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Fatally Bugged

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 19
Date: November 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I had a lot of fun with this game until close to the end. At the end of Chapter 5, the game forced me to enter a dungeon, and denied me the ability to exit until all monsters had been killed. Problem is, once I killed all the monsters, the door would not unlock. I spent hours of real time looking for the last monster, only to find myself hopelessly trapped in a deserted dungeon. I even tried putting my whole party on aggressive scripts in hopes they would see something I did not. I posted this issue to the official Interplay forums, only to have the problem all but ignored. The only response I got was from another user, who suggested I "keep looking" for the last monster. I replayed the scenario a good 6-8 times, with the same results each time. I am not the only player who has experienced this show-stopping bug, either. I expected more from Black Isle, given the high quality of their earlier games. This one has been deleted and will not be replayed.

just saying 1 start at the mo coz it aint out

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 31
Date: August 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

who ever posted the message above that said this is a prequel is wrong its a sequel that takes place 30 years after the original game that why you cant import your iwd characters. as for the other poster who said neverwinter nights seems better, well they are two drastically different games

Graphics like it's 1995...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 14
Date: March 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

While this game is a critically acclaimed RPG for its gameplay it fails to meet minimum graphics standards. This has to be one of the ugliest games I have ever played, despite the fact that 2002 (Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind, Arx Fatalis)was a strong year graphically for many great RPGs. Why settle for Icewind Dale II when you can get so much more for the same price?

Note to game designers: RPG stands for Role Playing Game!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: July 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is just like Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel in that they both have absolutely no story and no real Role to Play. If you like mass combat with no reasoning or brain hurting dialogue (in other words you use the phrase GROG SMASH! more than twice a day) you will love this game. If you want storyline and such, might I direct you to Planescape Torment, Fallout, Fallout 2, or even (shrudder) Baldur's Gate 2 instead. You'll thank me later.

I can't believe Black Isle made such a motarded game...

Marred by incessant cheese and stupid puzzles

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 92 / 118
Date: September 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

On the surface, this game is basically similar to Baldur's Gate, BG II, Icewind Dale, and Planescape Torment: a Dungeons & Dragons game focusing on a six-member party of adventurers. Unlike its predecessors, it incorporates the 3rd edition D&D rules, which simplify gameplay and add some options for customizing your characters' abilities as they go up in level. The 3rd edition rules work well here, and are an improvement over the previous games.

Unfortunately, very much is wrong. The first Icewind Dale was a simple, combat-oriented game--you just hacked your way from one obvious location to another. This sequel has that element also, but has two glaring flaws. First, the game is cheesy. By this, I mean that monsters teleport to attack you from behind and the game prevents you from saving at numerous critical points--there are several multi-part battles where you can't save, and a misstep means you start the battle over from scratch.

The second flaw is the focus on puzzle dungeons. By this, I mean areas where you can't kill a monster unless you pull a series of levers in the right order and maps where going east puts you northwest of your previous location, and you can flail about endlessly unless one of your characters has an otherwise useless ability (Wilderness Lore). Chapter 5 of the game (out of 6 chapters) is one big puzzle--and grotesquely annoying--dungeon, where you have to perform each step in a specific sequence--a sequence that is never revealed to you by the game. (Even then, the problem is not that the puzzles are hard--they aren't--it's that they are so numerous and so ridiculous. What kind of a ... villain would build all these puzzles in the first place?) There are parts of this game that play more like Tomb Raider than D&D and, while I like Tomb Raider in its own genre, puzzle dungeons are more annoying than anything in a D&D game.

A lesser flaw is the weakness of the story--the two enemies are simple bogeymen. There is a part of the story which is, I guess, supposed to make you feel sorry for them, but the shades of morality here are far from grey. The enemies simply have no personality, just lots (and lots) of spell effects they can summon instantly (bringing us back to the cheese problem).

I consider myself a fairly hard-core player of D&D games on the PC. I can't recommend this game to even players like me; for anyone just starting out in this type of game, stay far, far away. Pick up Baldur's Gate or Baldur's Gate II if you want a pleasant introduction to D&D on the computer.

If this is a good game, I'd hate to see a bad one

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 33 / 41
Date: October 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

If you never have played a computer RPG based on the Infinity engine, you might get the idea that Icewind Dale II is a great game. The trouble is that the Baldur's Gate series of games have revealed just how much fun a computer RPG can be. Next to them, Icewind Dale II is a cross between a marathon and a bore. I played the game at standard level; it can be played at more difficult levels, and that may make the game more fun -- but I doubt it.

The pros:
1. Just about any D&D RPG is fun for me, so I had some fun with this one.

The cons:
1. Linear plot: This game has such a linear plot that it makes the old SSI "Gold Box" D&D games brilliantly complex by comparison. Basically, the game is nothing more than an endless series of battles that must be approached in linear fashion. It's not simply that you can't win a later battle until your characters have reached a high enough level; nearly all of the time "you can't get there from here" except by fighting through the series of battles, one after the other, in the order planned by the programmers. Many of the screens literally consist of trails that must be followed without branching in any way. You can't outmaneuver the enemy; you simply march up the trail until the battle starts. Duh.

2. Lack of strategy: I found very few battles where any strategy is needed. In the Baldur's Gate games different battles required different tactics: some required a rapid rush of the enemy, while others required a rapid retreat to draw enemies after you one by one; some required your party kept together, while others required the party separated; still others required you to have exactly the right magic spell or combination of spells to win. In ID II the inevitable tactic is cast Improved Haste on the party and then make a mass charge. At least 90% of the spells are basically useless. The battles require a lot less thinking and planning than the battles in the Baldur's Gate series; in my opinion they require a lot less strategy than the battles in the old Gold Box SSI games. Just cast Improved Haste and charge. Duh.

3. Lack of artifacts: For the first two-thirds of the game, you're really starved for good weapons. Then, suddenly, you can simply purchase +4 magical weapons by the bushel. The seeking of important weapons, or parts of them, is probably the best way to create "side quests" that actually have meaning in a game. In this game, you just save your money until you get to where you can buy good stuff. And if that's not good enough, in the next place you can buy or pick up +5 stuff all over the place. Duh.

4. Lack of interesting characters: The Baldur's Gate games required you to build a party of characters from creatures you encountered in the game. These characters had personalities: some were half-crazy, some bickered with each other, some I wanted to strangle by the time I was done with them -- but most were a lot of fun in one way or the other. Since you create your entire party in ID II, your characters have no personality, do not interact with each other, and are no fun. Duh.

5. Bugs: They never fixed the AI problem in the Infinity engine that has your characters bump into each other and then start running in large circles trying to get from here to there. When any logic demands a party keep together unless told to separate, in this game it's typical to have your party separate in spite of your best efforts and have some characters walk into fatal traps off-screen. Duh.

6. D&D Third Edition: D&D First Edition was more than complex enough. But they couldn't keep selling books unless they changed things. So they invented Second Edition, then Third Edition. Each time the rules got even more ridiculously complex. ID II uses D&D Third Editiion rules. There are all kinds of things to do in player creation and promotion that make ID II complex but have little effect on the outcome of the game. Duh.

7. Cheesy, cheesy: In the Baldur's Gate games, every spell had a counter-spell, and there was a table in the instruction manual to tell you what countered what. In this one, if the enemy casts Improved Invisibility, I don't think there is any opposing spell that works. Also, you are supposed to be able to hit someone under Improved Invisibilty once that enemy attacks, but the game would not allow me to do so. Apparently, you are simply supposed to stand there and watch an invisible enemy kill you. Duh.

8. The final battle: The end of this game is the most offensive anticlimax I have ever seen in any RPG game.

Should you buy this game? If you enjoy D&D games, you should enjoy it. But it is in no way to be compared with the Baldur's Gate series. Baldur's Gate II was 5 stars; I give this one 2.

Sadly Mediocre

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 10 / 19
Date: December 19, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game mostly because of the great reviews it got. Sadly, this was for naught. The second I turned on the game it seemed exactly like Icewind Dale I, but without all the extremely fun battles. Firstly, you have to create your entire party. To some this might be fun, but to me it isn't. This is mainly becuase the game takes away any party interaction. You have to move through the game with the same six boring characters, that to me seem more like zombies that people. In Baldurs Gate and Torment your characters talked to each other and had emotions. In the case of IWII, this is taken away. Your characters never talk and simply walk around slaughtering enemies. That's it for the characters. Secondly, the storyline is weak and extremely linear. The voice acting is badly done and at times the dialogue sounds like something out of a bad kung-fu movie. You are continously given menial taks like fetching items or something. When you are told to do something important it sounds like this, "I am afraid so go ahead and kill everyone while I am hiding away in my fortress." Moreover, the enemies are just not realsitic. They never seem really evil, like Irenicus from BGII. They just walk around developing plans for revenge and then become so powerful you have to reload a million times before you can kill them. The enemies altogether are just not placed at the right level. I eventually had to export and reimport all my characters and start a new game so I could move forward. At times, the game lacks logic. You have to pull levers in a special order to get a key. It osunds like those Indiana Jones or Tomb Raiders, rather than RPGs. AT times, the enemies are too powerfl or there are too many. The 3rd Edition rules are the worst part. You only have so little points and your characters are either too weak or too powerful. The dual-classing option is now available to everyone, and so no one plays the ever so powerful half-elf. Also, the paladins and monks are now too weak and no one plays them anymore either. The sotryline is also as I said linear. You have to move forward and there is nothing to do rather than Kill, Kill, KILL. There is nothing worse to do in the world. I would at least have expected better graphics. They are the same as in BGII, but those graphics suited real RPGs. If they fixed the graphics, it would at least fill the game better. To finish, I wouldn't recommend this game. The only reason I gave this game 2 stars is because I at least had an hour or so of fun. Then it just got awful and I just stopped playing.

A Bit of a Disappointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: November 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game may be made by most of the creators of the Baldur's Gate series, however, while the game interface may appear to be much the same, the story level certainly isn't.

You completely create your full party (up to six characters), adding all of their feats and voices. Although it is possible that in Baldur's Gate you couldn't really fit your NPCs into your dream party, their vivid personalities clearly shone through and they bantered frequently. The player, in Baldur's Gate, was able to develop one character through a set of choices and actions. In IWD2, however, your characters seem to have as much depth as the goblins that they are killing. A handful of the NPCs have some interesting personalities, yet the ratio of hostile creatures/people to unhostile creatures/people is at least 10:1, meaning that you'll be engaged in a lot more killing and violence than dialogue and intrigue. The combat system is the same as in the BG series, which may come as a relief to some. However, the battles are much more difficult to the point of the game losing its fun. The experience, I felt, was slightly screwed up, as at times you would be fighting creatures that give perhaps 75 XP each. Then suddenly a crystal golem (uses the ice golem model) runs along and (eventually) gets killed by your party members, giving 4000 XP. The plotline itself seems to be lacking the depth of the Baldur's Gate series, with any other serious plot than a horde of goblins attempting to destroy the Ten Towns only appearing in the second to last chapter. Even then I felt the plot still had several holes even at the end.
I have to say that the new races and spells gave flavor that even Baldur's Gate did not have, and yet there is not one area, interior or exterior, that was designed so that the character would not have to travel through it. In other words, the creators did not create any more areas than they had to. In Baldur's Gate there were such areas as Durlag's Tower, the D'Arnise Castle, and Watcher's keep, each with a great deal of flavor and subplot. The only quests that do not directly pertain to the plotline can usually be solved in about five minutes or less.
It seems to me that the Baldur's Gate series was directed to be more like a book, such as The Lord of the Rings (except for the novelazations.... ugh) while Icewind Dale 2 was geared to be more like Diablo 2. If you enjoyed that game, then perhaps you shall enjoy IWD2. I, for one, would not reccomend it, however.

A great disappointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 11
Date: June 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Firstly, I have been a big fan of the aurora engine for PC based RPG games. I loved BG 1 and 2 plus the first IWD but the sequal to which I found, to be honest, awful. I was raised with the 2nd edition rule set and I have never played the 3rd (with the exception of NWN) but the fact that this game is based on the newer set of rules didn't bother me much. It's a computer game after all, the exact mechanics of the system I dont have to understand. The thing that did bother me about this game is the fact that it was one big battle after another. Your commanders send you on endless suicide runs. It got to the point where I could simply leave my game runing for an hour or two while my chacters could hack and slash their way through the tide of randomly spawned criters.

It got boring really fast. Not too mention difficult as well. The really sad part was, when I read the general plot outline, I was enthusiastic. I have always wanted to see what would happen if the Orc races banned together in an army and attempted to invade. But, when you and your 5 companions are the only ones on the front lines against an army... this is the point where (in pen and paper RPG's) that I tell the fellow who is hiring me to shove it!

An Awful Waste of Time

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 10
Date: October 24, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Truly, this is an awful game. I have always played RPGs and this one takes the cake as the worst oneo of all time, even worse than the tedious Diablo. The entire game is a knockoff of the original. If you thought you ever heard an awful backstory, just listen to this one: A horde of goblins are attacking(duh!) and you are the only one who can save the world. That is the whole gist of it. The remaindr of the game revolves around you walking around, talking, and killing. The thing that desturbed me the most was seeing this game compared to the classic BGII. The games are nothing alike. In the BG series, the game was just fun to play. The charachters in your group were actual people, not just mindless henchmen. They had personalities, minds and opinions. They were also higher level and much more colorful. But all of that is gone in this game. Here you are forced to create a six person party using the 3rd ADD rules. No more dies, but the point system is even more difficult to keep track of. The charachters all start as absolute weaklings, spineless level 1 charachters. Unless you play at the Heart of Fury mode, you can find absolutely no good items. About halway through the game, I only had one good sword. Referring to the charachters they are awful. A goblin can take out your mage in one hit, after three hits the most fearsome of fighters fall. And the fighting is so rediculus. Charge up, tryh not to use spells, and hope that you don't die. No strategy needed. And get ready to hit the reload button often. Every minute or so a charchter dies and you have no way to ressurect them. There is absolutely no way to circumvent the annoying battles. You can't even flank them, ust follow the road( sound like Diablo to anyone?) It too all the best parts of Bioware classics and ruined them. My advice is to never buy this pile of [junk]. Me, I think the worst mistake of the year was buying this awful game. Unless you want to go insanse, don't buy this and you'll thank me later.

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