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Tahnks for your time.
Tahnks for your time.
Gameplay wise, BG is deep with an involving story that forms part of a greater story, which is continued in the sequel and concluded in Throne of Bhaal. If you like an RPG that you can really become involved in, then this is the one (well the sequel is better, but you should really start with the first game of the series). Also, in BG you play as a character, a character who you control throughout the entire series, but you can give him your name and choose his stats so that’s cool. You'll also meet lots of people on you quest that can join your party, some get on well together, and some hate each other. It’s up to you to manage this and give your party (maximum of 6) the best balance.
in sun, BG is a fine game, although if you have never played an AD&D RPG before, it may be a little hardcore in terms of story etc.
On the other hand...
Icewind Dale. This is personally my fave BlackIsle/Bioware RPG so far, yes even more than BG 2! The story is rather basic in IWD; Orcs are attacking the Ten Towns from the Spine of the World, you get a gang together to stop them, or at least find out why they are attack etc. Simple as I say. IWD is a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl. Lots of things to kill, plenty of chances to build up you party to high levels. Also, in IWD you get to choose your entire party, which means you can create all six character, which I personally like. You do meet new characters on route but non of them will join you party - if a member of your party dies, or you find that they are no longer suitable, you can throw them out and create a new one! A nice feature!
GFX in IWD are better than BG, but it still uses the same Infinity engine, so it looks similar. Although you WILL notice the difference.
While the story is rather basic, IWD is damn addictive and fun to play. You'll get to adventure through loads of different locations, and also the game features huge dragons, which was a first for the infinity engine.
Will it run on your computer? You could run BG and IWD on a 'Tommy playtime' computer! Well, maybe not quite, but you get the picture. you computer will be able to handle the game easily. No real D3D or OpenGL stuff at all (except in IWD you can have the spell effects created in OpenGL so they look a little better, but hardly anything.
Buy both, you'll be playing for ages. IWD took me about 45 hours to complete, and I have never finished BG - I think it's around the 80-100 hours. Just for the record, BG 2 is supposed to be in the region of 200 hours.
Both great games tho, and for 10 quid you can't go wrong. IWD would by MY choice!