
How ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG - bpierre
https://www.theringer.com/2018/12/21/18150363/baldurs-gate-bioware-1998-video-games
======
Al-Khwarizmi
OK, so in 1995 there were few computer RPGs. True. In fact I distinctly
remember myself at that time, as a huge CRPG fan, thinking that they were bad
times for PC RPGs, and hoping for better times.

But 1996 was the year of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, one of the best
RPGs of all time (IMO, way better than Baldur's) that would later continue
into a saga that is still top notch today. In 1997, Fallout came out. I'm not
personally a big fan of this saga, but its enormous success and influence in
CRPGs is undeniable. In 1998, apart from Baldur's Gate, we had Fallout II and
Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven, a great game that renewed the
legendary Might and Magic franchise with a new engine.

So no. You may like Baldur's Gate a lot (IMO it's a good game but way
overrated) but it didn't save anything, and the image given by the article of
being the first brave developers who dared publish a CRPG after a draught is
just plain false.

~~~
tomc1985
I do remember feeling of being in something of RPG drought when Baldur's Gate
came along. At least I believe that was the sentiment expressed by _PC Games_
magazine, which I was reading pretty heavily at the time.

I don't think ES or Fallout were on my radar at that time but you're the first
person I've heard with very positive opinions of Daggerfall; most of the ES
nostalgics seem to pine for Morrowind.

Baldur's Gate had the D&D license, though, and that gave it a lot of weight
and staying power for people who weren't already into CRPGs. I think it also
left a much larger impact than any of the games you've mentioned save maybe
Fallout II. Part of the draw for me were those D&D rules; I was pretty heavy
into tabletop RPGs at the time.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
Morrowind does have more following, but Daggerfall has an extraordinarily
staunch user base. 22 years after its release, its Reddit and various forums
are pretty active and there is a full remake in Unity getting close to full
functionality, with all code recreated from scratch, and people are already
creating various mods for it. (obligatory link:
[https://www.dfworkshop.net/](https://www.dfworkshop.net/)).

Daggerfall and Morrowind had a quite different spirit, it was not a case of
incremental improvement but a change of philosophy, hence they appeal to
different (although overlapping) sets of people.

Daggerfall was one of the most ambitious open world games ever created. It had
an enormous world, the size of Great Britain, with over 15,000 towns and
dungeons to explore and tons of quests that would be randomly parameterized
with towns, buildings, dungeons and NPCs. The world was procedurally generated
once, and stored into the game, so everyone sees the same towns and dungeons.
The game play was totally open, to the extent that many Daggerfall fans don't
care much about the main quest (even though the main quest story was actually
top notch, with lots of twists, treason, meaningful choice and all). Why have
a main quest when you can just live your life setting your own goals:
advancing in the various guilds, striving to buy a big house, a boat, to
become a famous knight, etc. The dungeons were also procedurally generated,
and so labyrinthine that you could literally spend hours exploring a single
dungeon. This is something that some people hated about the game (I actually
love it. It was deeply immersive, and the feeling of finally getting back to
the surface and hearing crickets was amazing). The character creation system
was more oriented to role-playing (you could do things like give your
character specific advantages or disadvantages) than to game balance. You
could even make your own spells!

Morrowind continued the saga in terms of lore and mechanics, but took a
totally different turn. The world was hand-crafted, so it was more carefully
put together, but also much smaller. And the open-world nature was very much
toned down. You were now "the Chosen One" (in Daggerfall you were just a
random person, except for being a friend of the emperor, living their life and
trying to make fortune) and you pretty much had to follow the main quest
because there weren't that many things to do on the side compared to
Daggerfall. The labyrinthine dungeons were replaced by quite linear dungeons
(although less so than in later installments of the saga). Roleplaying-
oriented features like advantages and disadvantages on character creation,
questions to determine character background, etc. were removed.

Don't get me wrong, I love Morrowind too, as well as Oblivion and Skyrim, and
even Arena. I have enjoyed all of them a lot. But Daggerfall was a unique
beast and scratched itches that no other game did. I understand that it's not
for everyone, many people hate it. It's one of the most polarizing games I
have ever seen, a case of "love it or hate it". Exploring dungeons requires a
lot of patience which many people just don't have, and the procedurally-
generated nature (with 1996 technology) means that it isn't as fleshed out as
other games - for example towns can feel quite repetitive, etc., you have to
use the imagination a bit to imagine how each place is unique. Also, the fact
that it was very buggy (although it improved a lot with patches, and
Daggerfall Unity will hopefully be very stable as it's remade from scratch)
alienated some players. But for the kind of player who seeks primarily
immersion, the kind of player who actually roleplays, it's an unparalleled
wonder because it lets you be whoever you want to be much better than the
later games, which take you through the story on rails. Daggerfall feels like
a real world, a simulation of a life in a fantasy land, and the emergent
behavior caused by quests, reputations, etc. is often amazing. While the
subsequent games in the saga are masterpieces in their own right, I long for a
game in the spirit of Daggerfall with current (or at least later) technology.

~~~
StrictDabbler
It's fairly simple. Any person's favorite Elder Scrolls game is usually the
first one they played. The games have become less Elder with every
installment.

Morrowind's art, though... that beat the tar out of the releases before it. It
was the best balance of big exploration and visual world-building.

~~~
Fnoord
> It's fairly simple. Any person's favorite Elder Scrolls game is usually the
> first one they played.

A common narrative regarding World of Warcraft expansions as well.

------
Waterluvian
Oh to be a kid again. I've tried a dozen or so RPGs since my childhood and I
can't get into any. It's hard to sink deep enough into a world when I have
responsibilities. As a kid, the Christmas break or summer break was this
magical time where I could do this.

My hope is that when I retire I can become re acquainted with crpgs

~~~
bmurphy1976
It's still possible. I have 3 kids a full time job and a 1 hour driving
commute each way. Despite this in the past 6 years I've still managed to play
through Ultima VI, Baldur's Gate 1&2 Planescape Torment, 1/2 of Icewind Dale
(finally burnt out on infinity engine), Tides of Numenera, Pillars of
Eternity, Torment, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Zelda
a Link to the Past, Zelda Wind Waker, Hyper Light Drifter and am 95% of my way
through Divinity Original Sin and I've probably forgotten some!

I squeeze in an hour or two here and there (usually at night after everybody
else has gone to sleep). It can take a couple months to finish a game at this
pace, but you get through them.

I like the big open-ended RPGs. I feel like I can get in and complete a couple
short quests or a tricky combat situation in the short time I have allotted.
It makes me feel like I'm always making progress, even if it's slow going.
Compared to action games where I feel like the hour I have to play is barely
enough time to warm up and play effectively.

~~~
cannonedhamster
I _highly_ recommend you give the Exile series from Spiderweb Software a
chance if you haven't. It's a bit dated graphically, but it's engine has been
kept up and there's some new Avadon series as well. It's hands down some of
the best storytelling and I've easily played hundreds of hours. I've
definitely played from night to morning without realizing it more than a few
times.

~~~
cpeterso
Jeff Vogel from Spiderweb Software have an awesome retrospective on his games
and company at GDC 2018:

"Failing to Fill: The Spiderweb Software Way"
[https://youtu.be/stxVBJem3Rs](https://youtu.be/stxVBJem3Rs)

------
fuball63
Baldur's Gate was really difficult as a kid. Without fully understanding how
the stat system worked or the pause/play combat, my siblings and I really
struggled with it.

What we would do to overcome the difficulty was ramp our characters level when
starting the game. In Candlekeep Inn, we would buy as many darts as we could
afford, and throw them at the sorcerer in the lobby. Before he could
retaliate, we would run up the stairs to safety.

Repeat this a few dozen times, and he eventually dies, and you get a huge XP
boost. Then you export the character, start a new game, and do the same thing.

One time we did this enough to be able to kill the character's father before
leaving Candlekeep. Good times.

~~~
doitLP
You mean your foster father Gorian? For shame!

~~~
jstarfish
He was going to die as soon as you leave the village anyway, might as well
steal Sarevok's kill and get the XP ;)

------
_void
Would not forget this game ever, first time had to install using 5CDs, endless
hours spent discovering this amazing world and story these guys have built.
Hands down to Black Isle Studios for BG series, Icewind Dale and Planescape
Torment.

~~~
ionised
They were all great but Planescape Torment was my favourite of the lot.

Such a well-written game.

~~~
the_af
My favorite too. Such a good game, characterful and intriguing, and with
awesome music too. Planescape is the best D&D setting.

About the only thing that hasn't aged well are the character portraits; I wish
they had been hand-drawn instead of these weird late 90s low-res 3D renders.
Everything else is superb.

I wonder if Nordom is still patiently waiting for the Nameless One to
return...

------
eclyps19
If you want to play a modern game that takes you back to Balder’s Gate,
definitely check out Divinity Original Sin 2. I never played the first, and I
was skeptical about it living up to BG 1 and 2, but after the first couple
hours I was hooked. It is very much worthy of the comparison.

~~~
izacus
It's not really the same type of game though - with its AP based turn combat
and significantly less serious setting and quest design. Don't get me wrong,
it's great, but if you want a Baldur's Gate modernization, it's Pillars of
Eternity / Pillars of Eternity 2 / Tyranny what you should be looking at :)

~~~
davidivadavid
The gameplay is different, but as someone who was both a fan of Baldur's Gate
AND Fallout 1/2, I find it noticeably superior, especially when it comes to
combat.

As far as "less serious", I'm not sure what you mean. The game has humor in
some places, but it's plenty serious as far as the main quests go.

------
mancerayder
I long for a proliferation of 'adventure' or slower RPGs, instead of the FPS-
type we see so much of. One advantage of the former is there's often a party
component, like the old-school Wasteland (or the new Wasteland II), old Bard's
Tale, etc. Or perhaps the party component fell out of favor for a different
reason?

I've quite enjoyed Witcher 3's atmosphere and story, but there's something
hack-and-slash about the combat and the skill system that makes one not really
want to explore the different skill paths. For example, almost everyone will
deploy a large fraction of their points in strong and fast sword attacks --
because it's a hack and slash.

Is it there's not a lot of demand for RPGs, or they're too expensive to make,
or the old-school creators are replaced with a younger generation?

Don't get me wrong, Witcher 3 and the late GTA series are great games, but
they're not old school RPG's in their style of play: some of the missions are
gauntlet runs (somewhat linear), and the energy is fast-paced and requires
more reflexes than they require planning.

~~~
rjf72
You're alluding primarily to AAA games that target consoles. Nothing wrong
with these games, but they are _generally_ built to target the widest possible
demographic and so you're going to get some typical patterns: action +
simplicity + low difficulty + crazy good production values. Probably not what
you're looking for.

To find what you're interested in just step off the beaten path a bit -- right
now is probably the single best time in history for things like RPGs. For
instance there is literally a brand new Bard's Tale out, in the same spirit as
the originals, including having Michael Cranford on board. [1] You could start
your search there - the "More like this" suggestions (on Steam) tend to be
really quite good. Another place to start the search might be with the
remastered Bard's Tale Trilogy [2]. Definitely don't avoid games just because
you've never heard of them. For instance I'd never heard of Spiderweb software
but have gotten an immense amount of enjoyment out of their games. [3] If
you're okay with just dropping the story and playing a turn based RPG type
game purely for an incredibly phenomenal monster training/creation type system
in an incredibly expansive world then the Siralim [4] series is another great
thing to check out.

No affiliation with any of the companies/products mentioned here. But I was
literally in the _exact_ same situation as you. Was really disappointed that
it felt like my console had every type of genre - first person
shooter/stabbers _and_ third person shooter/stabbers! I was never much of a PC
gamer. Then I took the path I'm recommending here and was just left jaw
dropped to realize we're seriously in the golden age of games right now, most
certainly including classic RPG style games!

[1] -
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/566090/The_Bards_Tale_IV_...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/566090/The_Bards_Tale_IV_Barrows_Deep/)

[2] -
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/843260/The_Bards_Tale_Tri...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/843260/The_Bards_Tale_Trilogy/)

[3] - can't link

[4] -
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/841770/Siralim_3/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/841770/Siralim_3/)

~~~
bradknowles
Are any of those available on iOS?

------
msluyter
Incidentally, BG1, BG2, & Icewind Dale are available on iOS and play quite
well on an iPad pro. Perhaps even better than on a PC, as using the touch
screen is easier than moving a mouse around.

~~~
edaemon
They're also incidentally available DRM-free for a few dollars in the GOG
winter sale:

[https://www.gog.com/game/baldurs_gate_enhanced_edition](https://www.gog.com/game/baldurs_gate_enhanced_edition)

[https://www.gog.com/game/baldurs_gate_2_enhanced_edition](https://www.gog.com/game/baldurs_gate_2_enhanced_edition)

[https://www.gog.com/game/icewind_dale_enhanced_edition](https://www.gog.com/game/icewind_dale_enhanced_edition)

[https://www.gog.com/game/icewind_dale_2](https://www.gog.com/game/icewind_dale_2)

Some friends and I just started a BG2 game last night.

------
startupdiscuss
1\. I love techno-nostalgic stories, and this is a good one

2\. I love how none of the people were technically experienced at video games

3\. I wonder if people knew back then that this was going to be such an
influential game (after it was famous, but before time had passed)

~~~
sdwisely
> I wonder if people knew back then that this was going to be such an
> influential game (after it was famous, but before time had passed).

I don't think anyone could have picked how lasting and influential it would
be. It was one of about 3 games I've ever pre-ordered though.

------
ArrayList
Anyone remember Neverwinter Nights? That was my "thing".

Also, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete was a high point in my childhood.

~~~
ulzeraj
NWN Hordes of Underdark and NWN2 Mask of the Betrayer were fantastic. It had
that “magic of the outer planes” flavor that reminds me of Planescape Torment.

Weirdly enough the main character of HoTU was the one from Shadows of
Udrentide (did I spelled right?). I remember meeting the ghost of one of the
antagonists of the original game in hell and my character having her as a
ghost girlfriend for the rest of his life.

Ah... I miss those fantastic stories.

~~~
drak0n1c
NWN Enhanced Edition is on sale for $6 on Steam, GOG, and Beamdog. $2 on
Android. The multiplayer scene is having a bit of renaissance thanks to it,
here's the live server list:
[https://nwn.beamdog.net/](https://nwn.beamdog.net/)

Also, Darkness Over Daggerford is finally finished and polished by the
original devs and is available as $4 DLC.

------
antisthenes
Since I don't see it mentioned, another shout out to Arcanum, one of the few
RPGs that made a good attempt at creating a compelling vision of a world where
magic and technology coexist.

The game is not without its issues, but overall it's a solid cRPG from the
same era as BGI/II

~~~
s_trumpet
Arcanum gave me permanent gnome trust issues.

------
vegardx
Completely unrelated, but... The story was ofte a little hard to follow when I
was a kid, but using a dictionary I was able to not just understand and
progress throughout the game, but I also learned a lot of English in the
process.

It all started with Transport Tycoon Deluxe, then Age of Empires. But it was
with Baldur's Gate things really started to make sense. Because of these games
I was reading and sort of speaking English before we even started having any
English classes.

Good times.

~~~
guiltygatorade
I learned English by trying to figure out how to navigate menus in Warlords II
and Castles II.

I played Baldur's Gate and barely understood the plot. A few years later, I
eventually got to Planescape: Torment and actually managed to understand it.

If you love TTD, you should check out
[http://www.openttd.org/en/](http://www.openttd.org/en/) if you haven't
already.

~~~
vegardx
OpenTTD is amazing. A group of friends of mine often have online games over
the Christmas holidays. The only time everyone are able to play at the same
time.

I have also been playing a little CorsixTH, the open source reimplementation
of Theme Hospital. Theme Hospital came with Swedish translations, which are
close enough to Norwegian that I was able to understand it. No dictionary
needed!

------
the_af
To me, the two games that "saved" the CRPG were Fallout (because I was tired
of Elves and Orcs) and Planescape Torment, because of the same... and the cool
setting and compelling characters.

------
goodbyehorses
Baldurs Gate was really good, but I think people give it too much credit.
Fallout 1$2 and Planescape Torment showed what really is a narrative-driven
RPG game, they deserve more attention.

~~~
minikites
The Fallout series isn't exactly obscure and Fallout 1 in particular is
terrible. I got a game over 5 minutes into the game because I walked too far
and the arbitrary timer ran out.

~~~
enraged_camel
"This game is terrible because I got game over after ignoring the primary
quest" is not a good reason to hate a game...

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
Yeah, I think it kind of is. I was 10 when BG2 came out, and that’s when I
first played it too. It would have taken me far longer to understand what to
do in all the quests, and how to be effective in combat, than any adult. I
loved that I could just enjoy playing it slowly.

I remember loving the original Fallout, until it basically said “you didn’t
find the water chip in time! Goodbye!”

Exactly the same story with Commandos 2 vs Commandos 3.

------
ryanjodonnell
Has anyone that played BG also played Dragon Age Trilogy? Is it a spiritual
successor to Baldur's Gate? I loved BG1/BG2 in middleschool/highschool.

~~~
guiltygatorade
The first Dragon Age is arguably a spiritual successor.

Dragon Age II was largely panned by Bioware fans as it got a lot more action
oriented and less RPG/choice driven.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is basically unrecognizable to Baldur's Gate days, as
mechanically it's more similar to Mass Effect 2 than old time RPGs. That game
was 90% pulp fantasy open world quest completer with decent combat/skill
syngergy. But the last 10% uncovered some story bits that really made me go
"wow I want to know more".

Looks like the sequel is in the works.

------
yawz
I've never been a hard-core gamer, but I've always loved RPGs. I think I'm
showing my age by not liking the more recents games and having nostalgic
feelings towards that era's games. Baldur's Gate is one of the last games that
I've truly enjoyed playing. I haven't tried BG 2, though. Maybe this is a
sign, and it can be my present to myself for this holiday season :).

------
lordnacho
When I think about a hard software project, this game is the what I think of
every time.

It is like it says in the article: you're not just making a movie, you're
inventing the camera.

By the sound of it they went right from DirectX to build the engine, a huge
task in itself, and then writing the story with the engine. And of course when
you try to write the upper layer, you're going to discover you forgot
something in the lower layer. Often something bad that makes you have to re-
architect.

In my own line of work it there's also layers like exchange integrations and
strategies, but you're still reasonably close in terms of domains of thinking.
With games you're both performance optimizing c++ code and trying to tell a
compelling story at the same time.

And you can't skip the artistic side. You have to have a proper story. The
characters have to have correct looking clothes and weapons. NPCs need to have
the right speech coded, and they need to drop the right loot for the plot to
work. Maps have to seem expansive yet still seem coherent to the atmosphere.

------
dwighttk
People probably haven't given a shout out to Knights of the Old Republic
because it came out almost a decade after Bauldur, but I saw a bunch of people
listing their favorite CRPGs and KotOR and KotOR II should be mentioned. (I
also like Morrowind and Skyrim)

~~~
qplex
More like half a decade: Baldurs Gate was released in 1998 and Knights of The
Old Republic in 2003.

~~~
dwighttk
Rounding to the nearest decade

------
mccada
Baldur's Gate was the first RPG I played on PC. Had to play it at a friends
place (he had a PC), it was a very intriguing game with the strong
characterization and choices you could make in the game. Once I finally got a
PC, I bought and spent many hours playing Baldur's Gate 2, which was great.
This was all in New Zealand, and ironically I now live in Edmonton, Alberta
where Bioware first made them. So definitely interesting to delve into the
early days history of the company. Thanks for the nostalgia!

------
Puer
My greatest accomplishment as a kid was beating BG2 on "Insane" difficulty as
a solo character.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa8JV3z-Oeo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa8JV3z-Oeo)

I must have played through the game at least two dozen times and I never got
tired of it. To this day it's still my favorite game of all time. Modern RPGs
just don't compare in terms of storytelling and gameplay experience, in my
opinion.

~~~
davidivadavid
Used to feel the same but I think Divinity 2 in co-op mode edges it for me
now.

------
mratsim
Oh fond times, I bought BG2 the day it was out and the early adopter CD with
bonus.

I also spent lots of time scripting the game, like trying to replicate
Balthazar IA (the monk spawn of Bhaal that lead one of the last locations in
Throne of Bhaal).

Sadly it seems like SCS (Sword Coast Stratagems) does not exist anymore? The
IA it introduced is crazy good, though it gets tiring to beat mage and have to
stock up on breach/spell-pierces.

~~~
cannonedhamster
Looks like the whole Gibberlings website is temporarily offline, but it will
be back up shortly.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/a736rl/gibberl...](https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/a736rl/gibberlings_is_back_up/)

------
anoplus
Game experience is so much more than cutting edge graphics. From the many
games I played in high-school, this one remembered as particularly charming
(literally). I listened to the soundtrack on youtube recently. Beautiful.
Maybe a good game for retirement as-well.

EDIT: I wonder if I am the only one noticed the Beholders' cave shape is a
perfect Nazi swastika

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
Oh, yeah! You’re right! I mean, not perfect, and it’s backwards, but otherwise
pretty close.

------
greyfox
I remember Baldurs gate, sure. But i dont recall Baldurs gate being anywhere
near as important to the survival of Computer RPG's than Diablo, and more
importantly Diablo II. If i'm not mistaken DII had macintosh support out-of-
box, and is still played to this day on battle.net

~~~
ajmurmann
Diablo was great, but it's very different and really a action RPG.

------
kgwxd
I never had a chance to play it as a kid. I just checked GOG, looks like they
only have the "Enhanced Edition" which appears to be universally hated. I
looked around but finding the original seems to be as hard as finding the
unenhanced Star Wars'.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
Ignore the haters. I'm a huge fan of the original BG2, and the EE has all the
same stuff. If you don't want to try the new content, you don't have to; it's
mostly self-contained.

Coincidentally, I did another solo-sorcerer run through BG2 last weekend. It's
still fantastic.

~~~
kgwxd
There's talk about some new characters and items that mess up the original
"feel" of the game that can't be turned off. I'm trying to read without
spoiling anything, that's just the theme I'm seeing.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
You can tell those characters to go away in your initial interactions with
them. I think there are three. One in the Copper Coronet, one in the Graveyard
District (or was it Trademeet? I don't remember), and one in a random
encounter when moving between Athkatla districts.

People who say this "ruins" the game are just angry nerds being angry nerds.

BG2 wasn't just great for its time; it's great _now_.

~~~
kgwxd
I yell at that singing ant-eater thing to go away when it shows up in Star
Wars, but it never works :) I'll be annoyed enough by the idea, even though I
never played the original. I'll pick up the original if I come across it, but
if not, I'll just skip it.

------
ReptileMan
Nope. It just slowed the decline. Good RPGs with high production values are
extremely rare. We have witchers, divinity and pillar/tides(maybe) . Dragon
age 1 was the last true Bioware RPG...

Fallouts lack stories (except new vegas which mostly lacks sequesls).

~~~
s_trumpet
I highly recommend Underrail - while the graphics are a bit simplistic (it was
made entirely by a Ukrainian programmer/artist), it's the closest we've got to
a modern Fallout 1/2.

I'm also looking forward to Obsidian's new game The Outer Worlds, seems like
New Vegas IN SPACE.

~~~
guiltygatorade
I played Underrail a while back but didn't get too far. I do want to go
through it fully at some point. Is it worthwhile? I also heard the developer
is working on an expansion pack of some sort.

Speaking of modern Fallout 1/2, this game just came out:

[https://atomrpg.com/](https://atomrpg.com/)

I'm kind of waiting for the initial round of reviews / reactions before
deciding on whether to give it a shot.

------
electricslpnsld
I recall reading somewhere that two days before shipping the game was crashing
in release mode builds, so the binary that shipped was in debug! Apparently a
big part of the performance increase in BG2 came from fixing this bug.

------
z3t4
That where some crazy years for PC gaming. I like that they took the naive
approach eg. large images instead of tiles. I really enjoyed walking around in
the woods exploring and searching for dungeons.

------
the8472
> The video-game review site GameRankings has indexed at least one review for
> 27 RPGs released in 1995.

The list appears incomplete. It doesn't even cover albion.

------
point78
BG2 and Xmas break... great memories

------
fredley
Literally been replaying BG2 over the Christmas break. It's still just as good
as it ever was.

------
ConcernedCoder
Baldur's Gate on the Apple ][ was cutting-edge at the time... I played it for
hours on end.

