EXCLUSIVES

Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal
By Scott Dewbre

July 2004

Just as there are good and bad role-playing games (RPGs), there are good and bad RPG expansion packs. A bad expansion pack slaps a new face on the same old game, adding little or nothing to the experience of playing the game, but a good expansion pack makes it seem like you're playing a brand new game.

Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal (ToB) ($29.95, MacPlay) is everything that a good RPG expansion pack should be: it adds items, spells, and abilities to make the original game more enjoyable, plus it carries enough new quests and maps to explore to qualify as an entirely new game. ToB delivers awesome spells and weapons, unlimited level advancement, and almost limitless hours of game play. Fans of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) and RPGs alike will find ToB engaging, challenging and a lot of fun.

Cast a wish, be a demigod
Billing itself as "the final chapter" to the Baldur's Gate saga, ToB carries the Baldur's Gate story line to its ultimate conclusion, allowing characters to ascend to godhood or turn their backs on the temptations of immortality and remain a powerful, yet mortal, resident of the Forgotten Realms. In an interesting twist, the ascension to godhood is controlled by the choices the character makes as the game progresses.

ToB raises the experience point cap to 8 million, which allows characters to progress as high as level 40, becoming far more powerful than most creatures in the Realms, short of ancient dragons, demon princes, and planetars. (To put it in perspective, the nearly indestructible mage Elminster is considered to be level 29.)

Of course, high level characters need some awesome abilities and spells so they can show everyone just how tough they really are. To that end, ToB adds an impressive list of new feats, including a fire-and-brimstone cleric spell that is not to be missed, and a long list of additional spells, including the famous Bigby's Hand spells and the Wish spell.

What good would it do to have all those cool spells and gnarly combat abilities if there's no one to fight? To solve that problem, ToB adds seven chapters and a separate dungeon crawl called Watcher's Keep, which is reminiscent of the Durlock's Tower side adventure added onto Baldur's Gate by the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion pack.

Spellcasters have more fun
Considering that most of the add-ons in ToB are spells and spell-like abilities, we figured that mage characters would benefit the most; and we were right. With multiple contingency spells, which cast a series of preselected spells instantly once a specified condition is met, mages tend to go off like roman candles the instant a fight breaks out. Several of the new spells added by ToB are a lot of fun to watch, particularly the Bigby's Crushing Hand spell, which causes a giant disembodied hand to hover over the victim for a moment before smashing the victim to the ground.

For gamers who love spellcasting characters, this is pure heaven. But for those gamers who prefer sword swinging or axe wielding characters, the outlook is rather grim. Aside from a few new abilities, there is not a lot new here for fighter types. However, this is accurate to the Forgotten Realms setting, in which spellcasters have the advantage over fighters.

Overall, we had a blast playing through ToB and found the new chapters and side adventures to be fun and extremely challenging. Spellcasting animations have been improved and smoothed out so that multiple spells cast in the same round does not bog down game play.

We only had one major complaint. There are a lot of spells that claim not to injure your friends but do so anyway, like the Dragon's Breath spell that unleashed a catastrophic (20d10 for those of you who speak the lingo) fireball and crisp fried half of our adventuring party. After a while, it looked like we had more to fear from our own spellcasters than from any monster. If the spell description says "does not injure friendly characters," then it should be that way.

Lots of fun, good value
ToB is an excellent value, delivering almost unlimited hours of additional game play over Baldur's Gate II. However, ToB is an expansion pack, meaning that you'll have to buy Baldur's Gate II if you don't already own it, but Baldur's Gate II is selling for around $20.

If you have a copy of Baldur's Gate II collecting dust on a shelf, now is the time to take it down, dust it off, add in ToB, and rediscover one of the best AD&D computer games ever created.

Item: Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal Expansion Pack
Manufacturer: MacPlay
Price: $29.99 MSRP
Web: http://www.macplay.com/games/bhaal.php
Pros: Wicked new spells; nearly unlimited level advancement
Cons: Some spells don't behave as they're supposed to