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Icewind Dale - Triple Pack (PC DVD) | 
 enlarge | From: Atari
Category: Video Games
Buy New: £12.79
New (5) Used (2) from £8.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 3091
Platform: Windows Xp
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Age: 11 - 18 years
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.9
MPN: ICEWINDALECOLLC
EAN: 3546430126905
ASIN: B000FGBVAC
Release Date: June 30, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Enjoyable October 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Baldurs Gate games are my favourite games of all time. Unfortunatly none of these are another Baldurs Gate. The mechanics are the same, same engine, same D&D rules. However the games are light on story and puzzle elements. Your party is left to fight its way though with allot less dialogue to read and a much straighter path to follow.
That was always the intention of Icewind Dale and it was made clear right through development, so I was not disappointed when I played them. I do find them inferior to Baldurs Gate but that doesn't stop them from being great fun.
My only disappointment was that the second one was not a stop gap to Baldurs Gate III.
 Leave it in the drawer March 22, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Icewind Dale was my first experience of any kind of RPG gaming, way back in 2002. I liked it and quickly moved on to IWD2 and then Baldur's Gate 1,2 and TOB.
Having had good memories of the experience, I recently dusted it off and had a crack at the whole series again.
Sadly it doesn't live up to the memory. BG1/2 are so much better in terms of plot and characters that IWD struggles to compete when you can customise the whole of your party (rather than recruiting "characters" to join you in game). Whilst the plot of IWD itself is not bad, it does suffer from putting limits on how much your character can be involved in the world. You are just a merc, basically, killing droves of enemies for gold and better gear.
The engine is dated. This wouldn't be too much of a problem even now, except that IWD 1/2 have some severe lag issues on newer machines and graphics cards. It ran smoothly on my old 1GHz, 512Mb RAM machine of 2002, but lags HORRIBLY(almost unplayably) on my current 3GHz, 2GB RAM, 512mb graphics card rig. When huge battles slow to a stuttering 10 frames a second pace it makes the whole experience irritating and boring. There are no patches to fix this since Black Isle Studios is no more and playing with settings doesn't help either.
Most of all, though, this game suffers from being a huge dungeon-crawl, with little to break up the monotony. This, in itself, wouldn't be so bad and in IWD it isn't. Unfortunately, the dungeons of IWD2 are filled with absurdly annoying puzzles. Sections of the Ice Temple and Fell Woods are just infuriating.
Still, take the old engine, too much dungeon-bashing, annoying puzzles and lack of character development and you still have a 3/5 experience (the developers got a lot of things right, even though I'm listing problems). But add the lagging issue and you have a 2 star game you wish you'd left in the drawer!
 Pretty average fare December 6, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Out of all the games that Black Isle has released, the Icewind Dale series is arguably the weakest. The biggest problem is the characters - they just don't come to life. You create a party of custom characters for the adventure, but as such they have no lines of dialogue, no interaction... essentially you are playing non-characters. Whilst Planescape Torment thrust you into the role of The Nameless One and allowed you to recruit some very complex characters to your cause, and Baldur's Gate gave you a bit more scope over the details of your class, IWD basically gives you no incentive or reason to care about your character or any other members of your party (other than keeping them alive so you don't have to reload). As a result, the feel of the story is paper thin compared to BG and PS:T, with no squabbling, romance and duelling between your party members, and not a trace of a mystery concerning your protagonist to solve.
Another reviewer said that most of the problems are resolved by combat, and this makes for some very dull portions of the game. There are too many dungeon crawls, with some uninspired quests along the lines of "fight this lot, kill boss, steal magic item" ad nauseam.
Still, it's a series not without merit. Some of the artwork for the locations is very pretty and picturesque. Although it can become a drag in places fighting through hordes of monsters, figuring out new tactics and methods to defeat them all can prove a brain-teaser in its own way. I just wish they'd emphasised a bit more on telling a good story and fleshing out the characters.
It's worth a look if you're wishing to complete your Black Isle collection, otherwise stick to Baldur's Gate and Planescape by these developers.
Don't expect another BG August 2, 2006
27 out of 32 found this review helpful
The major problem with Icewind Dale was that it came too late. It used the infinity engine to good effect at times, but in comparison to the 2 games that preceeded it (Baldurs Gate and Planescape: Torment) it's severely lacking. The original IWD is using the 2Ed AD&D ruleset and is pretty simlar in dynamics to the 2 baldurs gate games. Unfortunately its almost completely linear. Even the side quests (such as the garden in the hand) require you to progress through the main plot. The plot itself is reasonable, even though it heavily steals from RA Salvatore. The main problem with the game is that EVERYTHING is solved by combat. There are only 2 bosses that you can reason with/bully. The expansion just makes the combat slightly crazier. The second IWD game was released in a rush between BG2: TOB and Neverwinter Nights, and uses a completely jumbled ruleset. Its totally linear, and reuses many of the maps from the first game. The deginers needed to be shown Planescape: Torment and shown the Less is More where combat is concerned.
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