I love the characters. I find that I want to take them all and hear from them all. These characters have personality and style. Hurrah!
I love the story. It has set up an involving epic story line that does not seem contrived or a rehash. The world has its own well thought out history.
The interface is acceptable. It did not take me long to master looking around and making the camera do what I want. The hybrid real time and pause to instruct (for turn like action) works well. Learning the game interface took hardly no time at all, and that’s the way it should be.
I consider the graphics, music, and sound effects to all be good. The graphics aren’t as realistic as a DVD movie of course, but they are far beyond Baldur’s Gate and an improvement over Neverwinter Nights 2 as well. I REALLY liked the voice acting. That was outstanding and integral to the immersion.
In these games, there are always complaints about the AI. The difficulty of this game means that using real time exclusively and trying to use the AI only (through tactics) is just not going to work. However, the tactics screen does offer interesting options. It’s not perfect, and could definitely use some improvement. Often, I find my characters just standing around even with a last insert of “Any enemy: attack.” Still, the AI is more powerful and capable than the variations that I have seen in the past. The AI for the monsters is also smarter. Some of the exploits that people have used in Baldur’s Gate, don’t work, don’t work as well, or don’t work every time. I am happy about that. Again, there is room for improvement though. The game design was well thought out to present several different tactical challenges: barriers, traps, ranged and melee coordinated against you, etc. That’s great. Overall, I am pleased, but I hope that the AI is further improved.
The difficulty slider is great in general. However, I think that “easy” should be even easier. I can be worn out and half asleep and beat the bosses I have faced so far when on easy difficulty, but I am not a novice. I suspect that “easy” may allow novices a challenging time until they hit the bosses; the bosses may give them trouble even on easy. Normal is a pleasant wind-down level after coming home from a long day at work. Hard and nightmare are nice for imposing tactical challenges.
There are several posters who ridicule the difficulty of the game as being too easy. I think these people are often egotists looking for applause. Don’t say the game is easy until you can play the game on Nightmare with any group of characters (not respecced) with few or no reloads, no cheating, AND without doing anything that you could not do vs another player or with a human game master. Don’t take advantage of the AI just because you can, and then call the game easy. That’s using exploits. One example of an exploit is using spell area effects through walls. If you win the game by doing these things and call it easy, then you are just a pretender in my opinion. Now coming from Improved Anvil (BG2 mod), I realize that there are tactical geniuses out there. You may really find the game easy, and for you I suggest finding a game that allows player vs player where you can play against other tactical geniuses. In my opinion, games don’t need to be written for you, because you are in the extreme minority. On the other hands, mods (like Improved Anvil) can make a game challenging for even these elect few.
Room for improvement: I would like to hear more banter from the NPCs. For example, Minsc’s interjections (from BG2) were pretty comic, and I miss that. Secondly, I would like more information on game mechanics provided
as a pdf. Exactly what do the skills and talents do mathematically? Another section, which could be considered a spoiler section, may detail the equipment we expect to find. (Personally, I don’t think that is a spoiler as long as we are not told where and how to find it.) And other such information should be supplied. We should not have to use the toolset to figure this out. I also realize that some people want to discover these facts by playing the game. They are free to do so; no one is forcing them to read this pdf. I believe that both these things and AI improvements can be supplied as updates and/or downloadable content, and hope that they soon will be.
Thanks Bioware for a job well done.
Modifié par Keth Balderk, 07 décembre 2009 - 07:33 .
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