I've spend many hours this week playing Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance for the Playstation/2. It's sort of Gauntlet meets Diablo, a fusion of role-playing, adventure, and single-person tactical.
The controls are pretty straighforward. The joystick moves the character, while the directional pad scrolls through spells and special abilities. 'X' launches an attack or slects, the square button starts a conversation, opens something, or causes an event, 'O' casts the active spell or cancels, and the triangle is mainly used to drop items. Start pauses and brings up a menu, while Select brings up character information. R1 toggles the map, L1 blocks. R2 uses a Healing Potion, while L2 uses a Rejuvenation potion. The controls are basically good, although it became frustrating to scroll through spells during large battles. The stocky dwarf has managed to get stuck on terrain a couple of times.
The storyline is spare but serviceable. Basically, you get mugged, and in pursuing the responsible thieves, uncover a plan by mysterious evil forces bent on conquest. There are only a few characters you can talk to; other NPC's are just scenery. The plot moves briskly, with each stage separated by a dungeon-crawl. It is totally linear.
The game is based loosely on D&D. Characters have the usual Ability Scores. As they level, they gain points for Feats, which include Targeting and Toughness as well as the Sorceress's spells. You wander around, mashing monsters with the 'X' button, casting spells, and picking up loot. One disappointing element is the lack of strategy in climactic battles. While several tricks make it much easier to deal with Umber Hulks, wolves, and skeleton warriors, in most cases, the boss monters are defeated by judicious blocking and dodging, much button-mashing, and the quaffing of many potions. Even my favored Sorceress ended up depending more on her sword to defeat most of the bosses. The bosses themselves are visually exciting, particularly the Beholder.
The game also contains, inexplicably, several sequences involving arcade play. Avoiding the Beholder Death Rays was a frenetic, hilarious challenge. On the other hand, the floating platform jump was painful. Oh, such pain.
There are three characters. The Sorceress has a variety of spell Feats, like Fireball, Mordenkainen's Sword, and Burning Touch. I love the latter, which in this game becomes a flamethrower that burns mana and blows fire as long as you hold down the button. The Dwarf is a buff fighter. He can carry very heavy equipment thanks to his high Strength and a handy Feat. Instead of spells, he spends his energy points on special attacks such as Bull Rush and Whirlwind Attack. You have a choice of specializing in one-handed weapons (taking advantage of a shield-related Feat) or using two-handers and two of the most potent Feats. Finally, there is the Arcane Arcane. This mutton-chopped hero specializes in the bow, augmented with various special magical attacks.
The graphics are somewhat uneven, but occasionally spectacular-- ripples in water, the gleam of an icy cave, the predatory swiftness of Displacer Beasts. The terrain ends up looking a litte maze-ish. Ironically enough, Gauntlet's mazes look more real and varied. The dungeons in this game are fairly geometric.
Two person play is a nice feature, although it can be tricky in some of the more action-oriented parts of the game. Still, anything that lets the Significant Other participate rather than staring on jealously is a good thing. Character importation is nice for one or two player games; besides joining and leaving games at will, keeping all your stuff, you can import experienced characters into earlier games. Besides the mosh factor, it makes it easy to max out Feats, letting you see all the cool stuff.
I'm hoping for a more fleshed-out sequel with more character choices. As it is, Dark Alliance succeeds on many levels, but falls short of any real vision.
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