Icewind Dale

Title: Icewind Dale
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: June 29, 2000
Date Played: 
Time Played: 
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5


Opinion:
I was months deep into Diablo 2 and talking to some friends during weightlifting class in High School when one of them said.. "Diablo 2 sucks... you should play Icewind Dale, or Baldurs Gate 2, they are way better."  And a few days later he let me borrow his copies.
When I got home I installed Baldur's Gate 2, but disliked it due to feeling extremely slow compared to Diablo 2's fast action.  Not only did combat feel a lot more methodical, but there was way more reading than I cared to do at the time. The next day I told him about my experience, and he said that I should try Icewind Dale, it is more action oriented than Baldur's Gate.  And so that night I sat down  to play Icewind Dale.

My impressions of Icewind Dale were that it was a mix between Baldurs Gate and Diablo.  It was as my friend said more action oriented, but was still much slower than Diablo 2, and had a decent amount of reading.  But the combat was more frequent than in Baldur's Gate and less strategic, which was a good thing. I loved the experience I had with Diablo 2 and simply wanted more of it.

The game starts with the you joining an expedition to the town of Kuldahar, which has recently sent word of strange happenings. On the way there sh#t hits the fan and the entire expedition (except for your party) is wiped out.  You push for the town. Once there after receiving additional information you embark on a journey to find out whats causing all the trouble. Icewind Dale picks up pace pretty quickly and stays consistently interesting.  For the most part the dialogue serves to set the scene, and for those not into reading can be easily clicked through; however it is very well written and I would advice against doing so. What kept me interested in Icewind Dale is the story and character interactions.  On one hand I hated having to manage 6 characters at the same time.  But the interactions between them, their unique personalities and abilities is what made the game so interesting.

There were a couple of things that I didnt like at all.  The game uses Dungeons and Dragons 2.0 system for its back-end, and as such some of the conventions made no sense. For example armor value, instead of higher is better was lower is better because the numbers represent penalty. I didn't really like hundreds if not thousands of items littered all over the world with zero purpose, other than clutter that is. Rings with no stats, twigs with little damage, and also clones of the same item repeating in large quantities.  All of this was slightly underwhelming after seeing thousands of unique items fall from slain enemies in Diablo 2.

I wouldn't play Icewind Dale for its mechanics or graphics. I would however recommend it for good writing and interesting story. If you want something mindless, this game is not for you. But if you want an RPG with good writing then I'd say give it a shot.