24 replies to this topic

[Starky]

IMO if we look at vanilla BG and BG2 in themselves, they are very likely the best RPGs out there, however what I would say turns them from utterly unsurpassable into SUPREME is the dedication of the modding community, and the wealth of material and combinations and strategies that these unlock. I mean, I've played right through BG2 at least ten times now and I'm not even close to discovering and doing everything, and it's still the most fun non-multiplayer gaming experience I can enjoy.

I wish sooooooooo badly I could play BG2 for the first time once again... that would be so sweet.

[Miloch]

Pick up Siege of Avalon for a penny. The engine has some minor issues - on rare occasions some of your items disappear, but other than that, it's a lot like Baldur's Gate. Plenty of dialogue, complex quests, joinable NPCs - even *looks* similar. (Hmm, I wonder if you could port some of it to the BG2 engine...)

[veritech]

I always wanted an Infinity Engine redo of the old Gold Box Series games. To this day that is my dream to see these games all over again with new graphics etc. Then again, this has been pointed out by thousands of others before me, and still nothing to this day. NWN was OK, but it just lacked some serious input.

[lumin]

There's one game that nobody has mentioned yet: XCOM: UFO Defense (also known as UFO: Enemy Unknown). If you like the strategy, team building aspects of Baldur's Gate, then you will love this game. It's in my top 5 of all time favorites and considered to be the number one game of all time for many ranking sites.

It's really hard to find for sale now, but you can possibly find it for free on an abandoned-games website. If you can get yourself a copy, there are a few excellent mods for bug fixes and some cosmetic improvements.

For mods, I highly recommend:

*XCOM Enemy Unknown CE: fixes lots of bugs
*MP3 Music Patch: Imports the music from the Playstation I version (much better than the original PC music).
*D3DWindower: This is a great utility that can run lost of old dos games in a window on your desktop.
*Alien Voice Patch: Restores the original, scarier alien scream sound.

Get the mods/utilities here.

Overall, if you haven't played this game, you are really missing out.

[NiGHTMARE]

If you're prepared to play a game that's even older than the likes of BG1 and Fallout, I heartily recommend Ultima 7. It's got a huge game world, is completely non-linear, has party members who banter and interject (not as much as in BG2, but probably about as much as in BG1), has interesting spells (including one which stops time, and one which kills literally EVERYTHING in the entire world), etc. It's tricky getting the game to run on modern systems, but luckily there's a fan-made recreation of the engine, called Exult.

Edited by NiGHTMARE, 16 November 2007 - 06:32 AM.