Ladies and Gent's, boys and girls, welcome to the first (and possibly last) installment of Aries Retro Review(s)! Today we will be traveling back in time...to a year of shakiness, and awesomeness. That year... is 2002. Why was it shaky? That's up to interpretation. Why was it awesome? Because that was a time when Bioware, my personal favorite RPG developers, were at their peak. They released what I hold to be the single greatest RPG of all time. I am speaking, of course, of Icewind Dale 2!

If you haven't gotten it by now, Icewind Dale 2 was an RPG released in 2002. It was one of the first Video Game transitions of D&D to use the new Third Edition Rule-set. Or at least one of the first to do it well.It takes place in the Forgotten Realms, specifically the Sword Coast region. This should be all too familiar to fans of D&D, as the Forgotten Realms, which I will refer to as FR, is one of the most used settings for D&D games.

Icewind Dale 2 is the sequel(GASP!) to Icewind Dale, though it's plot is not directly connected to the first, so it's fine if your a newcomer to the series. Bioware is a developer that tries to out do itself, so it tried to act upon the feedback from it's fans. One of the more used complaints was that the original Icewind Dale was rather hard to break in to, because the beginning was rather exposition heavy. You can see the effect of this feedback in Icewind Dale 2, because not five minutes into the game you are treated to your first fight.

Which brings me to the storyline. Icewind Dale 2 centers around your Character (or party of Characters) stepping off a boat from Luskan into a town called Targos. To your dismay, the town has been overrun by Goblins. As soon as you leave the boat, you come across a wounded guardsman. This is an excellent example of the type of Role-Playing available in Icewind Dale 2. If you are role-playing an evil character, you can leave him to die with his wound. If you are playing a good character, you can go and fetch some healing potions for him. However, if you are role playing a Good character with healing ability, such as a cleric, then you can simply cast a healing spell on him. The end result is the same, although the healing spell apparently didn't fully heal his wound, so you can still go fetch healing potions if you want to completely heal him. However, he will live if you simply heal him, so there is no real need to fetch the healing potions unless you are role playing an extremely nice person. Many of the choices given to you depend on the alignment you choose at the beginning of the game. For those unfamiliar with the D&D alignment spectrum, there are essentially 2 types of alignments. Chaotic Alignments, and Lawful alignments. You can be Chaotic Evil, Chaotic Good, or Chaotic Neutral. Or Lawful Evil, Lawful Good, or Lawful Neutral. There is technically a third axis, which is the Neutral Alignments, of which there are the same 3 choices as the others. Neutral is not simply middle ground though, it has it's own personality along with it. The fact you are now allowed to have a party is helpful, in that you are not as limited choice wise by playing a class restricted to the lawful axis, such as a Paladin.

The graphics for the game are perfect for the game. What I mean is though they are nothing to brag about, they get the job done. The character 3d models are viewed from a top down isometric view, so even if the settings aren't at their highest(which they should be), the graphics are never really an eyesore. The game runs on Biowares signigture infinity engine, which the Baldur's gate, and Planescape series ran on as well.

The audio is one of my favorite parts of the game. The musical score is absolutely brilliant, and I will walk around the towns just to hear to the music. From the soft wood winds of the town, to fast paced and in your face combat music, the game's audio shines.

The Gameplay is generally handled by points and clicks, although you will be using a fair number of keyboard shortcuts to open up the various menu's. Which brings me to my last, and final point. Read the manual, or do the tutorial, because you will be lost if you don't.

Now that you have read the review, you get to take part in the interactive portion. Calmly purchase the game. Install it, and lose a few months of your life.

It should be noted that Aries_Split fully commends and enjoys constructive criticism. He is an Avid D&D player in his spare time, and is looking for that special someone to complete his "party".

I still play this game with friends every now and again via hamachi. good times! Monks are overpowered.

Wolvaroo:
I still play this game with friends every now and again via hamachi. good times! Monks are overpowered.

They are terribly overpowered at higher levels, yup. :)

Ivoryagent:
You don't tell me anything about the music, except that it's "awesome".

You don't tell me anything about the gameplay, except that you point and...click in order to play.

You told me absolutely NOTHING about the story, except that you get to pick whether you are evil or good. Because I clearly didn't know about that about a D&D video game.

And your attempts at humor are much too obvious, which leads to less lulz.

So you just gave me a wall of text, but I don't know why I should listen, since I can't tell from your review what the hell the damned game's about.

But at least you got proper grammar and shit. 6/10.

Key word here: DEPTH.

Thanks. I see your points.

Ahh my favourite Western RPG of all time, I love this game so darn much. It was an ok review, but everything that Ivoryagent said was true. There was a lot of writing, but not much depth.