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A Worthy Companion

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter is the worthy companion to the best selling Icewind Dale role-playing game. The two together have 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.
Don't forget to download Tales of the Luremaster and be transported to a desert (!) setting for a few more encounters (puzzles and hacking and slashing) and some pretty nice treasure!
Strongly recommended along with the Baldur's Gate series and Planescape: Torment.

Amused me somewhat

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: June 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'm not going to talk about the gameplay, linear plot, etc., we all know about that... But here are some aspects of the game I found amusing: The artwork on the new character profiles was excellent and fit very well with the theme of the game-- Very moody with watercolor-like graphics! You get to choose new voices for your characters, and one of the female voices sounds very seductive...some of what she says has double-meanings. Quite naughty! This voice works perfectly with the blonde cleric. It's listed as "HOW-female3",(or is it 2?) Also there's some male voices that actually don't sound dorky. The addition of limited 3rd-edition rules with the expansion is especially cool. With the proper cheat code, you can now create that elven Fighter-Mage-Thief that you always wanted to- with the Sneak Attack ability. Just use the cheat code to give him XP "supplements" so it doesn't take you a year to level up... I've found that with prudent use of the cheat codes and use of certain magic items, you can emulate many 3rd-edition prestige classes. For $$- it's certainly worth the risk. But don't try to play the sountrack during a romantic evening with your significant other-- that's NOT worth the risk!

Not bad at all...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 19, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Icewind Dale is a fun game, and I like the expansion quite a bit. True, it is a hack & slash game without a lot of opportunity for roleplaying, and I would not put it on the same level as any of the Baldur's Gate games, but the storyline is interesting, the items that you can acquire are neat, and just because a game is not real complex doesn't mean it is no good. If you find a good price on this game (probably under 25 dollars), by all means check it out.

Really enhances Icewind Dale! Well worth picking up!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: May 23, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Most expansion sets only give you new characters and some new maps, but Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter actually IMPROVES the gameplay system and interface of Icewind Dale!

How so? Inventory screens are now streamlined and allow you to carry more stuff by giving you scroll and gem bags to keep non-essential items out of your main inventory. The interface is great in that you can maximize your viewing screen by using BGII-style hot keys to drop away unnecessary status panels. More areas have been added as well as some tweaking of the AD&D rules and some more spells! If you want to max out your party's experience, you can configure the mode that allows you to score max experience at the expense of dealing with some really tough enemy AI.

What's cool is numerous ways you can start a game in the Heart of Winter universe. Installing the add on, you can enhance your current in-progress Icewind Dale game that you're still playing and immediately jump to HOW at the conclusion. Doing this gives you the benefits of the HOW enhancements while still playing the first game. You can opt to import your previous party ifyou've already beaten IWD and start right at the HOW story, or you can use your existing game and access HOW through the locked door in Kuldehar. Pretty cool, but in any event you'll need the first IWD game to use this! Not a standalone product!

Great game and well worth picking up. I happen to think IWD was the better of the BG series of games thanks to the heavy combat and minimal exploration. HOW will keep you busy until IWD II comes out very soon!

This is an awesome game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: March 07, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I loved the game. However, it is a *MUST* that you play this before you play Baldur's Gate 2. The storyline is very linear and guided compared to BG2, so you will be disappointed compared to that. The best part about this add-on is that you get a free expansion to go with the expansion - you just need to download it off of Fileplanet (Tales of the Luremaster) and you'll be all set.

The Ice gods are cutting through my constitution!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 18
Date: December 28, 2001
Author: Amazon User

If you play this game(Icewind Dale) as well as Heart of Winter you may forget 'important' things like eating, sleeping and laundry. You may start hating your lousy job even more than you already do. This expansion adds a new town on the map, Lonlywood and many new locales. Your characters can become more powerful. In the case of Paladins and Rangers, they get spells early on and extra special abilities. Rangers get tracking but can only do it once per day(regardless of level) Wis of 18 can gain a lot of info but the day is long and you can only use it once. Don't use tracking in a smaller dungeon or outside towne unless you plan to rest up for a while(24 hours) Druids can attain the highest levels and can be the most powerful of characters. If you have a Paladin don't use a druid, or you'll have a morale failure. Druids can only be Neutral. If you have too high a reputaion your Druid gets weak(he thinks your a goody-two-shoes). Too low and the Paladin gets weak(er) anything above 16 will raise your Paladin's morale but lower your Druid. You never see this in IWD or HoW but it's there. There is a rep to maintain just like Baldur's Gate. Fallen Paladin's are no fun. They are weak fighters(not Wheapon Grande Masters) with no powers. For Roll play they are great though! In order to prosper in this game, a paladin(fallen or not) must have 18/00 strength, 18 charisma and 18 constitution and no less. Wisdom is somewhat important too, but not very.(that is only -my- opinion. play it your own way.) 18/00 STR gives him nearly the bonuses of a Grande Master Fighter at 18/99. And as for charm everyone gets morale boosts if he leads the party(with no druid). Elves make(in my humble opinion) the best Rangers, not half elves, they get a bounus to thier bows and swords and can attain +3 in misile attack(and reflex) because of dexterity of 19. Like I said in the IWD review, don't let any one tell you how to play. I can't stand most D&D players as they DO tell you how to play. Usually they say half elven rangers or else. But Half elves don't have dex bonuses nor do they have sword and bow bonuses. Who cares about constitution, they attack from a distance anyway. Elves are -perfect- shots with a bow! What a shame they aren't used to thier full potential(Legolos of Lord of the Rings style) Half elves are humans with some resistance. Bah! Elven mages gain nothing over human mages, no AC, just a reflex. +3(see tables) and cannot use a bow OR a sword! Haflings get sling bonuses bringing starting(thief lvl 1)THAC0 to 15 and make excellent theives and rear attackers but lousy fighters.
This is a great game and the expansion is good enough for me. There is also a free download with some new areas released by Bioware themselves. They must care about thier customers to do that! I am really impressed!
P. S. don't be afraid to use thieves in your Paladin party, they do much more than steal!

More of the same

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: November 27, 2001
Author: Amazon User

When it comes down to it, Heart of Winter is just a bit more of the same of Icewind Dale. It is about 1/3 as long as the original IceWind Dale. A lot of reviewers are saying that is too short. However, seeing as how the plots of Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter are kind of weak anyway, I don't see that as a big loss.

What few new features there are supposed to be didnt' really add much, in my opinion. The new weapons and new spells don't seem to do much that the weapons and spells in Icewind Dale didn't do. The best part about the game, I thought, was the final battle. I found it to be more challenging than anything in the original Icewind Dale.

Whether to buy this game depends upon whether you think that the price is low enough to pay for it.

Not As Bad as Most People Think

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: November 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Yes, as most reviewers have noted, Heart of Winter isn't a very long game (though it's not as brief as some would make it out to be). And, yes, for those who bought this title when it first came out and paid the full sticker price (30+ bucks), I can understand the frustration voiced by so many gamers.

Now, however, about a year after Heart of Winter first appeared, the price has dropped to bargain bin status: I bought HoW at my local mall for ten bucks! For this price, HoW doesn't disappoint. The game is on the shorter side, but I'd say it's the equivalent of 1 1/2 levels from the original Icewind Dale. Or, for those who prefer to measure their games in hours, HoW took me exactly one week to finish, approximately 20 hours. Those who have already played Baldur's Gate II will be familiar to the additions found in HoW: higher resolution, drop-away interface, gem bags, potion bags, scroll cases. There are some new enemies, new spells, and a final battle that is fairly challenging.

Lastly, most Icewind Dale fans know that for those who own Heart of Winter there is a free downloadable expansion, Trials of the Luremaster, which adds another 15+ hours of gameplay. In other words, the time to buy the Icewind Dale expansion is now: you'll essentially receive 30-40 hours of gameplay for (in my case) ten dollars or so. You can't beat that!

As for the game itself, HoW is mostly enjoyable. The enemies, overall, are much tougher, so you won't be able to mow through them like you did throughout Icewind Dale. Also, although you need 9th level characters or higher to play the expansion, I recommend not playing HoW until your characters have hit the maximum hit point level allowed by the original (1,800,000). My only complaint about HoW is that it's really linear. Sure, Icewind Dale was linear, too, but HoW forces you to literally trudge forward along, say, an icy cave path and smite the hordes of baddies that pop up (and there are a lot of them). And because the enemies are significantly tougher than most of the creatures in ID, the expansion at times can seem tedious: you feel as if you're logging in tiresome hours at the keyboard rather than enjoyable hours.

Still, for those who didn't satisfy their crave at the end of Icewind Dale, Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster should provide a decent fix.

Boring.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: November 05, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I bought this expansion with high expectations, as I enjoyed Icewind Dale better than either Baldur's Gate of Baldur's Gate II. However, it did not live up. The areas are just plain boring - there is one area where there is only ONE ENEMY that you fight, and the rest aren't much better. Also, be prepared for LOOOONG sequences of dialogue with barbarians... again, not my idea of an ideal game. Fortunately, Black Isle released Trials of the Lurmaster as a free download for HoW owners (...), so that at least means it gets a three. Other than that, the higher level cap and even Heart of Fury mode (which does little more than make battles extremely tedious ) do little to make up for a mediocer experience.

What Level Am I?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 26, 2001
Author: Amazon User

All I can say is the game is really(2x) great its interesting and very, very exciting. But I guess the game is too short for the players to reach their maximum level of 30, you could finish the game without even getting close to it. Please try to work on this...Thanks.

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