| Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | BioWare |
| Publisher(s) | Black Isle Studios |
| Designer(s) | James Ohlen (Director of Writing and Design / Lead Designer); Kevin Martens (Lead Designer), David Gaider, Brent Knowles, Lukas Kristjanson, and John Winski (Core Design Team) |
| Composer(s) | Michael Hoenig (Metamusic Productions) |
| Series | Baldur's Gate |
| Engine | Infinity Engine |
| Version | 23037 |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Macintosh |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Role-playing video game |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | |
| Media/distribution | 4 CD-ROMs, download |
System requirements
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Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is a role-playing video game developed by BioWare and released on September 26, 2000. The game is the sequel to Baldur's Gate, and, opening only a few months after the events of the earlier game, continues the story of the player character, whose unique heritage has now gained him the attention of a new personage, Jon Irenicus. Like Baldur's Gate, the game is set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting and is based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition ruleset. The game uses BioWare's Infinity Engine, used also in Baldur's Gate, Black Isle's Planescape: Torment, and Black Isle's Icewind Dale series. It received critical acclaim upon its release; and has sold over 2 million units.[1]
An expansion pack for the game, entitled Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, was released in 2001, and, being the final installment, concludes the Child of Bhaal history.
Baldur's Gate II has a large modding community that has created several large unofficial mods that extend the game in a major way with new items and quests.
Contents |
Baldur's Gate II, like its predecessor, is played from an isometric perspective and uses pausable realtime gameplay. The player creates a main character through a series of configuration panels, or the character from the original Baldur's Gate can be imported. Additional characters can then be recruited from within the game world, although the total party size is limited to six. Each of these recruited NPCs has programmed behavior that can lead to cut-scene discussion with the main character or the other members of the party. Players can, by exploiting the game's multi-player function, create more than one character for a party. However, these additional characters will perform only a superficial level of interaction.
During the course of the game, the decisions made by the player will have an impact on the development of the character and the remainder of the party. For example, early in the game, the player must decide whether to ally with the guild of Shadow Thieves led by Aran Linvail at the reins, or with the vampires and their leader, Bodhi. Potential duels, bickering, romance, and quests can all result depending on who is allowed to join the party and who is turned away.
Rather than requiring an exclusive focus on combat, Shadows of Amn, much like the first installment, focuses on interaction with the world. Thus, at a point in the game, the player can acquire and "manage" a stronghold, the form of which depends on the selection of their character class at the beginning of the game. For example, as a fighter class, the player may successfully complete the quest at the de'Arnise Hold and begin to take over the stronghold. Similarly, a mage may take over a magical Planar Sphere, whereas a thief character may choose to manage the other branch of the thieves' guild in the Docks district. Nonetheless, a player may still choose to progress through the game mainly by combat; the game permits attacking townsfolk, merchants, and guards.
The game is set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, taking place mainly in Amn, a country on the subcontinent of Faerûn. A fair portion of the game revolves around the city of Athkatla.
The game's protagonist is a child of the dead god of murder, Bhaal. He grew up in the library fortress of Candlekeep, his guardian being the mage Gorion. Imoen was his childhood friend, and accompanied him on his adventure along the Sword Coast, where he learned of his heritage, and at length defeated his half-brother Sarevok, also a child of Bhaal. In Baldur's Gate II, several characters from the first game make a comeback, some of which are NPCs who can (re)join the player's party. These are Imoen (who has become dual classed to a Mage/Thief), Minsc, Jaheira, Edwin, and Viconia. Because Baldur's Gate II does not check the status of these characters at the end of the first game, they appear even if they perished in the course of the previous adventure. The designers make light of this, often prompting the player character to ask: "Aren't you dead?" which can be disconcerting, if they did not die; if they survived, the player is given the opportunity to ask the ubiquitous "Can you remember me?", which often gives the much needed excuse to fill in backstory and give new players a sense of what has gone before. Also, the game assumes that the six-person party at the end of the game included the main protagonist, Imoen, Minsc, Dynaheir, Jaheira, and Khalid. Of the hostile characters, Irenicus and his sister Bodhi are the chief; Irenicus being the main antagonist.
The player character awakens in a cage being experimented upon by an insidious mage, Jon Irenicus. Imprisoned in the same underground complex are Imoen, Minsc, and Jaheira from the original Baldur's Gate game. Upon escaping, they find themselves in the city of Athkatla, where they confront Irenicus. Several Cowled Wizards arrive to detain both Imoen and Irenicus for unlicensed use of magic, and the two are teleported away to be imprisoned.
The party meets Gaelan Bayle, who offers the help of a powerful thief guild based in Athkatla to rescue Imoen and pursue Irenicus, in exchange for a hefty payment. This sum is far above the party's current means at that point of the story, so the money must be raised by adventuring through Athkatla and the surrounding lands. Eventually, and depending on the protagonist's choices and circumstances, the party will receive an offer to side with a rival guild and receive their help to reach Imoen and Irenicus. Meanwhile, after being detained in a prison called Spellhold, Irenicus manages to escape captivity, killing his captors. Within his new base, he continues his experiments on Imoen.
With the help of captain Saemon Havarian, the party gains passage to the small island on which Spellhold is located, where they find a way to infiltrate the asylum. Once there however, the party is taken prisoner by Irenicus, who had been expecting them all along. During the next rest, another of a series of troubling dreams follows. This time, Imoen asks the player to summon and slay a demon, which appeared to be a personification of Bhaal. Upon defeating this demon, the main character finds his soul has been removed. Imoen has suffered a similar fate; their souls were claimed by Irenicus and a vampire called Bodhi, respectively.
The party is then released into a maze below Spellhold, to be hunted down by Bodhi. Because the protagonist's soul was lost, he or she would later undergo an involuntarily transformation into an avatar of Bhaal, the Slayer. In this form, the player becomes a mindless killer, scaring off Bodhi and killing several party members. However, he will later learn to control this form and, if he wishes, can use it to his advantage, though this comes at a moral price.
Upon returning to normal, the player joins Imoen to battle Irenicus until the wizard flees into the Underdark. The party follows, returning to the surface at a location where they encounter an army from the elven city of Suldanessellar. Jon Irenicus has managed to sneak into the city and magically seal the entrance. After obtaining a means to enter, the party finds Irenicus beginning a ritual intended to grant him immortality. They attempt to slay Irenicus but are dragged with him into hell. There they finally confront and defeat the elven mage.
Baldur's Gate II was developed by BioWare, and published by Black Isle Studios, being released in September 2000.
The designers felt that, in Baldur's Gate, they did not achieve their design goals; in Baldur's Gate II, they determined the game should reach its full potential.[2] They also acknowledged Planescape: Torment having "raised the bar," but wished not merely to meet, but to redefine it. Early in the game's development, two lists of features to be added to the game were made: an internal list, created by BioWare and Black Isle Studios, and a list of features the fans wanted to see, which list the fans themselves had already compiled.[2] The designers at length created a major feature list. Deathmatch was a feature that was removed late in the project; non-pausing dialogue, which proved "the most problematic feature," was removed early on, but in early 2000 was reintroduced.[2]
The developers created a set of guidelines, one for each department, the level design ones being the longest, that were to be followed, though these were a work-in-progress and evolved as the development progressed.[3] Many design decisions were made that did not follow the guidelines, the latter not being in their final form until the end of the project.[3] Chapter II is to be noted under this head.[3] Constraints related to programming were also at times not respected by other departments, such as design and art, leading to performance problems that were difficult, or impossible, to fix.[3]
The game's content creation process was essentially the same as that reached by the end of the development of Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast.[3] Still, there was sometimes communication problems between different departments, resulting in inconsistencies between their work.[3] Ray Muzyka said, "We learned to make sure all elements of the team are talking to each other and working as a group, rather than as a bunch of individuals!"[3] During the game's development, a quality assurance department was added to BioWare; and the game's publishers also lent their assistance in testing.[3]
Some of the more unusual NPCs in the game were put in after winning a contest held during the development cycle. Habib, who attacks by throwing his scimitar and later throwing gold coins at the player, was the #1 winner.[4]
| Reception | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Aggregator | Score |
| GameRankings | 94.03%[5] |
| Metacritic | 95/100[6] |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| Allgame | [7] |
| Eurogamer | 9/10[8] |
| GamePro | [9] |
| GameSpot | 9.2/10[10] |
| GameSpy | 92/100[11] |
| GameZone | 9.5/10[12] |
| IGN | 9.4/10[13] |
| PC Zone | 8.5/10[14] |
| FiringSquad | 93%[15] |
| Gameplanet | 5/5[16] |
| Just Adventure | A[17] |
| RPGamer | 9/10[18] |
| Computer Gaming World | [19] |
Baldur's Gate II met with worldwide acclaim upon its release,[6] with Metacritic listing it as the 6th highest scoring PC game on the site as of July 16, 2010.[26] Computer Gaming World's reviewer said, "I think of this as Game Of The Year or even Hall Of Fame material [...] it certainly ranks up there with greats like Fallout, Planescape: Torment, and Betrayal At Krondor."[19]
Baldur's Gate II's gameplay was called "addicting" by GamePro.[9] RPGamer said that "the game plays pretty much the same [...] except for combat. Here we've taken a big step up from the frustrating ordeals in Baldur's Gate. The enemies are no longer quite so cheap, and more strategies are viable."[18] Some reviewers, however, felt that the non-player characters in the game were not powerful enough in comparison to player-made characters.[15] GameSpy said that the game is much more difficult than Baldur's Gate, and requires more strategy and planning than the original does.[11] GameSpot felt that the opening level of the game "falls flat," but that it gets much better once the player reaches Athkatla.[10]
The game's plot was met positively by reviewers, with GameSpy saying that "The plot can be summarized in one word: Epic. The developers bent over backwards to make you feel like you were making a difference in the game world, as well as provide some very 'awesome' enemies and quests."[11]
GamePro praised the game's graphics, saying that "the backdrops are stunning and the spell effects are impressive with or without 3D acceleration."[9] IGN echoed this statement by stating "The comparison between [the graphics of] Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II is astounding—like looking at a still oil painting, and then turning to see the scene in living motion on a big screen TV."[13] FiringSquad said that the game's artwork surpassed that of Planescape: Torment, and called the background artwork "fantastic."[15]
FiringSquad praised the voice acting of Baldur's Gate II, saying that "Characters sound alive and vivacious (or depressed, crazy - whatever suits them), bringing a whole new level of depth to game's immersion factor."[15] Reviewers also generally found the game's music to be well-done.[10][15]
Gameplanet criticized the game's poor support for online multiplayer, saying that it was "unstable and quite frustrating."[16] Jakub Wojnarowicz of FiringSquad felt that the lack of communication between players in combat during online games was problematic, but that Local Area Network play would be "a lot more fun and less stressful."[15] PC Zone said that "As in BG, multiplayer is a bit of a disappointment. [...] Come on guys, let's have some multiplayer maps or something."[14]
Criticism was also directed at bugs in the game, such as frequent crashes when trying to access certain locations.[14] According to Tim McConnaughy from GameSpy, Baldur's Gate II is "not 100% stable."[11] GameSpot found that the game's loading times were a "bit long" and that the game crashes on occasion.[10] Reviewers also felt that the small number of character portraits to choose from was a disappointment.[10]
...the only reason [Baldur's Gate II] can't be called the best game in its class is because in a sense there's nothing available that compares to it.—Greg Kasavin, GameSpot[10]
Baldur's Gate II was inducted into GameSpot's "Greatest Games of All Time" list,[21] and it also won their Readers' Choice Game of the Year award for 2000.[23] It also received three "Gaming Globe" awards from Eurogamer in 2001: Best Game, Best Art Direction, and Best Male Supporting Character (for Minsc).[20] GameSpy, GameSpot, and IGN all awarded Baldur's Gate II their "Role-Playing Game of the Year" awards in 2000.[22][24][25] IGN also placed it at #25 on their 2005 "Top 100 Games of All Time" list.[27]
In 2009, Game Informer put Baldur's Gate II in 88th place on their list of "The Top 200 Games of All Time," calling it "The Best Dungeons & Dragons game ever made."[28]
In 2010, on IGN's Top 25 Modern PC Games, Baldur's Gate II was ranked 2nd, with Half-Life 2 being ranked first.[29]
Shadows of Amn also appeared in Collector's Edition format, with additional characters for those who preordered. Shadows of Amn was re-released along with its expansion as Baldur's Gate II: The Collection in 2002. In 2004 they were bundled with the original Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale in Black Isle Compilation Part Two. In 2006, they were re-released once again as Baldur's Gate: 4 in 1 Boxset.
In November 2010, Baldur's Gate II Complete was released in digital format (Windows only) on the classic games website Good Old Games, or gog.com, as part of a deal with Atari-Hasbro. This version of the game includes Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, and its expansion Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. Additional content is included in the purchase of the game, including PDF files of the game manuals, HD wallpapers, artwork, avatars, and the soundtracks of both the core game and the expansion.
Baldur's Gate II Redux has also been released as a fan-made standalone campaign mod for BioWare's Dragon Age: Origins. Initially, the only content to be released is that of Irenicus's Dungeon level, with more content in production.[30]
There are two novelizations based on the game and its expansion. The novels focus solely on Abdel, the last of the Bhaalspawn.
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