Icewind Dale Review
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Icewind Dale is not without its share of problems. During the course of the game I did run across a few bugs, though scant. There are some problems in a couple of particular quests, such as the quest given by Orrick the Grey in Kuldahar to find a book on Mythal Theory. When I completed the quest using the release version of the game, I was given some sort of error along the lines of "No Valid Replies or Links". This has been addressed in Black Isle's latest patches, but it was an annoying bug nonetheless. Additional quest bugs do exist in the release version and some of them are even plot spoilers as they update your journal with more information than they should. Aside from bugs, the game runs pretty well in terms of lockups and memory leaks (which plagued the release version of Planescape: Torment). I only remember having to restart my PC once and that's having played through the entire campaign twice. Keep in mind this is in single-player mode though, and there may be additional lockups for multi-player.
Icewind Dale is an extremely fun and addictive game, providing challenges for the beginner as well as for veterans. It has taken Baldur's Gate to a new level of excitement and built upon the weaknesses of its predecessors. Even though I didn't score the game very high overall, this was only due to the lack of replayability and the bugs I encountered. Despite these problems, I would highly recommend this game to anyone who possesses an interest in RPGs and would consider it a necessity for those who have played and liked previous Black Isle RPGs. In my opinion, this game has a very good chance of becoming yet another "RPG of the Year" for Black Isle, depending on the success of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn which is slated for release this month.
