How would you rate the D&D games?

Remove all ads!

It might be fun to see which order people would put the D&D games in from best to worst. And it doesn't have to be unmodded, for example, I always use TUTU for Bg1.

Feel free to include old games like Champions of Krynn or Pool of Radiance if you wish.


Here goes:

Planescape: Torment (Quite simply the deepest, best written RPG ever. It is not a game, it is art!)

Baldur''s Gate 1 + TotSC + Baldur's Gate 2 + Throne of Bhaal (I tend to think of it as one long game thanks to TUTU. Awesome story with an insane amount of quality mods, and great NPCs)

Mask of the Betrayer (If you ask me, it is more Neverwinter Nights 3 than an expansion. Amazing job Obsidian!)

Neverwinter Nights 2 (Very well made game, with a very interesting story and great companions. Ending is pretty disappointing, but with MoTB continuing the story it doesn't matter as much.)

Shadows of Undrentide + Hordes of the Underdark (Very good adventure, leagues better than the original NWN. Starts off a little slow, but quickly gains momentum and draws you in. Besides, it has Deekin, one of the best companions ever, in my opinion. )

Icewind Dale + Heart of Winter (Lots of interesting locations, a breathtaking soundtrack, interesting storyline and lots of replay value due to being able to make your own party. Now with the NPC mod it is even better!)

Icewind Dale 2 (Lots more ways to customize your characters thanks to 3rd edition rules, a cool storyline that lets to revisit areas from the original and a NPC mod that makes the game even cooler. Unfortunately it has a couple of areas which I find annoying trudging through on replays such as the Ice Temple or Dragon's Eye. Still, a worthy D&D game, in my opinion.)

Neverwinter Nights 1 (Alright storyline, but the whole "find four items" is a little annoying. That said, I enjoyed the characters such as unlucky Linu, or Aribeth and Aarin Gend a lot. I was happy to have their stories continue in HoTU. The storyline is a little weaker than the other games, I think, but it is still a very good game, by my reckoning. Besides, it has premium modules such as Pirates of the Sword Coast. Nothing is cooler than pirates.)

Temple of Elemental Evil (Adheres very closely to the D&D rules, and is pretty much the closest you'll come to playing "real" D&D on the computer. That said, the storyline is very, very weak compared to the other games, I also thought the Temple itself was a pain to navigate through. I thought it was very cool how the game would start in different ways depending on party alignment, though.)

Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (I'd call it a game, but that would be an overstatement. Playing through it is as enjoyable drinking acid and swallowing a razorblade.)



Now I just want a Ravenloft CRPG and I can die a happy man. Also, I'd like to praise Bioware and Obsidian for sticking with the "real" cosmology, the Great Wheel, rather than that silly 3rd edition Great Tree nonsense.


(Aah, whoops. Sorry for posting in the wrong forum, thanks for moving it. )

 

1. Baldur`s Gate 1-2 - Arguably the best rpg games I have ever played.
2. Planescape Torment - Might give it spot 1 when I finish it.
3. Knights of the old republic 1 - Its star wars, but it uses the d&d rules, and not the SW rpg rules. So technically its d&d.
4. Icewind Dale 1 - Hack and slash, but it has a cool feeling to it.
5. Menzoberranzan - D&d game from the mid 90s. Was quite good.
6. Neverwinter Nights 2 - Mediocre game, and extremely linear. Buggy too.
7. Mask of the Betrayer - Same as above, but with kind of lame NPC`s.
8. Pool of Radiance - very old forgotten realms game. Was fun back in the days though.
9 Neverwinter Nights 1 - A complete and utter disapointment. Its d&d meets Diablo. The game doesn`t even follow the rules to a satisfying degree. 40 XP for killing an orc. 60 for killing a rat..........
10. Temple of Elemental Evil - Fun combat system, but ruined by bugs.
11. - Pool of radiance: ruins of myth drannor - just horrible. Slow and tedious.



There iare a couple of old Ravenloft-games around, by the way. First person stuff. Abit like Might and magic 6. I remember playing one of them. It was HARD. Got ripped to bits by monsters in some misty forest. As it should be in that setting

 

1. Planescape Torment: More than just a game
1. Baldurs Gate, the whole saga: together with PST the best Game ever made, imo
3. Icewind Dale 2: Even though many people don`t, I like the "classic hero" story
4. Icewind Dale
5. Neverwinter Nights + Addons
6. NWN 2 + Addon
7. Temple of the elemental evil
8. Pool of Radiance: RoMD

It may sound strange, but I nearly get tears in my eyes when I am thinking about the countless hours of joy, I had with these games...

 

Just listing the ones I have actually played:

Pool of Radiance (The original, not the coaster that came out a few years back).
Curse of the Azure Bonds.
Neverninder Nights.
D&D heroes (Xbox)
Stone Prophet (Ravenloft)
Menzoberanzen
Secret of the Silver Blades.
BG1 (just couldn't get into it)
BG Dark alliance (X-box)
Demon Stone (X-box)
Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, Coaster of the Year edition.

 

Planescape: Torment - The best game ever. What more need be said?

Baldur's Gate - Has that wonderful hearty-adventuring atmosphere and is a generally great game (TotSC additions aren't that great, however).

BG2 - A decent game, but lacking the feeling that BG1 has. Also becomes very funneled and linear past chapter 2, which is irritating.

ToB - I never managed to finish it, because it's boring.

IWD2 - Was fun for a while, but became tiresome.

PoR2:RoMD - heh.

 

Oh yeah, the KOTOR games are great too, but didn't include them as D&D games.

I also like the Dark Alliance games (I want a third one!) and Demon Stone on the consoles, but that is mostly for the storylines.

 

BG+TotSC - That medieval athmosphere, endless replayability, interesting companions and overall coolness. Personal D&D favourite.

BG II + ToB - Didn't like it as much as the first one, but it's bigger has to have the best magic system ever in a computer game.

BG DA - Didn't enjoy it, but it was ok. Won't give you cancer.

NWN - Some liked it, I didn't. Character creation was fun, after that I usually pressed Alt+F4. No, the expansions didn't seem that interesting to me and I'm too lazy to install mods.

NWN 2 + MotB - Gets quite good after the unbeliveably slow beginning, MotB was especially nice. I would have liked it more with less cartoony graphics however.

IWD + IWD 2 - Erhh... Not my type. Creating your own party is great, but just not as great as BG.

 

Here's my list of oldies:
1. BG2 SoA - no need to elaborate on the obvious.

2. Pools of Darkness - closed the Forgottem Realms series with a bang. There was a good mix of NPC's, monsters and town locations from the preceeding games with new ones like Elminster, Tanari demons, and four(!) overland maps.

3. Dungeon Hack - fun dungeon crawl with high replayable value because of the randomly generated maps. Kill stuff, take loot, power your character up. No plot though.

4. Dark Queen of Krynn - the finale of the Dragonlance series was the first of the old games to actually have music. I will remember it most for the cool monsters (enchanted draconians, five-headed dragon), and the unique underwater battles.

5. Champions of Krynn - being the first game of its series, it's one of those low-level campaigns that challenge you to make the most of your limited resources and abilities.

6. Death Knights of Krynn - I like how they have several optional areas for you to explore on the world map. This was the first game where I actually cared about crushing or cutting damage because the skeletal warriors were tough.

7. Menzoberranzan - First game that I experienced the turn-to-drow storyline and Drizzt, which automatically makes it cool Other than that, the game is too linear, limited monsters (can't even power game because you can't level up too much), linear maps (can't even return to the previous location!) And buggy too.

8. Eye of the Beholder 1,2,3 - I don't remember much about these games. The neatest things were some modified spell effects (Burning hands is actually good!). The puzzles were something different, the mind flayers were nasty.

9. Blood and Magic - not a D&D RPG, but a D&D Warcraft game. I actually played this before Warcraft so I thought it was good at the time. In retrospect, it was painfully slow.

10. Treasure of the Savage Frontier & Gateway of the Savage Frontier - I don't know how these two games fit in with the rest, but when Neverwinter Nights first came out, I thought, "Hey I've been to Neverwinter before!" Not much else was memorable, maybe the final dungeon of the series which had an interesting twist to the combat screen.

11. Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pool of Radiance - Silver Blades was my first D&D RPG so I quite liked it even though it's fairly linear. The other two let you explore wherever you want. Otherwise, these three games (along with the Savage Frontier ones) feel and play the same with nothing remarkable.

 

1. Baldurs Gate 2: Shadows of Amn. One of the finest games ever made.
2. Icewind Dale 2: Not as much an RPG as BG2, but has nice 3E rules and some interesting locations and fights.
3. Baldurs Gate + TotSC: I didnt enjoy this as much as SoA, but its still a very well made game. Lots to do, and I like the fact that most of your time is spent in the wilderness or in small towns.
4. Baldurs Gate 2: ToB: Lacks the open ended structure of SoA, but is a welcome addition to the game because of the high levels one can attain, as well as some of the battles that are fought. Its nice to have an opportunity to use all of that power you were building up in SoA.
5. Neverwinter Nights: Nice graphics engine, with a nice implementation of 3E rules. But a terrible game, uninteresting quests, lack lustre characters, no way to directly control party members, combat feels like its supposed to more like Diablo than Baldurs Gate, lame story.
6. Neverwinter Nights, the first expansion (whatever its called). Never got very far, lost interest for similar reasons to above.

I hope someone makes an IWD or BG with the 4E ruleset. And not an MMO, a proper single player RPG in which the player controls multiple characters and must make tactical combat choices, unlike in NWN.

 

I can't really rate them in real order because some are quite difficult to compare, so I'll just have a list with a brief comment instead.

Planescape Torment. This game forced me to give up my earlier motto that I would never call any game the best game I have ever played. Subsequent playthroughs were not quite the same, but still very good. One of few games that don't fall apart towardst the end - if anything the last sequence is the best in the game.

Baldur's Gate series. I loved the first game for its open format and the ability to go exploring just for exploration's sake, but the story felt a bit weak. SoA had a stronger story and one of the best villains in a CRPG but the linearity was a little irritating. ToB is an adequate conclusion but is far too munchkin for my taste. Overall though the series is way up there.

Icewind Dale. Both are fun games but nothing that screams "amazing!" to me. Very enjoyable and quite fun, if not groundbreaking in any way.

Knights of the Old Republic. Very well done, polished and enjoyable, but frustrating in that it doesn't quite seem to live up to the potential (and certainly not to the hype). The Reveal was far too obvious (guessed it as far back as Taris, was absolutely sure after the first star map), combat is far too unbalanced, the action mini-game is a wall-banger and very little that you do actually has any effect on anything (except for one single dialogue choice). Not a bad game but I was disappointed.

Temple of Elemental Evil. With the exception of an OK story (not really the selling point of the game anyway) and disregarding the incredible number of bugs (most now fixed with the unofficial patch) this tactical combat heaven. Short game but very replayable, with some very interesting choices in the ability to pit the elemental temples against each other.

Pool of Radiance 3D. Probably the worst of the D&D games.

Demon Stone. It's D&D only in name, really - game mechanics have almost nothing to do with D&D and almost all the rules are thrown out the window. Even as an action game it doesn't stand too well, with incredibly repetitive gameplay and horrible camera control (or lack thereof). Good graphics and sounds and adequate story and characterisation do not save the game.

Gold Box tetralogy. These are a mixed bag. Pool of Radiance was a great first try (SSI's first RPG, and the first officially licenced D&D CRPG). Very open format with some interesting quests. Curse of the Azure Bonds had a more interesting story but more linear gameplay. Secret of the Silver Blades is probably the weak link, as it's incredibly linear and purely hack and slash. Pools of Darkness is crazy in scope, with multiple overland maps, one being a sleeping god's body! (incidentally this is the most fascinating and probably best bit of the game) The game's difficulty reaches ridiculous proportions towards the end and is very frustrating because it's made worse with artificial plot devices that add more difficulty when the game doesn't need it. The ending is also one of the worst downers, especially as it's the series' conclusion.

Dragonlance trilogy. These are fun games using the Gold Box engine, generally around the same quality level as the previous series. The last game also abuses artificial difficulty (though not as badly as Pools of Darkness) but makes up for it by having a great underwater sequence (where fire spells won't work, of course, and where Lightning Bolt suddenly becomes your most powerful spell) and a great non-combat encounter with Takhisis.

Savage Frontier. A two-game series using the Gold Box engine. The first game has a very interesting final battle in which you don't need to do any fighting. Aside from this they are unremarkable, and nowhere near the quality of the other 2 series.

Eye of the Beholder. The first game was an excellent first-person RPG and a revelation by Westwood. The emphasis was clearly on puzzle solving and exploration rather than combat (though there was plenty of the latter). The mazes and puzzles were devious, with multiple ways to proceed in the game and the option to defeat the Big Bad without actual fighting. The horrible ending is perhaps the game's greatest weakness. The second game was even better in terms of exploration and puzzles, though it mostly did away with multiple solutions, but it featured a real and very satisfying ending. The third game (done by SSI without Westwood) is not as good as the previous entries, but is still a solid game and can be quite entertaining.

Dark Sun. I love this series and consider it to be in many ways the spiritual predecessor of the IE games. Excellent for the time turn-based combat that could span large areas and took some thinking to go through. Lots of optional subquests in both games. The first one was also very nonlinear, and allowed you to do things in any order except in the first and last part.

Al-Qadim. A "light" RPG using one of the lesser-known D&D settings, this is a fun game but sometimes feels more like an action/adventure game than an RPG. The engine (modified from Dark Sun) doesn't really suit an action/adventure game though, which creates some frustrating difficulties. The story's very good and has a couple of interesting twists to keep it interesting.

Dungeon Hack. As far as I know the only D&D game with entirely randomly generated levels. The game's one big hack and slash extravaganza with nothing to do but kill things, get their treasure and move to the next level. The randomness and the ability to completely cutomize the dungeon somehow make up for it.

Menzoberranzan. This game had huge potential and showed a lot of promise but unfortunately was rather dull. Most of the game takes place in maze-like passages with little to do but kill everything in sight, until you get to the titular city. There the game's linearity becomes glaring, as rather than allow you to muddle in drow politics and create a fascinating intrigue the player is led by the nose to the obligatory Big Final Battle. Disappointing.

That's all the D&D games I've played that I can think of. I'll add more if I remember them.

 

Of the latest D&D games, I have mainly played only those which use the Infinity or Aurora/Electron engines. I have also played some of the gold box games as well as Eye of the Beholder games, but I did not like those.

1. Planescape: Torment
   - A great setting combined with the best roleplaying experience that the IE games have to offer. Arguably one of the best, if not the best CRPG ever.
   
   
2. Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (with Throne of Bhaal expansion pack)
   - Bigger and better in almost every aspect than the prequel. ToB is a bit of a let down though.
   
   
3. Baldur's Gate (with Tales of the Sword Coast expansion pack)
   - Not as polished as the sequel, but still manages to shine more in certain aspects of the game.
   
   
4. Neverwinter Nights 2 (with Mask of the Betrayer expansion pack)
   - This is what the original NWN should have been. Although the game was and still is to some point very buggy.
   
   
5. Icewind Dale (with Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster expansion packs)
   - Would be a lot better if it was not so much focused on combat, with little or no interaction.
   
   
6. Icewind Dale II
   - Very similiar to the prequel, in good and bad, except that this one uses the 3rd edition ruleset. The IE GUI is also horrible in this game.
   
   
7. Neverwinter Nights (with Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark exansion packs)
   - Boring, boring and boring. The expansion packs are somewhat better. 3D in 2002/2003 was not impressive either.

 

I'm going to steal the format from the guy above me. Anyway, there are MANY D&D based titles out there and as such, some are good and some are bad. With the intro out of thy way, here goes.

1. Icewind Dale Series
- It's one of those games that infuses a great story with fantastic, over-the top combat. It's truly the pinnacle of the Infinity Engine and it's last.

2. Baldur's Gate Series
- Well what can I say that hasn't already been said? Great story, decent combat, fantastic character interaction. It's easily one of the best games I've ever played.

3. Knight of the Old Republic
-I really loved this title. It was set in one of my most beloved universes, it had excellent dialog, great combat, and a top-tier story.

4.Ravenloft: Strahds Possession
- This is clearly the odd-ball of the D&D world. I love it though. I love the dark atmosphere, the combat was decent, it had great dialog between you and your party, and the storyline wasn't too bad.

5. Eye of the Beholder
- This is the kind of game everyone who started on Oblivion hates. It has LONG grinding battles, tons of puzzles, and the GUI is a bit in the way, oh and there's no map. It's a great game though, and if you can get past there being no map (drawing one is quite fun, believe me) you'll enjoy the very down-to-Earth barebones D&D experience not seen since the Temple of Elemental Evil.