Introduction

A year after the original Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance was released on the Playstation 2, along comes the Gamecube port. The original was an enjoyable hack-and-slash jaunt through familiar Forgotten Realms territory, with a faithful implementation of the Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition universe. The Gamecube port is faithful to the original, offering up the same graphics, gameplay and insidious plot based on the original. But does it offer anything new?

Installation and Documentation

Installation is a snap with the usual install wizard, although the setup file may have to be accessed through the "run" feature of Windows. The documentation is Tiller's usual on-screen overview, basics and in-depth guide. By using the Windows' Help feature, the documents can be accessed without using ALT-TAB and are nicely cross-referenced with hyperlinks. The native search/index features can answer any questions in a hurry. Of supreme importance to play is the scenario parameter data. The French and Indian War has many variables that can change from one battle to another. Having these variables viewable with a click and a drag enhances play. A "Getting Started" file walks beginners through a couple of turns of a simple battle. For those players owning stock in Scott Paper, all docs can be printed.

Presentation

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is a dark, hack-and-slash fantasy presented in isometric fashion. The violence in the game is presented realistically enough, but at such a distance that it appears almost like detailed miniatures are fighting it out, rather than humans and other not-so-human characters. It's hard to care for the goblins, lizards, and such, so the realistic violence in such a fantasy universe hardly offers any morality issues (unless, of course, one might have issues with killing rogues).

Plot

The plot in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is all about (gasp!) uncovering the Dark Alliance threatening the Forgotten Realms. Without giving away too much, this basically involves storming sewers, rogue dens, mountains, swamps and towers in search of the next major nemesis and even (gasp!) true surprises! One such surprise occurred when a baddie was first revealed in the first Act, and truly startled me. So much so, in fact, that I grew very excited to bash him about a bit.

Graphics

Even a year after the release of the original Dark Alliance on the PS2, the graphics are still very nice. Featuring 3D characters and environments presented in an isometric manner, the heart of the matter is in the detail. Even at the distances that characters and objects are visible, there is an amazing amount of detail in everything represented on screen. Even some of the more mundane environments, like the trail at the beginning of Act II, are still full of detail, even when the detail resides in the dirt. Pieces of armor, and of course the weaponry, are all modeled separately. Rats squeak, flop dead, and slowly leak dark blood onto the dusty tile, and even the flora and fauna is drawn with painstaking attention to detail. Even barrels break in fine fashion, which is good because the player will be breaking lots of barrels. It is easy to see that the developers took great care when creating the world, and those in it.

However, the game is over a year old, and nothing new has been done to this newer version that has improved the graphics over the older version, from what I can tell. A year ago, the water trails made when characters run through the water was truly amazing; a year later, they're neat, but don't stack up to some of the more amazing water effects I've seen since. There are perhaps a few less jagged edges than one might see in the Playstation 2 version, but the graphics in the PS2 version were a lot less jagged than many, so this is a minor quibble.

On top of this, High Voltage has somehow managed to port Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance from the weaker Playstation 2 hardware, onto the more powerful Gamecube console, and managed to destroy the framerate along the way. The framerate was never perfect on the PS2, but it hovered around a very playable 60 FPS most of the time. Here on the Gamecube, the framerate coughs and sputters all of the time, even when one would think the framerate would remain steady (like, for instance, when a single player is running down a narrow hall devoid of creatures). The frame rate seems to take a hit when manually controlling the camera as well, chugging and stuttering more than it should.