon Warrior IV on my NES Emulator... and Seventh Saga on my SNES emulator... and King's on Dosbox... I probably need to "Get with the now". lol.
Kings Quest VI was the best of them all. I used to play that game at my grandparents before the internet, so when we got to the underworld in the game... [Spoiler]It took me and my brothers forever since we were a young age to figure out "death" as the password needed to open the doors to the king of the underworld/hell (or whatever that place was called)[/Spoiler]
Nostalgia always clouds the mind. I just hope BG will be fun on the iPad 3, as that is what I plan playing it on. The touchscreen interface should make the gameplay interesting.
Oh, I don't know about nostalgia - I just finished playing Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers' - a 19 years old game! - for the first time ever (played parts 3 and 2 earlier) and it had the pixelization and clunky animations and I hardly even noticed, because, my goddess, this game is so incredibly GOOD! XD
So, if the game is really great, you don't need no nostalgia goggles to enjoy the heck of it.
This. Thanks to the magic of GOG.com, I've been able to enjoy all sorts of awesome old games that I've never played before. I've done Fallout 1+2, M&M VII, Planescape: Torment, Arcanum, Tropico, and most recently, Master of Orion 1+2 - all utterly fantastic games, and seeing as how I first played them a year ago at the earliest, there is zero nostalgia talking there.
My honest approach to games is that I don't really care about graphics. If the game can depict what's going on, and if what's going on is something worth being depicted, then that's good enough for me. If all you want is beautiful visuals, go to an art gallery.
I have all the Infocom Text Adv Games in a zip somewhere. Mostly I played Zork 1 through 3. I also have been a big fan of roguelikes. I played a lot of Nethack, Moria and Angband at one point. More recently I played Adom for a while but in the last year or so I have moved on to Dwarf Fortress for something a little different (yeah an actual roguelike...or roguelike hybrid if you must, that makes use of the extra hardware you might throw at it).
I spent a long time playing Text Adventure games. Anyone remember Infocom? Wishbringer, Leather Goddesses of Phobos, Zork, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? I played 'em. Roguelikes, too. I still play Angband, the Macintosh version. That's old fashioned Nintendo Hard- no reloads after dying, your character just goes away... forever. And you're all by yourself, in a dungeon where everything wants to kill you. And every time you die, the colors of the potions, what scroll maps with what spell and so on all reset.
@Eller I haven't tried Dwarf Fortress yet. I have been too busy running the games here in the RPG section to do much computer gaming. I did get in a couple of games of Civilization IV, Beyond the Sword, though.
@LadyRhian roguelikes are awesome! Really love Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. There's even a tiles version for those that need fancy graphics. Ok, fancy might be stretching it but I honestly think it looks great. Used to play a lot of MUDs too. Multiplayer text based combat is awesome. I'm really sad it seems to be dying, at least the codebases and servers I used to play on.
I enjoy many emulated c64 and amiga games today more then the modern average good looking game and believe me the crashes are less on these emu´s then on the modern games for todays hardware lol! and not to mention the bugs, i dont know any game from the old days with one single f****** serious bug!
Not only I like the camera, being in first person like Skyrim is a COMPLETE DEALBREAKER for me in new RPG's.
At least a camera like NWN, but still I hate the 3D. BG graphics and camera are PERFECT for me. Not only I have no complaints, I wish every game was similar.
Skyrim is a great, open game with beautiful graphics. I also enjoyed Morrowind which was probably more interesting and has memorable music. All in all however BG1 and BG2 have a more complete feeling of exploration and adventure and a better, more engaging atmosphere. There is also greater interactivity and humour. Although the graphics are not of the same quality they do not detract from the experience of the game. Roll on the end of November!
Skyrim is a great, open game with beautiful graphics. I also enjoyed Morrowind which was probably more interesting and has memorable music. All in all however BG1 and BG2 have a more complete feeling of exploration and adventure and a better, more engaging atmosphere. There is also greater interactivity and humour. Although the graphics are not of the same quality they do not detract from the experience of the game. Roll on the end of November!
I also enjoyed Skyrim immensely, but when I got beyond level 15 I could pretty much oneshot kill anything on the hardest setting, which really put me of the game big time. Also, it played much more like an action hack & slash game than a true RPG to me. There was no dialogue that gave me any choices to risk or ensure a different outcome or path in the game, nothing like The BG series.
The game just becomes way too easy, and that's without even trying to achieve an easy path in the level up screens, which I didn't like very much either by the way..
I bought the game for my xbox, and I wish I bought it for the pc instead, as there's many great mods that enhance the gameplay in various ways, and from what I've read, make a beautiful, but extremely shallow game into a masterpiece..
Comments
So, if the game is really great, you don't need no nostalgia goggles to enjoy the heck of it.
I might be wrong, but I think that game developers are focusing too much on how the games should look like, instead on polishing gameplay. Seriously, nowadays hardly ever I wait for game to be released, because gameplay looks just... not good enough (Aliens: Colonial Marines.). Saying all this doesn't mean that there's no good games nowadays.
Back to Baldur's Gate, enhanced edition will support hi-res widescreen resolutions, so problem with pixelisation will not exist. Unfortunately, source art has been lost, so there is no way to graphicaly improve some things.
The bad news is you may miss the greatest RPG ever in the world.
This is how BG:EE should look, which I think is pretty darned nice:
http://rephial.org/
Then pac man came out, and i couldn't play pong anymore. I didn't understand why the pong ball looked like pac man with his mouth closed, and i worried that maybe we were slamming around pac man.
I kid, but lol, if gaming back then was more like gaming today, that's what people would be talking about. :P
My main problem with BG1 is, after playing BG2, the chars in BG1 feel like they're moving unbearably slowly.
I have friends that love D&D and RPGs, but they cannot play Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale due to not playing it before and having no investment in the game that helps them "override" the older graphics. It's a shame that graphics to some are the most important part of a game, but at the same time, everyone has their likes/dislikes.
EDIT: Enhanced Edition will be improving the graphics via modern resolution support, but I would be surprised if that's enough to draw people in that did not play before.
Yeah, there will undoubtedly be gamers raised on exquisite 3D graphics that will regard the BG series as just too primitive visually, and in terms of its interface, to even consider giving it a go. They'll watch a video of it and be like, "no way, not interested."
But there are also young gamers who read of older gamers' reverence for the series, and their curiosity is piqued.
Hopefully, the improvements to the graphics will help somewhat for any who might be on the fence.
My honest approach to games is that I don't really care about graphics. If the game can depict what's going on, and if what's going on is something worth being depicted, then that's good enough for me. If all you want is beautiful visuals, go to an art gallery.
I have all the Infocom Text Adv Games in a zip somewhere. Mostly I played Zork 1 through 3. I also have been a big fan of roguelikes. I played a lot of Nethack, Moria and Angband at one point. More recently I played Adom for a while but in the last year or so I have moved on to Dwarf Fortress for something a little different (yeah an actual roguelike...or roguelike hybrid if you must, that makes use of the extra hardware you might throw at it).
Used to play a lot of MUDs too. Multiplayer text based combat is awesome. I'm really sad it seems to be dying, at least the codebases and servers I used to play on.
At least a camera like NWN, but still I hate the 3D. BG graphics and camera are PERFECT for me. Not only I have no complaints, I wish every game was similar.
Also, it played much more like an action hack & slash game than a true RPG to me. There was no dialogue that gave me any choices to risk or ensure a different outcome or path in the game, nothing like The BG series.
The game just becomes way too easy, and that's without even trying to achieve an easy path in the level up screens, which I didn't like very much either by the way..
I bought the game for my xbox, and I wish I bought it for the pc instead, as there's many great mods that enhance the gameplay in various ways, and from what I've read, make a beautiful, but extremely shallow game into a masterpiece..