As you might expect, it will take a long, long time to answer this question. Baldur's Gate II is the epic of epics, a game that players with social lives beyond ICQ will live with for months. Seasons will change before the average person will get close to the grand finale. Even if you make a direct beeline to the end, you'll still enjoy a good 150 or 200 hours of play. Take the time to smell the roses and you're apt to be needing some Grecian Formula by the time you file the jewel case away.
Unlike the first game, this is a good thing. Where Baldur's Gate meandered at times, losing track of the main plot in favor of dull Fed Ex sidequests that seemed to involve an endless number of kobolds and gnolls, its sequel is far more focused. Events unfold with a purpose from the very beginning. Tasks are continually set before the party. The entire saga unfolds at a nice pace where you never feel as if you've abandoned the main goals. That's in contrast to the original, where the search for your foster father's murderer would be set aside for days (real time) as you cleared monsters from every single map to accumulate the experience points needed to truly advance the story. At the same time, the main events don't take place as if the story were on rails. Subquests remain a major part of the experience, but this time they're all better tied to the quest to find out who Irenicus is and what he wants. That's never far from your mind, whether you're infiltrating a thieving guild, plumbing the depths of a Drow city in the Underdark, or staking a few refugees from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
This sense of purpose, which was all but completely absent from the first game and its Tales of the Sword Coast expansion pack, makes a world of difference. Where Baldur's Gate left me bored to tears with endless dungeon and forest crawls that might have been subtitled “The Quest for Experience Points,” this sequel held me captivated for untold hours. I skipped appointments, favorite TV shows, hockey games, dinner with friends, movies, meals, and yes, even “romantic” moments with my fiancée just to finish one more adventure. Much of the credit for this has to go to the well-scripted main plot arc, but some must go to the vastly improved quests themselves. A sense of import has been added to everything that you're asked to do this time around. There is no more fetching dog toys or wine bottles; you're playing in the big leagues now, regularly battling powerful slaving rings, obscenely tough mind flayers, drow mages who could give Elminster a run for his gold pieces, and even the odd dragon or two. Where before you were handling dinky little tasks that wouldn't have been the talk of villages, you're now occupying your time with Herculean labors that are the stuff of legends. Let's face it: Nobody gave a damn about how you cleared the kobolds out of the Nashkel Mines. Bards will make up songs about how you stormed into Sahuagin City.
