Developer: Black Isle Studios
Publisher: Interplay
Waking up without any past memories and finding yourself in some godforsaken dungeon has almost become a role-playing game cliché, yet Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn manages to make it quite a compelling beginning to what promises to be one intense adventure. From the very first moments of the game, Baldur's Gate II invokes a real sense of foreboding and danger as it is made very clear that sinister and ominous forces are behind something truly evil!
While this same type of beginning was used with Interplay's Planescape: Torment, the main character in Baldur's Gate II is clearly a mortal man or woman and therefore in much greater danger. This opening, which has appeared a little too often, remains more interesting than the "other" standard beginning for an RPG where a few characters meet up in a pub – although that beginning was appropriate for Interplay's other recent RPG, Icewind Dale.
The other big difference between Baldur's Gate II and either Planescape or Icewind Dale is that this latest title is truly a sequel to the first Baldur's Gate game. Thus, players begin with a reasonably high-level character for whatever class they choose. The storyline also picks up pretty much sometime after the events in the original game, but the key is that the player doesn't exactly know how he/she has managed to end up as prisoner in the dungeons under the city of Athkatla.
Fortunately, old friends from the first game also happen to be imprisoned and immediately start to fill in details – not that they remember everything fully however. Players are joined by the likes of Imoen, Jaheira and Minsc, while other prisoners and wanderers are around and might be convinced to join the party. The different characters help flesh out a well-balanced party so players should freely be able to choose any character type of their likening. In fact a few new character types have been added into the mix including assassin and undead hunter – just two that might come in very handy in this setting.
