Biofiles Continues with Baldur's Gate II

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(Originally posted by Darien)

EUniverse games has posted the first installment of their latest regular feature: Biofiles. The column will be written primarily by James Ohlen, the director of BioWare’s writing and design department. This week the file focuses on the first three chapters of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.

Chapter 1 was the introduction to the game. We set up the backdrop for the story, acquainted the player with the main villain and gave the player his first major goal. We also allowed the player to fill out most of his party slots with NPCs familiar to those who had played the first Baldur’s Gate.

The Good: Chapter 1 had some really interesting puzzles, fun easy battles to ease players into the strategies of higher level combat and a great sense of ambience. However, the best part of chapter 1 was the character interaction. There were some great scenes between the player and his old friends Jaheira, Minsc and Imoen. Jaheira discovering her dead husband Khalid was one of the sadder moments in BG2. Jon Irenicus torturing the player was creepy, and the fight the player witnesses between Irenicus and the Cowled wizards was awe inspiring.

The Bad: In the BG Chronicles poll chapter 1 was the least popular of the chapters. While chapter 1 was linear, that wasn’t really the problem. Chapter 1 was about twice as long as it should have been. If we had cut out the entire second level of Irenicus’ dungeon, the story would have progressed faster. In future games we will probably make it a priority to have faster paced introductions.

Read the verdict on Chapters 2 and 3 here.