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Buy at own risk

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: July 13, 2001
Author: Amazon User

There are a number of people like myself experiencing a slowdown bug that makes the games all but unplayable. Every few seconds the game will pause for a 1/2 second or so! You might want to wait until a patch is released that fixes this annoying problem. Check the publisher's message boards for more info regarding this known annoyance. When I get this game working, I'm sure my rating will be 5 stars once i'm able to run this game as what i've seen and heard have been great.

This should have been a whole new game!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 12
Date: December 11, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I love BSG II. And when I got this, it was such a let down. It has cool battle's and a decent plot but I think BlackIsle could have put a little more effort into this and make this a new game (aka BSG III). I give this two stars because it does have potential. But overall, a big disapointment.

Lacks the character of BG2

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 13 / 17
Date: June 23, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Throne of Bhaal is the conclusion of the story begun in Baldur's Gate. A lot of gamers have high expectations for it; unfortunately, the expansion pack to Baldur's Gate 2 doesn't really satisfy those. The initial concern is that it's nowhere near the 40-50 hours of gameplay discussed before the release--I'd estimate I finished it in less than 30. It's also heavily combat oriented, where non-expansion BG2 had a lot of opportunity for dialog and character interaction. That lack of character interation is probably the most disappointing aspect of the expansion. A large part of BG2's charm was the personality shown by party members: Jan interjecting an absurd story, Viconia spewing venom, or Minsc talking about his hamster. These are present to some degree--there are new NPC-initiated discussions--but some of the best dialog occurred when the NPC interrupted a discussion between the player and someone else in the game. There is so little dialog of that sort in the expansion that it feels empty somehow. It feels much more like Tales of the Sword Coast (the expansion to the first BG) than BG2.

Probably in large part due to the lack of dialog, the story isn't fully fleshed out. It seems hurried (especially the last encounter before the endgame begins). The expansion begins with all the spawn of Bhaal being gathered according to prophecy and being slaughtered by their most powerful members. The conclusion is fitting, but it seems undernourished. More dialog, and with it, more story, would have made this a 5 star expansion.

The high level character mechanics work pretty well, but are much more favorable to mages and clerics than fighters. Some of the new spells are devastatingly powerful, but the new fighter abilities are almost unnoticeable. If you like heavy combat, this should satisfy you, but be warned: the game sometimes slowed to a crawl in combat when I never had any trouble with BG2.

A so so ending, to an incredible series

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 12
Date: August 17, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Let me start off by saying that Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is the best game I've played in 8 years. Perhaps that is why this expansion pack is a little disappointing. It was a good expansion pack, but is a let down after BG2:SoA. The limitations of the D&D system can be seen in this game. There really isn't much to get you excited about when your characters are already of near god-like status (level 20+). You just keep getting more and more magic, abilities, and magic items - making them seem almost boring and commonplace, when they should be amazing and wondorous. If you loved BG2, then you should get this game, it is fun and worth the money - but don't expect the level of fun that BG2 gave.

I thought Icewind Dale was the Dungeon Crawl

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 11
Date: July 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Ok, most of my gripes about this game come from me being a D&D player. First of all, the max levels you can get in D&D is 30, not 40, and if you're level 40 pretty much the only thing that can hurt you is a god. There were probably a couple hundred mortals in this who could beat you down. Where the heck did they come from? It seems like they gathered every mortal in the .0000005% of the population over level 10 and put them in one region!

Now, a non-D&D gripe, the first 2 BG games were good because they offered a few multiple ways of solving quests. In ToB all there was was dungeon crawling and fighting. They turned the BG series into an action game! Its supposed to be an RPG!! Anyway, if you like hours of fighting unrealistic enemies go for it. If not, pass. Its still fun, just not even close to the first 2.

Lets put it this way. All bhaalspawn have cool powers, its just that yours is to gain 60,000 experience for picking up a rock.

Mildly Disappointing Game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 9
Date: July 24, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I really enjoyed BG2 but this expansion just did not have everything it should have. Mostly it lacked in story and dialouge, being just a hack and slash type of game, that did not take very long to beat.

Experience cap is ridiculous, my best character was not even close to a cap when the expansions ended, also the last villain was not even half as challenging as Irenicus was.

On a brighter note, I think Pool of Radiance and Neverwinter Nights will be incredible games of a higher quality than Baldurs Gate was.

mt

They've gone about as far as they could go

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: April 08, 2002
Author: Amazon User

If you've enjoyed the previous chapters of the Baldur's Gate "Bhaalspawn" saga, Throne of Bhaal (ToB) is a must-have -- if only to achieve some closure on the story. ToB has a much tighter (read: more linear) story than its predecessors, which has its pros and cons. The main con is that it's much shorter than BG2. But linearity also gave Bioware the chance to create a deeper, more fulfilling experience.

At a few key moments, they realized this potential. Overall, however, the story falls pretty flat, and has the feeling of "Let's just get this over with." It doesn't help that by this point, the players are incredibly powerful, having blown past the upper bounds of what Dungeons & Dragons was designed for. Thus, there are a lot of ridiculously powerful monsters, items, powers, etc... which gets boring after a while. The developers seem self-conscious of this; your imp butler/blacksmith, who forges magical artifacts from things you find throughout the game, tells you "Lots to find -- lots to collect!" in a sort-of wink-wink to the Diablo line of games.

Perhaps the most interesting possibilities in this game involve the character Imoen and the new one available at the very beginning. Also, your romance (if any) continues to develop, perhaps in some unexpected directions. There are new interactions among the characters, as well, which in my opinion are the (all-too-infrequent) highlights of the game.

I can't say that you won't be disappointed, but if you've gone this far, you may as well finish it. That seems to be what Bioware was thinking, too.

A little disappointed

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: February 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I loved BGII so much I played through it multiple times with different characters and trying to complete all of the romance subquests. When I finally got the expansion, I was disappointed to find the entire thing was one long, tedious, drawn out battle and you no longer had the freedom of wandering wherever you wanted. Also, the NPC interaction and subplots and the romances were the most interesting part of BGII and were for the most part absent from the expansion. As much as I loved BGII, this left me disappointed.

A worthy successor to the great ýShadows of Amný

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: April 24, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I enjoyed playing "Throne of Bhaal". The new areas are fun, and so are the riddles, monsters, and quests that you find in the expansion pack.

"Throne of Bhaal" adds quite a few special high level abilities, and a lot of new items. The potion cases, ammo belt (for storing all of those extra arrows and bolts), and the +3 ammunition were all great additions. There is a new set of unique magic items that one of the characters can forge for you, using pieces that you find scattered throughout the game (like the dwarven blacksmith in "Shadows of Amn"). The new monsters are wicked and intimidating.

However, the best part about Throne of Bhaal is that it continues the same ingenious design and attention to detail that was present in "Baldurs Gate 2. Each new area looks brilliant. Each quest is different. The conversations between the NPC's are entertaining, and the voice acting is great. You do meet one new NPC who can join you early on (it's an old "friend" of yours - don't worry, you'll see). The game has a lot of unique challenges which require you to read the books or parchments that you find in order to solve them.

The saga has run its course though. The storyline has been stretched about as far as it can go. Perhaps too far. The "Bhaalspawn" theme lost its appeal for me long before I finished this game. On every street corner, there is some legendary godlike Bhaalspawn, or some prophet that has predicted your coming for the past 100 years. How is it that the rest of the world never noticed all of these Godlike characters running around? There is lots of yammering on about fulfilling your destiny, and the taint of your soul, etc. etc. The dialogue plays out like a bad Star Wars parody. Especially the dialogue that involves Imoen.

One big flaw of this game is that there are so many magic resistant and spell-proof creatures that my magic-users hardly ever cast anything more than a handful of the same spells. The spell protection and combat protection magic is BADLY overdone in this game. There is way too much magic vs. counter-magic combat. The fighters totally dominate this game, and mages just cast a handful of magic and combat protection removal spells over and over. Every tough beast is resistant to your fireballs and acid arrows, so there is no point in casting them. There is no balance whatsoever at these high levels, and that is why I gave the game 4 stars instead of 5.

Excellent! (4 1/2 stars)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: May 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This expansion is a great conclusion to an excellent computer game. Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal gets right everything that was good about the first 2 games. The character development and party dynamic are still the best in any computer RPG that I have played. The story centers around discovering your destiny as the offspring of an evil god. You and your band of adventurers will go through towns, forests, mountains, dungeons, and even another plane of existence. There are many new spells, magic items, weapons, armor, and monsters, and the pocket plane idea is a really nice touch. The isometric view and graphics are still pleasant to view, and the dramatic music is among the best in any game I've played. The story is well told and measures up to the high standards set in the first 2 games. Actually, the suspense in this expansion really draws you in, sort of like the final chapter in part 1. I docked the game a half star for two reasons: one of the levels of Watcher's Keep had a maze and a couple of puzzles that were too frustrating to be fun. Also, when I kill something/somebody I want it to be dead, not to come back again and again (a problem that I had with Shadows of Amn). There were no real bugs that I noticed, besides a few spelling errors, one frozen cut-scene, and a few cases in which spell casters simply would not cast spells at key times during combat. This last problem was especially frustrating since magic use is so central to winning fights in this expansion. Otherwise, this is a grand conclusion to one of my favorite computer game series. Highly recommended.

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