Retro Revival, Part #15 - Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn/Throne of Bhaal (2010, GOG.COM)

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Demiath

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Published on November 15, 2010 10:37:09 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fst09hDFQpo

Game:

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000)

Duration: 13:41

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Bioware's massive and staggeringly ambitious D&D RPG Baldur's Gate II was released on GOG today, and it comes bundled together with the excellent expansion pack Throne of Bhaal.

Personally I've never been completely won over by the grander scale, darker tone and more pronounced storyline of this extremely well-liked sequel since I tend to appreciate the pure, picturesque dungeon crawling of the original Baldur's Gate and Black Isle's Icewind Dale more than a slightly ponderous epic like Shadows of Amn. That being said, there's no denying that Baldur's Gate II is one hell of an RPG which significantly expands on BG1 in every way imaginable - everything from the implementation of the D&D ruleset to the quest design and the game engine has been ambitiously reworked so as to offer a deeper and more sophisticated RPG experience - and there's enough content here to last several playthroughs.

BG2 wasn't quite the last hurrah as far as old school RPGs go (the trio of Wizardry 8, Temple of Elemental Evil and Wizards & Warriors had yet to be released, after all), but it still feels like this game marked the last time that the release of a fairly traditional Western PC RPG made a huge impact on the industry as a whole.

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