Review NaN of 9
, from TX
Price Paid:
$5.00
from (rental) Hastings Summary:
Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance
Finally, an RPG for the Gamecube. Lost Kingdoms and Gauntlet: Dark Legacy aside, there are no well-known RPGs for the Gamecube (none that come to mind, at least). But alas, gamecubers, we finally have another RPG: little brother of the highly acclaimed Baldur’s Gate for the PC, Snowblind Studios’ Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance. My five day rental from Hastings (if that gives you any idea about the length of the game, I beat it in the better part of five days) would determine whether this game would join LK and Gauntlet in the Gamecube hall of fame or the coffee grounds and wet Kleenexes in my trash can.
The game starts simply enough: a man/woman (an archer, fighter, or sorceress, whichever you choose in the beginning) returning from a long journey is assaulted by a trio of crooks. They take your belongings and your money, before quickly fleeing to the sewers. As you hunt the criminals down, the plot unfolds and you see that these thieves (part of a new, more vicious thieves’ guild than that of old) are indeed just small roots branching off the large, expansive taproot of, dare I say it, “evil.” This plot has been, how do I say it, thoroughly used, but it still gets the job done. As you work (I could have used a more exciting verb here, like slash, or even dive, but I found ‘work’ to be appropriate for the style of gameplay) your way through all this treachery and peril, you gain levels, pick up cool, new weapons, and learn awesome new skills, in regular RPG (role playing game for you non-nerds out there) fashion.
But alas, gaining levels, picking up cool weapons, and learning new skills was not quite enough to keep me satisfied throughout the game. The enemies that gave me experience points were cool, and levels were very well designed, but shooting and slicing enemy after endless enemy just became boring after a while. In all actuality, I only played half the game before I became truly bored; it took me five hours. That’s right, folks, if you’re even a decent gamer, such as myself, beating this game on the medium difficulty setting should take you somewhere around ten hours. This is an RPG, boys and gals. Many medium-sized RPGs will take about twenty hours to complete. This one took ten.
Maybe, just maybe, it was a good thing that they cut the game off so soon. None of the levels were particularly memorable, and after throwing enemy after enemy at you, the game really loses its spark, and it becomes monotonous and time-consuming (not too much time though), after you kill over seventy of the same monster. I do not lie, folks, I went back through each level and counted my slain adversaries that lay slumped against walls or that lie crumpled on cobblestone floors. In more than ten of maybe (this is a total guess) twenty levels, I counted more than seventy dead bodies littering the ground (this isn’t totally a bad thing, though). This also means that bodies don’t disappear, but instead stay in place where they died, which is a plus, as many games choose to receive lower ratings from the ESRB and erase dead bodies from the battlefield as soon as they hit the ground.
Anyway, even though the game does slightly vary the creatures that attack you, it still gets boring killing things over and over again. But hey; it’s an RPG. I think a good solution for breaking this wall of monotony would be to put far less monsters in each level, but instead make each one more powerful. Or even better, let the player possess some of the cool monsters in this game, and kill some baddies through the eyes of an ogre.
And that brings me to my next subject of discussion: the monsters in BGDA. These baddies are truly fascinating, memorable, but most of all, fun to kill (to a point at least). From the lowly sewer rats (which are large to say the least), to the majestic, frost-spitting wolves of the Arctic, every creature is well-designed and is also a feast for the eyes.
And the rest of the game is, as well. Whatever the situation, BGDA provides awesome graphics and highly defined eye-candy. At one point in the game, as I stepped into an ice cavern made completely of ice (repetitive as that sounds), I could see my character’s reflection and tiny, watery ice crystals in every pixel of the cavern. Every color from crystal blue to deep, amethyst purple was represented beautifully in the cavern; it was truly breathtaking. This is just one example of the beauty of BGDA; every screen of this game was pure, unadulterated eye-candy. The game’s wonderful lighting also attributes to its beauty. Whether I was trekking through morbid dungeons or mysterious swampland, the path was lighted beautifully, while keeping each level’s mysterious feel. Character animations are also up to par; they’re very simple, but fluid at the same time.
I wish I could speak the same of the game’s framerate. Many times during the ladder levels, which are oftentimes larger, huge framerate dips would occur and gameplay would freeze up for seconds at a time. This wasn’t just a minor annoyance, these were huge gaps in the gameplay, and they were major hindrances.
On the flipside, though, BGDA holds many items to by and many skills to learn, making the rate at which you become bored with its gameplay less. Although there aren’t nearly as many items as in the Diablo series or in many other RPGs I’ve played, there are still many cool items to choose from, including life-giving amulets and a sword that lights the light sky only when enemies are near (the aptly named ‘flaming long sword’).
Also, BGDA offers a multitude of sounds. Every monsters has its own sounds, and its actions are also crystal-clear, such as when a mountain giant gather large pieces of rock from the ground and hurls in at you; you hear the gravel being crushed into a ball, as well as the giant’s grunting as he hurls the ball at you. Also, each NPC (non player character) has its own voice, and every conversation is well-voiced and, though gesticulations can get a wee bit out of hand. The in-game music is also well-done. Whatever the situation, the music form fits to it; if traveling in a dungeon, the music that accompanies is foreboding and mysterious. If trekking through a deep cavern, the music well accordingly be dark and brooding. Great job on sounds and music, Snowblind.
BGDA has just one more problem that deserves discussion, but it’s a big one. BGDA doesn’t offer anything new to the player that the player hasn’t seen before. Everything that it throws at you has been done before. Its tiered leveling, tired storyline, and overall monotonous gameplay make it an almost exact cookie-cutter image of all the other RPG games (albeit maybe with better graphics). Almost every aspect of BGDA can be traced back to some well-known PC RPG (most of the more successful RPGs are on the PC), such as Dungeon Siege, Diablo2: Lords of Destruction, or the highly unappreciated NOX. Coupled with BGDA’s tiresome gameplay, this duo takes most of the fun out of playing this RPG.
All in all, any die-hard RPG fan should give this game a spin, and I’d probably say the same to a gamer not as attached to the RPG genre. I would also advise any gamer to rent this game instead of buying it; it’s too short to bust fifty bucks on. Its unoriginality and monotonous hack an’ slash gameplay just barely tip the scales in favor of the game’s cons. Even though BGDA has its good points, it’s still just another average RPG.
-Chris C.
81%
Price - $50
Players – 2 (Co-op gameplay, which is cool)
Graphics – 10
Sounds – 8
Gameplay – 7
Lifespan – 5
Overall – 81%
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