Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 Review

Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games

Rating: Teen (T)

About Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 is a role-playing/adventure game that takes place in the world of Abeir-Toril. Evil forces threaten the land, and you seek to put a stop to it. You will explore dark and dangerous places like the labyrinthine, the ruined dwarven city underneath the earth, an unholy keep of a vampire, and other dimensional planes. Play as a Cleric, Rogue, Barbarian, Monk or a Wizard. Build up your character and learn new spells and abilities. Build up your strength and save the Realms from certain destruction.

Levels of Difficulty/Modes of Play

There are three levels of difficulty in this game: Easy, Normal and Hard. Modes are single and co-op gameplay.

Before beginning the game you need to select a character. Each one has different strengths and weakness. For instance, the Cleric is good with melee combat, can wear any armor and has access to many defensive spells.

The Rogue is a treasure-hunting Dwarf with strengths in the Crossbow and foiling traps, but cannot wear a shield or heavy armor without training.

The Barbarian excels at melee attacks, is fast and can berserk, but he cannot wear heavy armor without training.

The Wizard specializes in necromancy and death magic, but is weak with melee combat.

Your character is also defined by abilities and secondary statistics. Your main abilities are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. As you gain levels, you will have points to spend on your abilities.

Your secondary statistics are Experience, Health, Magic Energy, Armor Base Attack and Damage. These statistics represent the amount of points you have. The higher these numbers are, the more levels you can gain, along with increased strength and power.

Fun Factor

One of the best parts of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 is character creation. You can have fun with trying the different abilities each character has. I enjoyed playing the Wizard, since he had access to so many spells. It was a bit difficult in the beginning since he is physically weak, but once he gained a few levels, he was very powerful.

An interesting part of this game is that you can create custom items at the Workshops. By collecting rune stones and gems, you can add powerful bonuses to weapons and armor. Once in the shop, you can experiment with different combinations of gems to see what you can get. A good idea is to save the game before going into the shop, that way if you make a mistake, you can go back and try again to get the best results..

Audio/Video

Graphics in this game are fair. They do look a little cartoon-like, but that should not deter you from playing. Combat is pretty smooth. The combos you can learn are not too difficult and are fun to watch. Audio soundtrack is good, but some of the music tracks tend to repeat themselves at times.

Summary

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 is a role-playing/adventure game where you can choose from five characters to play. Choose skills, abilities and magic to enhance your combat prowess. Use the Workshop to make customized weapons and armor. If you liked the first Dark Alliance game, this is worth checking out.

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