Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance

Well, I got it, I played it - I'm spent. Simply a beautiful game, well put together, is a Diablo freaks wet dream. If it had online play they'd be leaving D2 in droves.

9 hours later and I have completed it with a Dwarven fighter clad in full plate with an ice burst double edged axe. I did bluster through it - mainly because the weapon acquisition/gold collecting and character levelling and development spurs you on. There was always another skill on my agenda, another piece of armour, a couple more damage points to the weapon. There are side quests, I did a few of these early on, but I found the drive of the main storyline quest enough to want to make progress.

The graphics are beautiful. The different areas have a nice characteristic feel to them, the ice lands are barren and icy, the swamp lands are swampy, some of the castle-type dungeons really are nicely engineered. The water effects are the icing on the cake for me. It is a joy just to go jumping in the puddles and watching the ripples. At one point the effect is essential in taking care of whipping dogs that cloak with invisibility. You quickly cotton on that the water is your best friend. As you see through their invisible veil using their water trails to aim your axe.

There are some simple jumping puzzles, some lever puzzles, but all in all its pretty straight forward - and you are more or less led to the conclusion of each dungeon - simply by strolling around adventuring. The bosses are nice, some of the mobs are MASSIVE and scarey. From rhino type dinoasaurs emerging from the swamp mud to fecking HUGE mechanised warriors. There is even an ice dragon in there for us PSO ver2 dragon lovers who never managed to catch a glimpse of the ice dragon in Sega's tawdry update.

You get three class/race combinations to choose from, dwarven fighter, elven sorcerer and human archer. My nipper wanted the dwarf first. But I started a sorcerer just to get a feel for the magicks. The dwarf is pretty much a diablo slasher. You can block, or twirl around and slash. Many of the mobs can be dispatched with jumping and twirling taking them from behind. Although if you get surrounded by 6 mobs all pounding down you cannot jump out over them, you have to break the circle to get out. Later on there are two specific disciplines that allow you to impart damage on multiple mobs (one with an axe - a spin, and one with a warhammer - a bash to the ground that affects all nearby mobs). At least one of these disciplines was essential for the later stages - I found I could kill 5 or 6 minotaurs easier with my axe spin, than I could taking them carefully one at a time.

Alot of the loot dropped off mobs isn't as good as you can buy from the shops until very much later on in the game. So you tend to scoop up the trash and sell and save for the good stuff. Theres something lovely about a dwarf in full shiny plate armour. It took me to the last level of the game to get him fully kitted out.

It may seem a little short, 9 hours, but given that there are three character types to play and they seem to handle quite differently (although I found archery with the dwarf a bit tricky and the damage dealt was piss poor compared to my axe) - I think nearly 30 hours of play is pretty good. Plus the two player co-op game will add to this nicely if you can find someone to team up with for 9 hours. It's a shame they all go through the same story though. So you will know the route through the game the second time round, I'm using this as an advantage because the sorcerer (steamy sexy temptress that she is) is way below par at getting going - the initial magicks don't seem to help her much and she hasn't got the hit points to take the blows. She can however use her cunning knowledge of whats up ahead to plan round-the-corner toastings.

BTW the tits on the barmaid at the Tavarn are unbelievable and put DOA to shame. The beauty of independant movement brought about by arm gestures is mesmerising. I had to run through it at least another couple of times - just to get it out of my system. Did I mention every bit of kit affects the characters look? So in theory, you can de-armour the sorcerer and have her running around almost naked in a very skimpy leather thong and bra. If her magicks could hold the mob off thats how I would take her through the whole game :)

I'm off to spray fire from my fingertips..