Baldur's Gate - Dark Alliance 2 Review (Xbox)
Chris 'limesix' Rediske, 2004-04-06

The first time around, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance had something to prove - hardcore PC gamers saw it as an attempt to trade in on the success of the Baldur's Gate name while producing what amounted to a Diablo clone with little to no real role-playing. The thing was, it turned out to be a pretty good game. True, no one would mistake it for one of Black Isle's (or Bioware's) immersive and complex RPG's, but it was an enjoyable diversion - fairly deep character development, great graphics, a fine story, and lots 'o' killing. It was fun to play, it sold, and after a debut run on the PS2, it was ported to the Xbox, where it also did well.

Which meant that a sequel was inevitable. However, this time out, Black Isle Studios - which published the first game but left the development to rookie studio Snowblind - decided to take on development duties themselves, marking their first real foray into console development. And though it may not be quite as original or quite as compelling as the first time out, Dark Alliance 2 still manages to be a pretty impressive sequel, expanding on the first game while not really fixing anything that wasn't broken.

A new adventure

Dark Alliance 2's story picks up where the cliffhanger of the first game left off - the heroes of Dark Alliance are captured and imprisoned by the vampire prince Mordoc, and it's up to you to save them and the whole land, lalala. It's pretty much standard RPG boilerplate, but if you haven't played the first game, there are references galore to clarify things for you.

There are five new playable characters this time, in addition to the two more that you can unlock by completing the game on various difficulty settings - a human barbarian, dark elf monk, moon elf necromancer, dwarven rogue, and human cleric. Each character has their own specialties, and each has a number of feats that can be improved via leveling up - although in a nice twist, each character also has a unique multi-part quest that, once completed, will add several new feats for you to learn. Although all your abilities are preset, there is easily enough variety (and enough new feats) to allow you to customize your character to your liking - it's quite possible that two players with the same character class could end up with quite different characters by level ten or so. There are a few abilities that feel a bit worthless, but on the whole, the character development system is enjoyable and fairly deep.

My side of the city

As you play the game, your quests will all revolve around the titular city of Baldur's Gate - you can teleport back whenever you're too loaded down with loot, which will be quite often. The city is nicely rendered and bustling with activity, although it's a bit like window-dressing - you can only enter about 5% of the buildings, and the city is quite small compared to the Baldur's Gate of the original classic RPG. However, it's really just a hub to send you on your various adventures. Throughout the game, the difficulty is well balanced, and over the 12-14 hours it'll take you to finish Dark Alliance 2, you'll find yourself amply challenged - especially if you have to take on the final boss with anything but ranged weapons (consider yourself warned).

The story, as implied above, is largely negligible, though it does have a few interesting twists and turns. The action can get a little bit repetitive at points, but it mostly does the job, keeps you motivated for the next quest, and always makes it clear what you're striving for - which is the goal of any good action-RPG. There are also a limited number of side-quests, although they are basically limited to your "here's a place I heard about that has lots of peril and treasure, enter at your own risk" kind of thing. As in the first game, Dark Alliance 2 uses a checkpoint system of saving, and though it always strikes me as a bit out of context, game-wise, to have a floating book on a pedestal every 100 yards or so, the system works fine, and offers just enough challenge to get to the next save point.

Making your weapons work for you

One of the most compelling additions to the first game is the item creation system. Using any item of fine quality or better, you can use a combination of rune stones and gems (of which there are a dozen or better varieties) to power up your weapons, armor, rings, and amulets. Each gem has a different effect - for example, one gem may give your weapon extra fire damage, but when applied to armor, it will protect against fire. You can use multiple gems to make the item even more powerful, but it'll cost you, which is one very nice feature of Dark Alliance 2 - you actually have something to do with your loot. No matter how much gold you may amass, you'll still sometimes be struggling to gather enough to create that +4 Two-handed sword of Doom. You can also break down magical items you find for their component gems. It gives the game a nice extra feeling of character development through your items.

It's the look (and sound) of the thing

Dark Alliance 2 looks and sounds great. Though the engine doesn't seem to be drastically improved from the first game, Black Isle has done a good job with the environments, lighting, and various spell and special attack effects to keep veterans of the original interested. The first Dark Alliance was graphically one of the most impressive games of its time, and the engine is aging gracefully. The sound effects are wonderfully understated and immersive, with the clang and clash of battle and environmental effects all swirling around you. The world feels very handcrafted and immersive, if a bit small, and there's very little to complain about here.

So what do you really think?

In the end, it really comes down to a matter of preferences. Do you like your RPG's with lots of dialogue, non-linear storyline with lots of side-quests, and deep and involving character development? Then you're in the wrong place. Do you like killing anything that moves while building your character to be the most powerful thing in the gameworld? Then you belong here. Black Isle does a fine job with what must now (with the cancellation of Fallout 3) be considered its flagship franchise, improving just enough on the original game to keep fans interested, and creating a fine new experience for the uninitiated. It's a good-looking, action-packed, RPG-lite romp, and it doesn't aspire to be anything more. And that's just fine.