To this day Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn is a game that I have put more time into and played through more times than any other game so in tribute to this return to the old school and to celebrate a remastered re-release of this title next year I present to you, the AnarchistReview of the Bioware classic Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn and it's expansion Throne of Bhaal.
Based on the hugely popular role playing Wizards of the Coast brand of fantasy Baldur's Gate 2 follows on directly from it's predecessor. Your player created character is a child of the Dark God Bhaal, the Lord of Murder and has recently finished his previous adventure where you learn of your heritage and defeat your half-brother Sarverok, another of Bhaal's children, an all round vicious bastard in every sense of the word. Following character creation (for those of you who dread this there is a choice of 4 pre-generated characters) introduction cut scene (which for me was my first exposure to the story, having not played the original at this point) your protagonist awakes in a cell in a murky dungeon with no idea how you go there being tortured and experimented on by the villain of Tron and Time Bandits David Warner who as power hungry mage Jon Irenicus provides some of the most iconic lines from any game I have ever played, here he is breaking out of a prison designed specifically to hold powerful rogue mages in bad ass fashion.
In essence the story begins with you escaping from your prison discovering some of your old companions on the way, some of them ready to join up with you and seek revenge for their abduction, others due to a bad case of death just generally lying about waiting to be revenged. You manage to escape into the city of Athkatla where your childhood friend, budding mage and generally sweet person Imoen is captured, alongside your captor by an order of wizards for using magic inside the city without permission. From this point, like many of the open world RPGs you are now dumped in the centre of a huge world with a specific ultimate task to perform, no idea where or how to do it and nothing but the few bits of crap you managed to scavenge on your way.
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| Jon Irenicus might look like a drag queen gimp but he's all business and is out to literally tear you apart for his own ends |
A lesser game might boast that as the totality of the plot but not this game, freeing your friend is just the first in the series of steps that places the whole of the Forgotten Realms in peril as you struggle against a sociopathic mage with an all consuming lust for power. The story is immense, spanning 4 CDROMs which if that doesn't make you think wow you don't remember that this is the time of the floppy disc being the most common source of document transfer.
The main campaign is truly epic in it's own right but isn't something to be rushed as it has wide reaching effects on your party. You hunt down Irenicus via earning passage to the isolated island prison Spellhold, fight your way through the underdark to a Machiavellian city of the matriarchal dark elves (drow) and onto an elven city to save the Tree of Life from being destroyed and with it the city then into hell to finally face your tormentor for the last time. The expansion pack Throne of Bhaal sees you on a Highlander style mission to defeat all your fellow Bhaalspawn who are fighting for their fathers throne as the lord of murder, the question is what do you do when the throne stands empty and nobody stands between you and ultimate power as the new Lord of Murder?
Aside from these main quests which are fairly weighty on their own as with all RPGs most of the fun, adventure, humour and dark storyline take place in the sidequests where you face truly powerful mages, both living and as undead liches (in various states of insanity) as well as most races and groups made famous in the fiction, no two missions are the same. One will have you playing detective to find a deranged serial killer with clues and NPC dialog leading you to the culprit, playing the UN in a race war alongside the usual dungeon crawling fun. One of the most memorable moments for me is where you discover a quest giver has manipulated you and not only that is an enormous red dragon (I won't tell you which and spoil the fun), the most powerful breed of the standard "chromatic" (evil) dragons, considering their different colour kin so beneath their power level they aren't worth killing (I know, racist bastards). Bored with his fun and having achieved what he wanted he gives you an opportunity to realised you are outmatched, take your reward and skulk off, deciding that you won't let some uppity wyrm tell you what to do leads to one of the most protracted and challenging battles of my gaming life. I learned that their legendary arrogance against their kin is warranted taking out a black dragon three levels earlier was a walk in park next to this beast. The game is full of gems like this and is what sets this game as the red dragon of RPGs.
Most of the quests give you an opportunity to change your reputation and alignment with your chosen actions, effecting the game world as you go. As with most games this gives you the scale of good to evil but unlike games such as Mass Effect where they are polar concepts you are following a general philosophy or behaviour, you can be; lawful good (Captain America), neutral good (Spider-man), chaotic good (Robin Hood), lawful neutral (James Bond), true neutral (Han Solo in episode 4 of Star Wars, before he got all loved up), chaotic neutral (Captain Jack Sparrow), lawful evil (Boba Fett or most classic Bond villans), neutral evil (Mystique or any femme fatale), chaotic evil (Riddick or a serial killer of your choice)
You develop the protagonist from a fairly powerful baseline in the scale of Dungeons and Dragons into, thanks to the expansion pack a being of literally god-like power at level 40 (fit to slap the generally ultimate mortal magical power in this universe Elminster in the face with his puny level 29) with your own home in hell.
Created using the infinity engine this world is realised in incredible detail for it's time, with rendered effects that at the time may seem run of the mill and less detailed than your average mobile phone game but in it's time it was groundbreaking, I can only hope that the high definition remastering in the re-release next year gives it half the wow factor it had then. The game also boasts a first class voice cast, practically a who's who of yesterday and today David Warner, Jim Cummings (who steals the show as Minsc, more on that later), Michael Gough (forget Michael Caine, the real Alfred is in the house), Jennifer Hale and Michael Bell to name but a few.
You won't be hunting alone however, you have a large roster of potential allies on your quests, up to five in your party at the same time, these are, in order of going from babysitter to Charles Manson
- Aerie: A lawful good cleric/mage, deeply damaged by her past, sweet, vulnerable, child-like but deeply intelligent. Can be deeply annoying and romancing her is like trying to seduce a girl who was abused by her dad who blames herself and didn't turn into a crack head and/or prostitute
- Keldorn: Lawful good inquisitor, a wise hugely powerful paladin who is really useful in a scrap against the forces of evil
- Mazzy: Lawful good fighter, a halfling who if it was allowed would be a paladin, instead committed to generally heroic good deeds
- Imoen: A Neutral good thief/mage who your initial quest is to rescue, her initial exuberance wanes due to her experiences in the game, unless you are intending to turn your character into a full on psychopath her rare mix of classes comes in really handy
- Minsc: Chaotic good ranger, if you have only one play through of this game and you don't include Minsc the berserker in your party you are missing out big time. A bat shit crazy force for righteousness who's witch he was serving as bodyguard to, Dynaheir, killed by Irenicus for the bad luck of travelling with you. With his miniature giant space hampster Boo (hell yes you read that right) he is truly mighty in combat and leads to some of the best NPC dialog and interactions with other party members and world NPCs.
- Nalia: Neutral good thief/mage, haughty noble with a compassionate soul to the poor as long as they remember their place and her's.
- Valygar: Neutral good stalker, wanted criminal with a real prejudice towards magic and mages
- Anomen: Lawful Neutral fighter/cleric, acolyte on his path to knighthood which as the player have a vital hand in his passing of failure of his trials (changing his alignment accordingly), a spectacular bullshitter and a romance option to a female character
- Cernd: True neutral shapeshifter, a calm natured werewolf who as a former city guy turned lover of the great outdoors (for obvious reasons) has the verbal quirk of loving any metaphor to do with nature
- Haer'Dalis: Chaotic neutral bard, part demon, sporting blue hair and an aura that makes otherworldly creatures uncomfortable, charming and witty so you best have your best comebacks to hand
- Jaheria: True neutral fighter/druid, hard willed widow who will take control if you won't and patronising to anyone who she considers less worldly wise, a romance option if you fancy trying to seduce the recently bereived, you should be ashamed of yourself.
- Jan: Chaotic neutral thief/illusionist, eccentric gnome who is a master craftsman of unique weapons and tools only he can understand enough to use, a big fan of telling stories that seem to go absolutely nowhere
- Yoshimo: True Neutral bounty hunter, calm, cunning and evasive who you encounter early on and his lock picking skills come in very handy
- Viconia: Neutral evil cleric, sharp tongued drow with some powerful stats, a nasty habit of picking on those weaker but beyond this hard hide is a decent person and a potential love interest
- Edwin: Lawful evil conjurer, a haughty and powerful mage with a pretty damn funny party quest and some serious animosity and history with Minsc.
- Korgan: Chaotic evil berserker, a truly psychotic killing machine of a dwarf who can generally clear an entire room using his duel wielding axes
- Sarevok: Chaotic evil fighter, you can choose to bring your evil half-brother back from the dead, with no supernatural powers, do you want to show him a path to salvation or leave him the hateful violent mess you know and love to hate
With this long list of possible mixtures you will witness friendships, banter, bullying, animosity, theft, storming off in a huff or even violence, I have never such a complex, well written interplay or npcs been created in a game, unlike so many games where you end up with genuine feelings for your party, something that I have yet to see replicated in anything in modern RPGs. Often you will find that certain companions lead to specific ways to complete a quest, my favourite being allowing Minsc to keep talking to get you committed to an asylum rather than break your way in. Pawns in Dragon's Dogma, the set party and script of the final Final Fantasy series and the bland companions in Skyrim don't even come near, the closest equivalent being Dragons Age Origins which in many ways is the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate but it just fell short of the levels of greatness of it's muse. Choosing your party does more than pick the powers you want to concentrate on, it makes a statement to the world and the rest of your companions, you are who you associate with and if your actions displease your team members expect to hear about it and potentially to never see them again.
Leaving the best to last it's time to cover the gameplay, the interface is a point and click one, allowing you to select any number, or all of your party to position themselves on the map with a couple of clicks. Combat is initiated with a simple click on your enemy, this initiates the complicated process of turn based attacks following the Dungeons and Dragons rules, taking into account the chosen attack, effect spells, armour, status effects and plays this out. This can be a frantic affair so in order to allow for more considered strategic battles you can pause the battle with a quick hit of the spacebar which allows you unlimited time to change weapons, line up your next spell to case, assign movement or heal, once you unpause the battle continues and the actions you have selected will be undertaken. The Forgotten Realms are a dangerous place and is certainly not a game to treat as a hack and slash like Diablo, protective spells and healing whilst taking down any magical defences your target has is essential in large monster or boss battles. Unlike the more forgiving games your companions can die very easily and in some circumstances be entirely vaporised with all your lovely loot they were storing gone forever so go into battle unprepared at your own risk.
As a person who has never played Dungeons and Dragons myself I found this game extremely accessible once you understand the basic concepts, it has lead me into enjoying dozens of the works of fiction like the R. A. A. Salvatore Drizzt books (who makes a cameo appearance in this game, if you are a fan of his and take his name he will be pissed, especially if you are making him look bad) although I have yet to put a cape on an sit round a table to play the real thing. This game is full of nods, jokes and cameos that the die hard Dungeons and Dragons fans will love, not to mention a fair few pop culture references. If there was only one RPG to be saved in the world I would step over Skyrim, kick FFVII into the ditch and grip this game to my chest with out a doubt. Go for the eyes Boo!
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