Atari BALDUR'S GATE

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What with better graphics, much better engines and far more intelligent A.I. it was pretty much inevitable that these games (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape, etc) would become eclipsed by their descendents. There's only SO good you can make certain elements of a game though, and Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 are definitely the pinnacle of great writing (although, to be honest, I have spotted several typos throughout the game - perhaps it's to be expected with the literally tens of thousands of lines of dialogue written for these games), great ambience which really immerses you in the storyline and a fantastic music score (especially in Baldur's Gate 2). I bought this compilation pack recently having NEVER played a Baldur's Gate game before. I love RPGs, but I had never played one made before Oblivion, nor had I any experience with Dungeons and Dragons. Having said that however, the game was so damn immersive that I forgot I was playing a game over 10 years old (about 90 "game industry years" old). I can honestly see why Baldur's Gate/2 are regarded as two of the greatest games ever made, as they're two games that have really stood the test of time. However, no game is without its problems, and for a list of potential buyers, here are a couple that you may need to take note of: *You will ->>DEFINITELY<<- need to install some patches for these games, otherwise you may be subject to a large amount of glitches, script errors, NPCs constantly appearing "busy" and a host of other problems. This is somewhat remedied by the fact that it takes literally a couple of minutes and the patches are freely available on the official Bioware website. *I had a real headache getting Tales of the Sword Coast (The BG1 expansion pack) to work alongside BG1 vanilla. Eventually I got it sorted out, but phew, I recommend playing through BG1 vanilla first before installing the expansion pack and NOT installing it halfway through playing Baldur's Gate 1 like I did; it completely messed up my save files. Strongly recommend backing up your save files before attempting to install it, and if you do decide to install it, don't let the "insert disc 6" scare you, that's just the people who made these games not checking them properly before they put them out for retail >_> *In Baldur's Gate 1, you can't pause when you go to the inventory screen. Ever. This may sound like a minor complaint but it really grated on me throughout the game, to the point where I always had to check whether or not I had enough arrows in my quiver, or enough health potions equipped before every battle. Luckily they took this annoying feature out of Baldur's Gate 2, so I guess I'm not the only one it really pissed off. At the end of the day, this game is not without its minor flaws, but its definitely one of the better games of a past gaming era. Easily gets a 9.5/10+ in my book, and I'm sure any RPG fan would absolutely love these masterpieces. Also note that you don't need to have an understanding of D&D to play as the games hide a lot of the complex rules with scripting - although take note that in the case of "Armor Class", lower = better :)

First off, any person who has played a bunch of computer games will tell you this: The amount of fun you have in a game, after say the first day of playing it, is totally irrelevant to the game's graphics. The BG collection is a good example. I too think it is better than the Neverwinter series, for one main reason: BG and especially BGII are extremely open and non-linear. Yes, of course the game has limits, but there are so many optional areas, quests, characters, and items, and more importantly, so many decisions you have to make in each play-through that open some doors and close others, that you can play this game probably ten times in a row and still discover fun new things. Even concepts which seem like game-universe "laws" can be surpassed once you gain enough skill as a player. I'm not talking about cheating. For example, you might think the Cowled Wizards are impossible to resist when they arrest you, right? Nope, not for a creative tactician. Or, you might think that it's impossible to beat the game using just three, two, or even one single character. But it's actually very possible--just more intellectually challenging and rewarding. Most do that with a fighter/mage or fighter/thief, though, to get the maximum number of abilities. But you couldn't do it with a single, lonely armor-less kensai fighter, right? Think again... The great thing about these "implied" challenges, in addition to every other normal challenge in the game, is that even though they are ridiculously difficult, you still don't need a cheat sheet to do them, because since the game contains hundreds of items, spells, and abilities, (access to all of which have a sort of "open this door and shut that one" style) there are still a million different ways to complete even the most difficult challenges. This is why the Baldur's Gate games are huge fun the first time, for the above-average (not great) story, and even more the second and third, to explore all the variations and possibilities within that story. Finally, a note for new players: =============================== The only complaint I would have is that in order to play a Fighter character, you can't just choose one weapon specialization and go with it--you have to have advance knowledge of what weapons exist in order not to be stuck with crappy weapons during critical endgame duels. If you are about to buy this game, let me tell you a few things that will save the need for the cheapening feeling of using a game guide or deciding to reboot your character halfway through: -The one and only great 2-handed sword can only be used by Thieves and Paladins, though it comes early in the game. It is by far the best weapon in the game -There is a good mix of low-to-mid level longswords, but few great ones -There is only one good bastard sword and it comes late in the game -There is only one good battle axe, and it is great, but it comes late in the game -There are a good mix of low-to-high level Halberd weapons -More attacks per round *usually* nets you more total damage than a higher damage per hit weapon, because all the different weapon types do not have a wide spread of damage ranges. I.E, most of the damage you do at a high level does not come from your weapon. -Some liches can only be hit by +4 or higher weapons. -NEVER be a sorcerer for your first playthrough...you will inevitably choose spells that sound good on paper but fall flat in practice...be a wizard instead, you will get more (real-life) experience that way. That's it--all the rest you can figure out yourself, with a little patience and experimentation. Happy adventuring!

UPDATE: Both games now working thanks to the help of Chris Taylor at interplay.com pointing me to the patches available at sorcerers.net Great games, now they are eventually working. Only £3.99, but it doesn't work, and would cost more in postage and petrol to return. There are 4 DVD for BG1 & 2. DVD 1 installs BG1 without problem. DVD 2 installs the TotSC expansion but game then displays message "This version will only run in Canada and the United States!". DVD 3 installs BG2 SoA but game crashes on startup with message "An assertion failed in ChDimm.cpp at line 599. Programmer says: Unable to open BIF:DATA/Hd0GMosc.bif" If you can fix these issues then spend £4 otherwise save your money.

To begin this is a wonderful set of games that everyone should play. However this particular version has some "difficulties" because Atari just sorta shoved it on the disks. In particular this breaks the Bgmain.exe so that it doesn't work because they didn't properly set up the .ini file and it looks for a folder for disk 6, which no longer exists. This keeps you from installing the major mods that merge BG 1+2 into one continuous game, exceedingly popular mods these are very nice to have. And so with out further diversion, I will explain how to fix them. It took me 4 hours and a merger of no less than 6 separate fixes found online to make it work, so I figured I'd save you all the trouble. How to merge Baldur's Gate 4in1 pack on Windows 7 64 Bit, even though everything is terribly broken in the 4in1 pack: (In order to make this work, I had to merge the information of no less than 6 separate fixes....) NOTE: Make sure all installs are custom and set to maximum or full. 1. Install BG1 (Make a new folder on the C drive, NOT in program files or program files x86) 2. Install TOSC 3. Install BG2 (Make a new folder on the C drive separate from the one for BG1, NOT in program files or program files x86) 4. Install TOB 5. REMOVE ALL DISKS 6. Install patches: BGTalesUS5512 BGII-ThroneofBhaal_Patch_26498_ENGLISH BGII-ThroneofBhaal_Patch_26499_BETA 7. Set BGMain.exe in BG II main folder to run as administrator 8. Extract Ascension64-BGT-WeiDU-1.15, copy all of these files into the primary BG II folder. (AKA Baldur's Gate Triology) 9. Perform this: (Left intact to credit the source, thank you Sato, whoever you are, your info fixed what the 4in1 pack truly broke.) ******************************************************************* Reply #16 Original-Sato * * Member No.300,113 * Karma+2 September 16, 2011 6:46:51 AM from GameStop PC Downloads Community Forums here we go: -Open the folder where the game is installed. 1. open the folder "Data" and create 2 folders : "Data" and "Movies" 2. go back to the root-folder of the game -- move all files from the folder "...CD2\Data\" to the newly created "...\Baldurs Gate\Data\Data\" -- move all files from the folder "...CD2\Movies\" to the newly created "...\Baldurs Gate\Data\Movies\" 3. repeat the procedure with the content of CD3,CD4 and CD5 (dont create other folders for these CDs..all must be copied in the same folders as in step 2) 4. delete the folders: CD2->CD5 from the root game-folder. If a window opens up asking to replace a similar file, just ignore it. (some files have duplicates in all original CD folders.) -last step: 1. open the "baldur.ini" file located inside the root game-folder (its the configuration file) - under the section [Alias] make these changes.It should look like this: (replace the highlighted with your installation path and save the file) [Alias] HD0:=D:\32bit (x86)\Baldur's Gate II\ (Neo: This is the location of the main folder) CD1:=D:\32bit (x86)\Baldur's Gate II\data\ (Neo: These are wherever your new data file is) CD2:=D:\32bit (x86)\Baldur's Gate II\data\ CD3:=D:\32bit (x86)\Baldur's Gate II\data\ CD4:=D:\32bit (x86)\Baldur's Gate II\data\ CD5:=D:\32bit (x86)\Baldur's Gate II\data\ CD6:=D:\32bit (x86)\Baldur's Gate II\data\ YES, for some reason a 6th CD is needed ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HAVE FUN WITH THE GAME ---- Awake and Aware ********************************************************************************** 10. Run setup-bgt.exe in the BG II folder, this should be self explanatory 11. Once it is done close it all out and then put the BG II TOB Disk in the drive 12. Run the game from the now working BGMain.exe in the BG II main folder