[Kamakhya]

Oh man...I loved Baldur's Gate II. I know I have the crappy gamecube version, but I really loved it. I was so looking forward to BGIII. Drats.

[Monty Mike]

I never played the Baldur's Gate games for the consoles (GBA, X-Box, etc), but I doubt I'm missing out, as none can compare to the PC versions.

Also, I never played Baldur's Gate (the original), how does it compare to the Second one?

[Ivyn]

Sometimes I feel like i'm the only person in the world who couldn't stand BG2. Yeah, I loved the atmosphere, the music, the epic feel of it. I have the box sitting on my desk next to me right now and I've attempted to play it several times. I really did. But I've never made it past the first half of chapter 2, giving up because of the frustratingly hard battles. Last I played, it was me and a group of friends actually, playing over LAN. We found ourselves reloading the same battle 10-15 times over a period of a couple hours. Constantly barraged with enemies that were far too powerful for our party. That takes tolls. I don't know if it was the same for other people or if we just weren't going about it right. I wish it were more like Diablo 2 in gameplay, but with the same story, setting and character interaction. A game like that sounds too good to be true. And is, because I've never found anything like it.

[JamesL]

I never played the Baldur's Gate games for the consoles (GBA, X-Box, etc), but I doubt I'm missing out, as none can compare to the PC versions.

Also, I never played Baldur's Gate (the original), how does it compare to the Second one?

You didn't miss out. I played the first Gamecube one about halfway through - mundane hack and slash action if ever you saw it. Not worthy of bearing the BG name. :(

The first Baldur's Gate is also a great, great RPG. Bags of atmosphere and adventure like the sequel. It is however not as good in terms of character development and depth. The storyline of the first game is also a little linear. I don't think I could play it now, because it is a little basic compared to the sequel (your characters start as lvl one, maximum lvl of like 8 or something, highest spells are lvl 5 rather than 9, etc). Still great game though.

Sometimes I feel like i'm the only person in the world who couldn't stand BG2. Yeah, I loved the atmosphere, the music, the epic feel of it. I have the box sitting on my desk next to me right now and I've attempted to play it several times. I really did. But I've never made it past the first half of chapter 2, giving up because of the frustratingly hard battles. Last I played, it was me and a group of friends actually, playing over LAN. We found ourselves reloading the same battle 10-15 times over a period of a couple hours. Constantly barraged with enemies that were far too powerful for our party. That takes tolls. I don't know if it was the same for other people or if we just weren't going about it right. I wish it were more like Diablo 2 in gameplay, but with the same story, setting and character interaction. A game like that sounds too good to be true. And is, because I've never found anything like it.

Mmm, have to confess that the only battles I found hard were some of the later ones. Obviously I had to reload from time to time but generally the only ones where I tore my hair out were towards the end. Perhaps you had the difficulty level set too high? The higher the difficulty level, the tougher the enemies so it sounds like that might have been a possibility.