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If there's a reason why this game has sold out just about everywhere, it's beyond me, unless it's because the people who buy computer games are idiots, a possibility that seems less farfetched every season.

If you haven't heard about Baldur's Gate by now, then stop reading this review, count your blessings, and do something--ANYTHING--else. I don't want you to be exposed to this. The way the magazines and ads have been hyping this game, you would think it had been designed by the Illuminati, using stolen alien technology. You will almost certainly have learned just about every synonym for "brilliant," "addictive," and "wonderful." And yes, since it was released during the last six days of 1998, it has already won a few "RPG of the Year" awards.

The sad fact of the matter is, the self-proclaimed "most-awaited RPG of all time" falls a few notches below the mark.

Now, in all fairness, Baldur's Gate _is_ one of the closest approximations of AD&D the computer has ever produced. It presents a far more colorful and interactive world than SSI's Gold Box series from the late 80's, and it is infinitely better than Interplay's previous AD&D entry, the abysmal Descent to Undermountain. Baldur's Gate actually uses more of the AD&D rules than ever, and there were moments when I believed I was really playing AD&D and not just some bargain-brand version of it (see: almost every other computer RPG in existence). Baldur's Gate also offers multiplayer, which--while not all that great (the game is slow enough without internet lag)--helps add to playability of the game.

And so I would give them a lot of credit for trying...except that Baldur's Gate takes us to AD&D's Forgotten Realms, a setting so recycled and uninspired that it was probably created by a committee of bored college students. For those of you who don't remember AD&D's early years, Forgotten Realms is the setting with all the elves, dwarves, orcs, halflings, trolls--no, wait, that was also Middle-Earth. So what's the difference?

Well, Middle-Earth had this sense of personality and wondrousness that made it a soul-stirring experience, while Forgotten Realms would appear to be the archetypical AD&D world: a soulless frankensetting sewn together from the corpse of Middle-Earth and a dozen other sources. It's a tired world, and I found it very difficult to care about what happened in Baldur's Gate, except possibly to determine just how many different species they came up with that are basically ugly little goblin-like wussy things (all notable for being so weak that you can almosst kill them with bad language). Once I figure out how much effort they squandered on that, I doubt I will bother to finish the game, and I doubt even more that I'll be missing anything.

Surely, the story of Baldur's Gate is one of conspiracies, murder, dark magic, and world-threatening forces. Even more surely is it something we've all seen before in a hundred other stories and settings. I admit I'm not a Forgotten Realms expert, so maybe it really does have amazingly interesting aspects I just haven't seen yet...but then, that's the thing about your favorite settings--they don't exactly make you search for reasons to care. Maybe I could have been more excited about Baldur's Gate if it had taken place in Dark Sun or Planescape or some other world that showed some margin of creativity right from the outset.

Of course, I would be pretty naive if I had actually come to an AD&D game expecting a story that would rank up there with classic mythology and literature. Unfortunately, Baldur's Gate didn't blow me away with its actual gameplay, either. There were moments--like when my characters (finally) gained levels or when I looted the bodies of powerful enemies, knowing they would have bad-ass magic items--that the game was fun and in keeping with the spirit of AD&D.

There were also several design decisions you would expect to find in early Remedial Programming projects. For example, your characters cannot run. They will walk at the same slow, brisk pace at all times. This makes crossing maps irritating, but has other consequences as well--like making retreating and fights against archers and spell-casters a bad proposition. I don't even want to mention this game's actual ability to guide a character to a spot after you select it.

More variety in my characters' quotes would also have been nice. The characters who join you have quotes for various situations, like when you select them or give an order. The problem comes with many of the characters having only have one quote for each situation. Needless to say, this got old quick, and only served to remind me that I was only playing a computer game, not participating in a real story or interacting with real adventurers. To rub it in, the selection quote for your first companion is "You're a queer fellow."

Then there's the level cap--level 8 is the highest level your character can reach in Baldur's Gate. Of course, at least in this era, it would be a monumental task to make a single computer game that simulates AD&D all the way from level 1 to 20 or so, at least not without leaving out so many things that it wouldn't really seem like AD&D anymore. Still, it's hard not to feel cheated about the level limit.

Worst of all, however, is that the combats are played in real-time. Which means that you'll be controlling the reactions and decisions of several characters at once while everything rages on around them.

Thanks, Interplay. If I wanted a twitch-fest, I would be playing Doom now. Or, better yet, I would become an enforcer for the mob or the military, where at least _I_ could get paid for all this death and mayhem. True, Baldur's Gate does make a mocking show of mercy by giving you a pause function, where you can at least change your characters' current commands (now, all that remains is hoping each character actually does what you've ordered, a hatefully problematic process).

But the undeniable, indisputable fact that the average Baldur's Gate player pauses the combat at least once every 1.2 seconds should have tipped off Interplay's decision makers (if any) that turn-based was the way to go. See, that's one of the many advantages of turn-based--it's easy to make sure all your characters are actually doing something. And it's even easier to manage fights with dozens of combatants. Maybe if they had decided against having lobotomies after all, these decision makers could even have studied Might and Magic VI's example and provided a sort of choice for both turn-based and real-time fans.

I would have been willing to forgive and forget every other flaw Baldur's Gate had if only Interplay's developers had possessed any apparent idea of what game they were programming. Yes, even if Baldur's gate had given us the exciting role of Sandy Antunes' celebrated red clay bricks and their adventures in the CRPG-adapted world of "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer," I wouldn't even have mentioned that. I would have praised the game as a triumphant paragon of style and substance, and recommended it to every person on the face of the planet.

God.

Oh, well. At least I can't fault Baldur's Gate for not being flashy enough. The graphics are vibrant, and the special effects for the spells actually do justice to the imagination. The character portraits are pretty cool, and the three or four women worldwide who are actually into computer RPG's will enjoy the female portraits, which are attractive without raising discussions as to how medieval warriors and mages would _really_ dress. A greater variety of portraits on both sides would have been nice, but--contrary to accusation--I can appreciate any amount of quality that bothers to appear. Also, I can't honestly say Baldur's Gate has a lot of bugs, which makes me wonder if Interplay's developers actually created this game, or if they merely took it from some company that finishes games before releasing them.

In all, Baldur's Gate is a typical example for the computer industry: an astonishing amount of hype for an astonishingly average game. If you didn't like AD&D before, there's little here that will bring you over. A lot of computer magazines may have declared that Baldur's Gate has taken RPG's to the next level, but what they don't realize is that it's a level we real gamers transcended a generation ago. If anyone from the computer industry is reading this, then I have a suggestion, while we're on the subject: how about making a game based on one of the _new_ RPG's--you know, the ones that have been released over the last 20 years?

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)