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Save your money for something good !!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 12
Date: March 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Two observations that are outside of the game. First, do not trust anyone who only writes reviews with 5 star ratings. These people are either idiots or work for the company. Second, do not trust anyone who reviews a product before they have seen or played the product all the way through. Again, such people are either idiots or work for the company.

Now, onto, Dark Alliance. I have played the original Baldur's Gate on the p.c. and have played the first video game version of Baldur's Gate on both the Playstation and the X-box. All of these games I found very enjoyable and would give them between 3-4 stars.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance deserves one star. While the graphics are good, they are not as good as the first game and the makers have an annoying habit of making you fight in the dark to (1) make gameplay more difficult (pretty hard to fight when you can't see) and (2) to mask the fact that the graphics are mostly reused from the first game.

Little effort went into originality on this game. The story is incredibly week. You play an entirely different character from the first game. Your character has some secret or mystery that must be completed that differentiates him or her from the other characters. Once you find out your secret or solve your mystery you will be disappointed because of the anticlimactic reaction of your character and your inability to use the information you gained.

Not all monsters (including bosses) give good or any treasures.

All monsters are incredibly easy to beat (you only need to press one button over and over again to beat 90% of the monsters) with one exception. Toward the end of the game you will need to reach the two baddest bad guys. Right before you meet them you ascend a stair case directly into a room filled with monsters who kill you immediately. This part of the game was insanely difficult unless you have stealth.

Overall, a disappointing game with few, if any, highlights. Save your money for a worthy game such as Legacy of Cain III.

Not much new...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 11
Date: January 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I'd like to say that this was a good game, but it's hard to do.

First of all, I use component cables for my TV/Xbox and ran into tiles that didn't quite meet on a lot of levels. With how well the first game was put together, this came as a shock. The game was also disturbingly easy even on the Hard setting. It only took me 9 hours to beat on Hard without using any of the loopholes that are in the game.

The other disappointments would have to be story itself. Where you actually had some movement in the fist game, this game is stuck in one place and when I hit the 7 hour mark in the game I had thought I was only about a 1/3 of the way through. My bad!

Also, they recycled almost all of the textures from the other game. As another review on a different website said, the water effects that were so stunning in the first game now look old and dated.

I guess I just expected a little more from a company that put out Knights of the Old Republic and the BG computer series and the original DA.

Big disappointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: April 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I'm a die hard PC RPG fan. Perhaps that's the source of my disappointment. I bought an XBOX while deployed to Iraq and got star wars KOTOR (Most awsome game) and Dark Alliance 2. I've played Baldur's gate. This is not Baldur's gate. This is Diablo 3. BG is turn based combat from an angle down view. This thing's camera angle is like running around and staring at your feet and trying to find your way around. I havn't gotten to far into it yet. I will try to give it another shot if I can keep away from KOTOR long enough. Perhaps I can learn to like it if I don't try to compare it to Baldur's gate. I hate it when someone takes liberities with a well known title just to make money and destroys it. That's like putting up a taco bell but not serving any Tex/Mex food only tofu! I didn't like Diablo and I don't like this pseudo Baldur's Gate!

Dim Alliance

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: August 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I am a big fan of the Baldur's Gate games for the PC. They were robust games with engaging stories. Dark Alliance II is not a Baldur's gate game. This game is purely hack and slash. The story is boring, the graphics tedious and the gaming experience a complete disappointment. I can't believe I paid as much for this mess as I did for Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. KOTOR is everything that Dark Alliance should have been.

My recommendation - skip Dark Alliance II.

Should have been better.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: January 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is just OK. Therein lies the problem. This game should have been awsome. If nothing else, the graphics should have AT LEAST been as good as the original. No dice. Second, the game is just way, way, way, and I mean way too easy. Perhaps its just because my friends and I have played the first one. But still, my character died once in the first half of the game, and that was probably because we just started ignore our life after a while because we never got hurt. . . Also, they give you so much treasure that it's just pathetic. If you like that, great. I find it pretty boring to get so much treasure that you don't really have to work hard to get new items. Can I mention again how rediculous it is that the graphics in this game are worse than the original Dark Alliance game? Rent it first.

an inferior sequel that offers more of the same, only easier

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 32 / 40
Date: November 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II is a curious name. It's like calling a movie Part Two: The Sequel. Dark Alliance was a chapter in Baldur's Gate's history and this game continues what was started in the first, including many of the same characters and voice talent.

To wit, all the efforts in the first game to prevent the teleporting Onyx Towers from falling into the wrong hands was for naught. Mordoc Selanmere (a vampire) has located the towers on the Shadow Plane and manipulates both the Harpers and the Zhentarim into bringing it to the Prime Material Plane so he can teleport right into Baldur's Gate itself and turn all the citizens into shambling undead.

Our three heroes from the first game (the elven sorceress, the human archer, and the dwarf) have been captured and apparently are in for a long torture session. Meanwhile, five new heroes are recruited to the cause:

* Borador Goldhand: a dwarven treasure-hunter
* Alessia Faithammer: an aasimar cleric
* Vhaidra Uoswiir: a drow monk
* Ysuran Auondril: an elven necromancer,
* Dorn Redbear: a human barbarian.

My wife chose Vhaidra and I played Ysuran, because they were the most interesting characters. I mean, come on, Dorn Redbear sounds like a Klingon.

Vhaidra is known mostly for her sarcastic comments and the inability to walk without crouching like Elmer Fudd. Ysuran is identified mostly by his bare nipples, which he seems to have a pathological need to display at all times. It must be a necromancer thing.

The heroes must journey from place to place to retrieve certain items at the behest of various employers, whom ultimately all happen to be connected. The same merchant sells and buys all things with the same annoying and repetitive banter. The twist is that finding masterwork equipment and then augmenting them with gems can improve items. In this way, you can end up with an Exceptional Helmet of Viper's Quickness.

Also new to the Baldur's Gate games is the notion of prestige classes. After reaching 20th level and doing enough research about their past (which always costs gold, of course), the characters can join prestige classes. Ysuran's can join Shadow Adept and Vhaidra can join Assassin. These classes give you new nifty abilities. The only problem is that by the time you're 20th level, these abilities are marginally more effective at best.

The Baldur's Gate series uses a simplified version of the Dungeons & Dragons game system to good effect. All spells, feats, and class powers have been turned into feats. At each level, characters start with a certain number of points in certain feats. For example, Vhaidra starts with 1 dot in Armor Proficiency, Sprint, and Unarmed Combat. One dot in Armor Proficiency means she can only wear light armor, like leather armor. Role-players, look in horror upon that which is possibly Dungeons and Dragons 4.0!

We played the game on Medium difficulty, which was probably a mistake. Ysuran is capable of surviving just fine by himself, because of Skelly.

What, you don't know who Skelly is? Why, he's the skeleton that arises from Ysuran's Animate Dead spell. Unfortunately, Ysuran doesn't really animate any dead-Skelly just rises out of the ground and does not require any actual corpses to create him. Another missed opportunity for gaming coolness.

The world hates Skelly, but he doesn't seem to care. Every monster in the game has an inexplicable desire to kill Skelly (again), but Skelly just whacks away at them with his bare fists. Fortunately, Ysuran's protection spells extend both to his undead as well. Which really makes them unstoppable. There were a few situations wherein the boss monster killed Vhaidra and Ysuran prevailed with just Skelly and the Life Drain spell.

If Skelly makes the game less challenging, the Life Drain spell makes it a cakewalk. In essence, Life Drain inflicts damage and heals Ysuran. However, Life Drain doesn't require any targeting-Ysuran merely needs to point in the direction of his victim and red darts of energy flow out of his foes towards him. Yes, I ate several cookies while Ysuran sucked up the souls of his enemies like a Shop-Vac.

Because you can craft magic items, things quickly get out of hand. With enough money, Ysuran had a +4 helmet that protected him from 15 percent of fire, cold, and acid damage. And then because he was such a wuss, I gave him a ring that gave him a +4 bonus to Strength so he could carry all the crap Skelly found.

There were some challenges, like the Elemental Plane of Air, where Skelly and Ysuran often fell to their doom. Although really, how long did it take for them to hit "doom"? It's all Air, right?

Dark Alliance II seems to be dumbed down a bit. There are no longer ammunition limits, so ranged weapons effectively fire forever. Stocking up on arrows kept the archer in the first game in check. Here, it's all bolts, all the time.

The graphics are more or less the same, although my wife appreciated the fact that most of the main characters didn't seem modeled after certain movie stars (remember the bartender of the Elfsong Tavern, Lady Alyth?). And no, you can't strip down the drow chick to her underwear like you could with Adrianna in the first game.

For reasons I cannot comprehend, the map function was moved to the touch pad instead of pushing down on the stick. Since spells are up and down on the touch pad and the map requires pressing to the left (right switches from ranged weapon to two-handed weapon to one-handed weapons), more often than not I brought the map up in the middle of a combat. Please guys, if ain't broke, don't fix it!

Baldur's Gate II is an inferior sequel that offers more of the same, only easier. It's probably more entertaining in a single-player game, but it was definitely not balanced for two players. Restricting the necromancer to a single-player might have been a good start.

Although I feel obligated to tell you that Skelly thinks that's a stupid idea.

A Great Hack & Slasher, But Lacking In the RPG Field

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: March 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I don't normally even LIKE many Dungeons & Dragons related video games, but I like the Dark Alliance Series. DA2 is a step up from the first, but to truly enjoy a game like this, it needs more customization. You don't even get to change a character's name.....the only customization as far as the character itself goes is your choice of 5 characters. Once the game starts, it is very cool that skills, stats, weapons and such are deeply customizable, but that isn't quite enough for me. As video gamers, I think we are ALL past the "pick a character and GO" element that reminds me that there are NES games where you can customize your character more. The game play is dumb fun, fun, and more fun, but gets repetitive REAL FAST. The soap opera of a storyline kept me playing it, however. DEFINITELY WORTH AT LEAST A LOOK.....

Awesome cooperative game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: August 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is an ok game. The co-op mode is great but only for two people. Its a great alternative to guantlet legends but still only for two players. The game is also really dark and so are the charactes so you have a hard time seeing them. The thing i dislike the most is the lack of classes and character customization and specialization the the other games had. But overall, the gameplay is fun and sometimes challenging.

A Superior Sequel from the Team we Love

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 12
Date: February 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Ah yes those brilliant gods of the video game world have done it again, in this I am referring to "Black Isle studio". The same studio that brought the PC hits "Baldur's Gate", "Baldur's Gate 2", "Diablo", and "Diablo 2" have managed to make a gaming experiance so simple yet so engrossing and entertaining that it would make you forgive almost any short coming this game has, not to mention almost forget how dispointing the first "Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance" was.

"Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2" offers a much deeper experiance this time around by allowing character, which you can select one of five and still unlock hidden chacters like the legendary Drittz, to select multipule side quests instead of the simple one quest that was in the first game. The graphic have been improved slightly but not much. The musical score is dark and brooding which is a perfect fit for the story. The story, now here is one of the real winners, is down right incredible. You will face epic foes from the Forgotten Realms campaign setting such as a Lich, a Red Dragon, a Green Dragon, as well as many many more. For "Dungeons & Dragons" fans this is a real treat, for everone else you most certainly will have some interesting boss fights.

But of all the features this game has the one I keep coming back to again and again is the item creation system. Being able to create +5 great sword of fire is just fun in my book. A fare warning though to the more concervative about this game, as compared to the first, this sequel in much more violent and gruesome. Part of me still wonders how it got away with be rated Teen, especially the level in Bloodmire Manor which was macabre enough to be place in one of the "Resident Evil" games.

In short if you have a x-box and ant a great hack and slash with a good story, and enough RPG to hold you over till "Fable" or "Halo 2" is released than this is definatly you meal ticket.

Co-op Saved my Marriage...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: September 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Ever since I started on the Atari way back in the 80's, I've been one of the original gaming girls.

scary.

This game is one of the best coop xbox games out there, and though it's old, I'm still a fan. The areas are fun, and the idea that you gain cooler spells and abilities makes this addicting. The playability is simple - kill anything that moves. However, like the first, it's over before you can say "Argh". My suggestion? RENTAL!! I shelled out the $49.99 plus tax, and it was done within a few days. The extreme level sucks though, and that should keep you busy. But the areas don't change, and it's predictable. But the graphics are fun, and it's fun to interact while you kill stuff. My husband, is not a gamer, though he liked this game alot! Great for you Diablo people out there. If you like this one, get the Hunter: The Reckoning franchise.

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