 Just when I think I’m out, they suck me back in. Those rotten
developers over at Black Isle have ruined several summer weeks. I, by all rights, should
have been outside enjoying the sunshine, playing Frisbee, or doing whatever it is people
do when the weather is nice, instead I’ve been, once again, hunched in front of a
computer screen tippy-tapping away. Throne of Bhaal, the expansion pack for Baldur’s
Gate II that completes the story of one cunning son of a God, is compelling enough to make
you want to play from the beginning but not good enough to satisfy in the end.  Throne of
Bhaal (TOB) begins immediately after you’ve defeated Irenicus in Baldur’s Gate
II. Unfortunately, several of Bhaal’s offspring, all as powerful as you, have raised
armies and are warring with each other in an attempt to become the new god of murder.
Starting play, you are transported to Bhaal’s inter-planer fortress, now yours, where
a Solar explains what’s new as well as bestowing the ability to return to your new
home anytime you like (an invaluable power). It doesn’t take a genius to see that
you’re going to go out and kill a succession of powerful foes, either to become Bhaal
yourself or to stop them from doing so, all the while coming closer to some grand climax.
While a bit simple, the characters you meet, witty dialogue, and various subplots,
including the absolutely stunning dungeon crawl in Watcher’s Keep, were,
individually, compelling enough to maintain my interest.
 Probably
the most important aspect of TOB is the high levels your characters can achieve. BG II
experience capped out around 2.5 million. TOB lets you go up to 8. That translates into
level 40 for some classes. As the Dungeons and Dragons rules don’t provide many
spells or abilities after level 18, Black Isle has added a host of new goodies to make
those levels worth it. Fighters get Critical Strike, making every hit a critical,
Whirlwind attack, giving them 10 attacks for one round, and Deathblow, a massive hit that
kills anyone 8th level or below. Mages get new spells like Dragon’s Breath
and Wish. Clerics can summon Devas and tougher elementals, while Rogues can set meaner
traps and gain the ability to scribe scrolls. All of this is very exciting, but as TOB
only includes around 40 new hours of play – about 1 level of experience every two
hours – characters level up so fast that you have little time to experiment and enjoy
these new skills.
A variety of improvements have been added to the infinity
engine; the most important, in my opinion, is a feature that automatically optimizes game
play; turning on an off animations and other effects to keep things running smoothly, but
you are still going to need a fast machine to prevent annoying lag. Also, the interface
has been tinkered with. A screen has been added to allow mages to view the details of
their spell triggers and contingencies. Mage-clerics can switch between mage and cleric
spells rather than cycling through all of them. Players can now erase spells from their
spell books as well.
 In
my preview I mentioned the new Wild Mage class – a magic user whose power is often
unpredictable, sometimes being more powerful, sometime less, and which can explode into
completely unintended effects. On first look, I thought this class more a novelty then
anything else. Playing one, however, has made me re-evaluate. The unpredictability of the
class makes routine battles fun and well worth playing. With the experience cap so high,
dual-classing characters – a great idea exploited by many players in BG I and
II– becomes an option well worth looking into. (Combinations like the Kensai-Mage are
devastating.)
 What
will get the most shrieks of glee from hardcore D&D fans are not the high level
characters but some of the most impressive artifacts from D&D lore. You’ll get to
fiddle with the Machine of Lum the Mad, play with a few other odds and ends of enormous
power (no I wont say) as well as fight and kill some of badest monsters from the Monsters
Compendium. Also, my favorite treat in BG II – collecting items and making new
equipment like red dragon scale armor – has been expanded. You’ll spend lots of
time finding bits and pieces to combine into evil-smiting implements of destruction (or
good-smiting depending).
In terms of sound, voice acting is up to the usual
standards and a new score has been written which is, in itself, not very impressive. New
animations and spell effects will not exactly dazzle the eye but look pretty good as do
the new area maps.
 The
final judgment of TOB does not lie in sound, animation, and new skills. For the past
several years, hundreds of thousands have shelled out their allowances, their milk money,
and their McDonald’s wages in order to track this story, and ultimately, unlike first
person shooters or strategy games, that’s the core the Baldur’s Gate series: a
very long interactive story mixing traditions of animation, cinema, and the rhetoric of
computer games. And that story has been satisfying. But with TOB, the rapidity with which
characters gain levels and the game itself wraps up that story leaves me a little cold. I
understand that Black Isle wanted to retire the Infinity engine that powers these titles
and move onto new territory. TOB will be what Baldur’s Gate fans will remember,
though, and this ending is too perfunctory, too quick, and too simple compared to either
BG I, BG II or Planescape: Torment, to really please. Where the Tales of the Sword Coast
(the BG I expansion) added to the existing world, TOB adds and ends. For that to be
effective, I think the last chapter needed to be more complex and detailed. The new
weapons, enemies, battles, and abilities are cool but hollow as they finish out this epic.
Few have claimed that, as of yet, commercial computer games have achieved levels of
artistic excellence comparable with film, music, or literature, but that doesn’t mean
that they wont. With TOB, good as it is, I think an opportunity for that degree of
excellence has been missed.
Matt Blackburn (07/10/2001) |
