Montejon's Mutters
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
Published by Interplay Entertainment Corp.
Developed by Bioware Corp.
Required: Windows 95/98 with DirectX 7.0 or higher, Pentium II 233 or faster (although I used an AMD processor with no problems), 32MB RAM, 800MB Hard Drive space for installation, 4X CD-ROM drive, DirectX certified sound card, 4MB DirectX certified video card, 100% Microsoft compatible keyboard, mouse
4 CD's + 264 page manual, $44.99
1 -- Stop the Presses! Please!
2 -- Buyer's Regret
3 -- Worth the Price of Admission
4 -- A Fine Addition to the Library
5 -- Buy Buy Buy!"Guerre mener n'est que damnation."
-- Eustace DeschampsBaldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is the latest, hottest entrant into the realm of computer-based roleplaying games. It has lavish graphics, stunning audio, and the state-of-the-art in storyline development. If you play through just the core story, you've got about 50 hours of gameplay ahead of you. If you allow yourself to be sidetracked by the optional subplots, you can add another 200 hours of play. It's massive; it's innovative; I rated it a 2.
We'll get into the why's and wherefore's of that rating in a moment. First I'd like to explain why I've reviewed it at all. The 'net is crammed to bursting with computer gaming sites, why invade Pyramid with the stuff? I have a couple reasons: BG2 is specifically a Dungeons & Dragons computer game. Also, I hope to offer you a perspective uniquely tailored to Pyrami . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: October 27, 2000
Copyright © 2000 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.