Icewind Dale An old game (a year old now, almost venerable by gaming standards) it still holds its own as a great RPG. Well, maybe not great, but until Neverwinter Nights comes out, this will do. Like Baldur's Gate, this game's close cousin, there's a primary story line to follow. Unlike that game though, there's almost no room to maneuver away from the main story. The side trips and missions are done in order and directly apply to your main goal. It's sort of like one of those older "rail-guided" shooter games with a semblance of free-action. But that's not a bad thing if you're the kind who tends to take extended breaks (as in days and weeks) away from the game as you can pretty easily jump right back in and not worry about what side-missions you have or haven't done. The best part of the game is the fact you create your entire party instead of having only one you can create from scratch to have other pre-made characters join you here and there. You get to advance and mold your characters from young first level up to their deaths (you do save and save often, don't you?) The graphics are decent, and the spell casting effects are quite good. While pathing still has some bugs (a character might wander away looking for that shortest-distance-between-two-points it seemed to miss right in front of it,) it's not often and is much better than others of its genre. If you take the best elements of a good dungeon crawl D&D campaign, you get Icewind Dale.

Category: Computer Game Genre: Fantasy Date Reviewed: 2000-01-01 Pros: Cons: Rating: 8