The end of the road

After 30 years of relative peace, the Goblinoids have united to form an army viler than you can imagine. Ah! I see I have your attention now.

These beasts` intentions are clear. They want to take the Ten Towns of Icewind Dale for themselves. No one is to be spared. One of the towns, Targos, has made the call to adventurers of all shapes and sizes to help it fend off this onslaught. Are you brave enough to answer its call?

Black Isle Studios, the role-playing games division of Interplay Entertainment, has this month released the sequel to the successful Icewind Dale series. The game ships on two CDs and uses a modified version of the BioWare Infinity Engine that was used in such popular games as Baldur`s Gate and Planescape: Torment.

Essentially, the development team took all the good elements of these classic games and updated the engine. Interestingly, Icewind Dale II is the last Black Isle Studios game to use the Infinity Engine. While some might say good riddance, the engine was considered groundbreaking a couple of years ago and will be missed by many loyal fans. However, the engine is starting to show its age in the graphics department and a wholesale change might be a good thing.

This leads to the obvious question of why the developers did not make use of the publicity generated by the new game to introduce a new engine. Rumour has it that they wanted Icewind Dale II to be a tribute and a swansong to the trusty old engine. This was probably a mistake.

While the game is as beautiful as can be expected it cannot compare to new role-playing titles like Dungeon Siege and Neverwinter Nights that feature 3D worlds. While I am a believer in the value of a 2D-engine for a role-playing game, I guess we old-types need to start facing reality and move on with the times.

Having said that, the Black Isle team did well to create an immersive atmosphere by combining environmental sound, music and a beautiful tile-set.

Icewind Dale II is the third Dungeons and Dragons computer game, after Pool of Radiance II and Neverwinter Nights, to feature the new Third Edition rules. While Pool of Radiance II was all but a disaster, Neverwinter Nights succeeded in implementing what to outsiders might seem complex rules into a very enjoyable title. Icewind Dale II also succeeds in bridging the gape between a pen-and-paper-based system and the computer remarkably well.

The manual conveys the key concepts to the uninitiated, while the game itself integrates the essence of the rules so that it runs in the background and does not affect players too much. I won`t go into too much detail about the differences the Third Edition rules have over the Second Edition ones but I will highlight a couple of interesting points.

Firstly, class restrictions are a thing of the past. You can now have a wizard that can wear armour and use a long-sword. Obviously, there will be penalties to spell casting but it is a giant leap forward in terms of playability.

Secondly, multi-class characters have undergone a metamorphosis of note. The player now has the option to have a character of almost any conceivable class combination. It is not unthinkable to have a Fighter/Wizard/Cleric/Thief character. Again, this is designed to improve game play and will add much more enjoyment to the game.

Thirdly, characters can now use a weapon in each hand. There is something to be said for charging into a bunch of goblins with an axe in each hand. Let`s just say that Gimli would have been proud.

Sadly, other than the implementation of the Third Edition rules, Icewind Dale II is still very much a dungeon crawl. You fight some monsters, rest, fight some more monsters, rest ... you get the idea. While this will be right up the alley for most players, it does nothing to promote role-playing gaming to a sceptical audience at best.

Then there are the path finding issues. To put it bluntly, it sucks. Your characters will always split up, the weakest character will always take the longest and most dangerous route to get where you want to go and will always get lost. I can forgive the almost non-stop fighting, but the path-finding problem could easily see the game lose many fans.

The fact that you can create an entire party of six characters and choose all the new classes of Third Edition (Monk is probably the coolest) goes a small way in remedying this problem, but sadly not enough.

I cannot help but feel that the developers lost a golden opportunity with this game. The excellent way in which it implements the new Dungeons and Dragons rules is offset by the dated engine and the terrible path-finding.