Icewind Dale longplay (no commentary) 1/3

“Icewind Dale is a role-playing video game developed for Windows by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Entertainment. It was released on June 30, 2000. It takes place in the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms campaign setting, and is based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition ruleset. The player begins the game by creating an adventuring party, which becomes enlisted as a caravan guard in the wake of strange events. As the story progresses, the player learns of a demonic feud that threatens the Ten Towns of Icewind Dale. Icewind Dale is based on the BioWare Infinity Engine“ [Wikipedia]. Infinity engine was first introduced in Baldurs Gate and subsequently used in Planescape Torment and sequels of BG & IWD. It was replaced by BioWare’s Aurora Engine, used to develop Neverwinter Nights. IWD could be categorized into the hack & slash RPG subgenre. There are however important differences between IWD and the traditional, Diablo type hack & slash games. Most importantly, the real-time squad based tactical combat system characteristic of BG. Player can pause the game to issue orders for each character, while actions take place in real time, after the game has been resumed. Each action has a defined duration in real time and dice rolls are calculated automatically. The other major difference is the story. While games such as Diablo offer very limited opportunities for character interactions, IWD has numerous NPCs spread around the entire game. The NPCs have branching dialogue options and the conversations can produce various outcomes. Still, when compared to BG series, IWD is a lightweight when it comes to storyline and character interaction. This statement is not to undermine IWD, few games come even close to BG and IMO BG2 is still the best RPG to date. Atmosphere, OST and voice acting in IWD are excellent. If I could wish one thing, first in mind would be to have all dialogue voice acted. IWD is an essential experience for anyone interested in RPG games. Fun game to explore, perfect choice to satisfy an urge to smash some faces. ABOUT THE LONGPLAY: The game originally only supported 4:3 resolution modes. I’m using a widescreen MOD that allows a larger playfield to be displayed on the screen. The MOD creates letterboxes for inventory and other such screens. I would had recorded the enhanced edition version, because it’s optimized for (and only allows) a widescreen resolution. However, I begun recording this game in 2013, long before the enhanced edition was released. I had made decent progress, but the project was shelved due to upgrading my computer. Finishing the longplay hasn’t been a high priority for me, until recently when I dug up my old save files and reinstalled the game. There aren’t many changes in the enhanced edition compared to original. For example cutscenes have not been remade, but resized from original 4:3 videos. Also, for some reason there doesn’t appear to be an option to enable subtitles for cutscenes. Most of the game was played on hard difficulty, but slider was set to maximum around halfway of the last chapter. Progress in the beginning can be a bit tedious at hard, especially if trying not to rest all the time. It is important to realize early on that there’s practically no opportunity to heal, but the smallest wounds, without a healer in the party. Replenishing health and spells requires resting. Hardest part of the game is at the end of chapter 2. There are two areas full of monsters, where resting is not allowed. It is still possible and essential at harder difficulty modes to backtrack into areas where resting is allowed. From the beginning of the chapter 3 the game gets easier. All nonspoken dialogue is browsed quickly to avoid wasting video. In addition to conversations, item and spell descriptions can be read by using the magical pause key. In addition, some inventory management and backtracking of previously explored areas was edited from the video. Sometimes, the party teleports into a shop selling loot and then back to a dungeon etc. even though there’s no “town portal“ spell. The last time I finished the game was when it was first released. Most of the game is covered, but there are probably at least few missteps in the longplay. The most important is the “Broken blade of Aihonen“ quest obtained right at the beginning of the game. Because of a mistake in a conversation, the opportunity to restore the blade at the last chapter was lost. This also prevents a quest to upgrade the blade in the expansion. There’s not much use for the blade though, because it’s obtained so late in the game and there’s a better sword to be found in the expansion. The main reward would be a nice boost to experience. HOW can be accessed before finishing the main campaign. For the sake of clarity and story progression a decision was made, to first finish the main game, and then import the party into the expansion. HOW also includes a dungeon add-on, Trials of the Luremaster.