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Overall good plot info...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: March 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Any game requiring cheats is flawed! There are some essential plot developements provided. If you enjoy reading the novels, especially the North of Faerun, this game is good. I like the pronunciation of elven words but found the Elven civiliztion out of context in the frozen North. Make sure you create strong characters as well as enable your cheats, or the game is impossible!!!

The design is great. Music, special effects, and the voice over hooks you from the beginning. The role playing is minimal, unlike Baldurs Gate. Hack and slash for those who like that style of play. The final scene is unbeateable, thus if you want to continue with the expantion, you must finish the original. Neverwinter Nights is much better in my opinion.

Baldur's Gate minus the charm

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: December 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

As a fan of the Baldur's Gate series, I decided to give Icewind Dale (IWD) a try. Unfortunately, Black Isles did not strike gold twice. While Icewind Dale is a carbon copy of their excellent Baldur's Gate games in many ways, it lacks the personality that make the BG series great.

IWD actually has a number of things in its favor. The character creation system is very rich, allowing you to customize your party of six in true D&D fashion. Also, there is a long list of abilities, spells, and equipment that you'll run across, as well as visually appealing environments, solid voice acting, and compelling music. Some of the dungeons can be genuinely creepy, and there's a sense of accomplishment once you clear one out.

Unfortunately, the game is deeply flawed. IWD is a bit too hard, even for a person who has some experience with RPG dungeon-crawling. Even worse, it's an artificial toughness designed to lengthen the game by requiring you to repeatly reload saved games. Your characters will die countless times, and this simply can't be avoided. And since your cleric will not be able to resurrect dead party members until late in the game (Raise Dead scrolls are expensive too), you will not be able to continue the game with dead characters. It's really a shame that the developer did not pace the game better, since it's going to turn off a lot of people from the very beginning.

If you can get beyond the tedium and frustration of having to save the game every 2 minutes (and reload it almost as often), the gaming experience is still rather uninspired. The story is lackluster and cliche. There is none of the banter between party members that made Baldur's Gate so fun. All of this together becomes mind-numbing after a while, since the game profoundly lacks a sense of purpose or narrative power. It's all really unfortunate since some effort obviously went into creating the game.

Ultimately, if you haven't played Baldur's Gate, by all means play it (both BG1 & BG2). If you've already tasted the glory of the Baldur's Gate series, then IWD will probably be a disappointment.

Pros:
+rich D&D character creation
+good voice acting and music
+wide range of spells, items, etc.

Cons:
-unnecessarily tedious and difficult
-lackluster story
-Baldur's Gate clone without the personality

So, you like BG I & II...?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: July 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Then maybe you shouldn't consider playing this game. Though I suppose that would depend upon what elements you liked about them. To be fair, I haven't finished Icewind Dale I or II. Of course, there's a reason.

You have a six member party. You don't get to pick those party members up through interactions or interesting story lines. You have to create them yourself. If you think fighting is the most fun, engaging, and important part of an RPG, maybe it won't matter to you. Sidequests? Nonexistent. Towns are not a central feature. Like an even less fun Dungeon Siege, maybe.

A bi too linear and short- but great atmsopherics

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: February 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've just completed Icewind Dale after over a week of intensive gaming, and I have to say I greatly enjoyed it. But looking back on it and trying to be objective I have to admit there were a few things that were disappointing.

Firstly as my title suggest, the game is alsmot totally linear. Areas and quests can only be accessesed after you complete the previous ones.

Some monsters are nearly impossible to beat the first time you meet them and require knowledge that you gain from the first meeting to beat them later. For example it was unknown to me the first time I met them that Umber Hulks could confuse a party member. The fist time I met a group my entire party got confused and often starting attacking each other. But with such forwearning it's possible to take preventinve measures beforehand. Thus many encounters become a kind of puzzle that you have to figure out. Which may be rewarding in a way but is not really in the spirit of true roleplaying games, where you're expected to play through an encounter there and then, not replay it until you've completed it.

Quests can be completed before you actually meet the person who wants you to complete it. Best example is in the Frost Giants cave where in the middle of the map is a pen full of slaves. To get there you'll probably have slain all the trolls and Frost Giants and when you meet their leader he'll ask you to clear a path so that he can escape. It would have been much more sensible if you met him at the start of the level.

Combat can become a bit repetitive.

The actual gameplay area isn't all that big, despite what it might seem at first.

On the positive side though character advancement can be very rewarding, and you'll be almsot drooling in anticpation when you can learn some higher level spells.
Tne voice acting is of high quality an dis actually genuinely intentionally funny at times (why not try the fighter voice who's vocabulary consists of "Waaaaarrrghhh!!" , "Unngg" , "Huh?", and "Yeeaargghh!!")
But perhaps above all it's the atmospherics I loved about the game. The music by Jeremy Soule is possibly the best soundtrack I've heard for game, complementing the visuals pefectly. Whether it's a quietly epic sweeping theme signifying a quest about to begin in Easthaven, or a restrained yet sinister theme in the ettin caves or the heroic yet frightening them in Lower Dorn's Deep, the music can rouse your emotions.

I can recommend Icewind Dale, but just be aware that it has a few flaws.

Riveting story and non-stop action

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: August 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've not played Icewind Dale in a few years, but since I never finished Heart of Winter, nor Icewind Dale II, I just decided to go back and reload them. The first game is 2D, using sprites to represent creatures and PCs with painted backgrounds. While this may sound primitive compared to the full-on 3D games out today, the artwork is beautiful (as are the character portraits), the story is truly engaging, and the action really doesn't let up from start to end. My favorite game genre is RPG, and even though this one puts more emphasis on action over role-playing, it's still up there with the Baldur's Gate series and Planescape: Torment as one of the best fantasy RPGs made.

TOTALLY AMAZING GAME!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: May 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Icewind Dale has to be one of the BEST computer RPG games of all time! It has everything one looks for in such a game; from an incredible setting, to a highly original plot, to excellent multiple roleplaying options, to outstanding graphics, to extraordinary accuracy in relation to Dungeons & Dragons, and much, much more!
There is something here for everyone as the variety of challenges is large indeed, including battles, puzzle solving, and dialogue among others.

The game is set on Toril and specifically in Faerun. It deals with a great evil that has arisen and descended upon the region bringing the people misery and despair.
The story as a whole is excellent! The plot is so incredibly well written and presented that the gamer feels that they have been transported to another plane of existence and are actually present among the characters, seeing what they see, feeling what they feel, sensing what they sense. Moreover, the game does a great job of presenting the distinct cultures and civilizations of the inhabitants/peoples of Fearun, and Icewind Dale in particular. This has, without a doubt, been achieved as a result of a great deal of research that has gone into learning and understanding the numerous and often complex characteristics of the Forgotten Realms world.

Strongly recommended along with the Baldur's Gate series and Planescape: Torment.
Trust me, you will not regret it!

TOTALLY AMAZING GAME!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Icewind Dale has to be one of the BEST computer RPG games of all time! It has everything one looks for in such a game; from an incredible setting, to a highly original plot, to excellent multiple roleplaying options, to outstanding graphics, to extraordinary accuracy in relation to Dungeons & Dragons, and much, much more!
There is something here for everyone as the variety of challenges is large indeed, including battles, puzzle solving, and dialogue among others.

The game is set on Toril and specifically in Faerun. It deals with a great evil that has arisen and descended upon the region bringing the people misery and despair.
The story as a whole is excellent! The plot is so incredibly well written and presented that the gamer feels that they have been transported to another plane of existence and are actually present among the characters, seeing what they see, feeling what they feel, sensing what they sense. Moreover, the game does a great job of presenting the distinct cultures and civilizations of the inhabitants/peoples of Fearun, and Icewind Dale in particular. This has, without a doubt, been achieved as a result of a great deal of research that has gone into learning and understanding the numerous and often complex characteristics of the Forgotten Realms world.

Strongly recommended along with the Baldur's Gate series and Planescape: Torment.
Trust me, you will not regret it!

Grrrrrr-eat!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: June 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is awesome! The battles are so realistic! And the violence...Heh heh heh! I would recommend this game to anyone! It is the greatest role-playing game I've ever played!

Descent

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 9
Date: May 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

After playing threw the entire game, on and off, in three weeks, I can say the game is...descent. I started off with one character thinking it was like my fav Baldur's Gate. But no you don't pick up new party members. So of course I played threw half the game till I hit Chapter three (realizing I couldn't beat the boss of this chapter with only one character (a high lvl ranger). I had to start completely over and make another party and get them ready to import to that boss battle. In a shorter note it would've been nice to have computer characters join your party.

The fact that all of your decisions are useless in dialogs. Nothing really changes the story it only changes the amout of exp that it returns. Aside from my dislikes of the game. I really enjoyed some of the interesting weapons and even if you didn't like the ICewind Dale you should get it with the Heart of Winter set to start with and it will improve your game play immediately...then again...if you haven't played Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 screw this game and get those...excellent pieces of work. Oh yes and the Hearts of Winter game definately had some sound problems that i can't get worked out (it hums very loudly when it loads up..i've no clue what's with it but it looks promising if i get it working)

A great attempt, but....

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: December 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Fails. I've never played baldurs gate. I remember my sister asking to so I asked my dad to play Icewind Dale. He set this up for me and I remember playing to the Vale of Shadows. I stopped about half way through. The most ignorant part about the games is the battles. As you go they get increasingly frequent. I hate haveing to fight a skeleton with 2 hp every other second. As for fighting, the game lacks as it is more of a point and click.

I started playing again from the middle of the Vale, and finally got out of there. I then went to a temple which was alright. After that I realized that I was going to another dungeon type cave. This time, I read a strategy guide to find out that it was about 5 levels of fighting. That's not fun. That is not fun at all. I could respect a short game with few battles, but when I fight battles every other minute just to drag out something... It almost seems meaningless after a while.

Anyways, I stopped playing there and decided to remake my party earlier today. I am enjoying it more, mostly because I know to make really powerful fighters and forget about druids. My druid last game killed about 15 units. My main character killed about 300. This can only tell you that my druid was bad. Fortunately I was able to change him later in the game. Although when I did, I got stuck with a level 1 character who was easily killed off. So yea, don't think because you can change your party means you will be changing later in the game. The feature is useless because by the time you discover just how bad your fighter is, the game will be too hard for you to change.

The game does a great job in voice actors though. The fact that I create my entire party is fine. The graphics could use some work. I get tired and bored of the same old dark environments every other minute. Even the snow seems depressing. Other than that, the game offers repetitive battles and little more. Online play isn't fun at all considering on gamespy there are usually one or 2 games going. Once you do get in the game you will learn that everyone exported characters who fought enemies on easy and had the option "max hp on level up" set.

Here's some advice, go play baldurs gate. My sis, sister is playing it again. She is enjoying it. This game is bland, depressing, and repetitive. Sorry but don't get it unless you wanna blow 5 bucks.

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