Perhaps I should rephrase: I did not mean to ask for you to prove your opinion, but to demonstrate that the praise that BG gets is not due to nostalgia by giving reasons for why you like it and why the glaring flaws in it don't seem to make that much of a dent. To more appropriately phrase your analogy, tell me exactly what you like and dislike about Liver and Onions and please explain why the things in the Liver and Onions that I brought up which keep me from eating it don't stop you. If it's some kind of different value heirarchy you are working with, fine, I might not like it, but I have far more tolerance for that being laid out in a way that I can comprehend than copping out and dodging the question by telling me I won't understand or embarking on some relativistic nonsense about how we just have different tastes without explaining what those tastes are.

And again, I partly understand the praise it gets as a savior of the CRPG genre and all that, but not as a good game that still holds up; I refer you to the problems of poor storytelling early on by branching off in a direction the player has no stakes in, the way that , and characters being the worst kind of paper thin caricatures that plague the average D&D game as opposed to having characters with more depth than their alignment.

If my post consisted of, or contained, "relativistic nonsense", I fail to see why you would be interested in what I might have to say in addition to that "nonsense".

Personally, I don't seek out feedback from people who spout "nonsense" and I'd humbly suggest you do the same, with regards to me.

Thing is, it can be very difficult to outline exactly why you like a game, despite its flaws, while it's quite easy to describe why you don't. For me personally, I'll freely admit that some of my regard for the game is nostalgia. It was the first CRPG that I played and I have some damned fond memories of being so hooked on it that I was up practically all night and only stopped playing when I couldn't physically keep my eyes open any longer.

Part of the appeal for me is the fact it uses AD&D rules, which is the rule set I played for years when my buddies and I were playing Dungeons and Dragons. It's the rule set I prefer above all other D&D rule sets, despite the many instances where it just doesn't make any logical sense. When I found a computer game that was based on this rule set I thought I'd found Nirvana.

Another part of the appeal is the story. You point out that you're thrown into a situation where you don't understand what the iron shortage has to do with you, but you didn't play the full game. It turns out it does have something to do with you. But you don't find out how it ties in until much later in the game.

The NPCs are caricatures: sure, some of them. Others actually have some personality to them, although admittedly, none are really fleshed out to a great degree like in some other games. However, they're not all alignment-oriented paper cutouts either.

I find the combat in some of the more involved battles a lot of fun and quite engaging, requiring some tactical thinking and good usage of resources being required to come out the other side. (Of course, if one metagames, this is all thrown out the window, but if you avoid that, some of these battles are quite well designed).

Some of the mini/side quests are pretty entertaining and well thought out. Others are weak and fetch-like, but that's not unique to Baldur's Gate.

I like the freedom of exploration available in the game (areas locked until certain chapter landmarks are reached aside). And as a side note related to this, I really like the fact that you can easily get into a situation where your party is in way over their heads and facing vastly overpowered mobs. Get the hell out of Dodge or die. This is something that sorely lacks in many later CRPGs where encounters scale to your level.

I like the random encounters that periodically occur when travelling from one map to another. There are a fairly good number of different ones that can occur and they aren't all cake walks. I also enjoy the fact that if you decide to camp out in the wilderness, you will run the risk of being interrupted and having to face some angry mobs - possibly with few or no resources left to aid you.

I love the old 2d graphics with those little sprites and those really lovely painted backgrounds. Some people find it too dated by today's standards, but I still find the game is gorgeous (I have to note here that I play the BG1 game in the BG2 engine though, so the base game itself may be a different story - it's been a long time since I played just the base BG1 game outside the BG2 engine).

Ultimately, it does really come down to taste and preference. I find I still crank this game up at least once (but usually a couple times) a year. And having been gaming for a couple decades, this is one of the few games that I can say that about. Why do I keep coming back to it? In the end, it's just because I find it fun.

Hope that helps clarify it a bit.

All very well said. Agree completely.

On a personal note, I always found the business about the Iron crisis believable and quite natural. As a 1st lvl character I know I have no chance finding *or* dealing with whoever it was that was able to so easily dispatch my foster father, so the in-game suggestion to "investigate local concerns", as a way to gain experience, treasure, money, etc, seemed a very natural thing to focus on, while always planning to deal with the real enemy in time.

And even with regards to the Iron Crisis, you are not totally railroaded down that plot if you don't want to be - you can do lots and lots of other things, although ultimately, yes, you will have to solve the current plot to move onto the next plot. This is hardly unique to BG - what is unique [or at least was at the time] was the relative non-linerieality of the plot at a number of points.

I also share your preference for the 2nd ed rules - perhaps that too could be considered "nostalgia", but I much prefer their focus and intent, in comparison to any of the 3.whatever rules sets. While I haven't played any PnP AD&D for awhile, were I going to, it would be with the 2nd ed rules.

Thanks for a thoughtful and enjoyable post. :)

Agree with what Coel wrote, those things are what keeps me coming back too. I have to take issue with the neverending argument that nostalgia is what keeps people coming back, and is the reason the game is so well-liked though. This is uttered time and time again, but it certainly doesn't hold true for me (and I know, many others).

I hadn't played any of the Infinity Engine games until maybe two years ago. Signing up to GOG I bought the D&D bundle in some offer, modded up BG1 with Tutu, and got to work. The world that faced me was something I had never before seen in any game, irrespective of the game being 10+ years old by the time I played it. This is coming from a guy that quit playing Dragon Age Origins before its conclusion, because I got utterly fed up with the neverending spam of enemies we had to hack through. Baldur's Gate, however, hooked me. The reasons are basically what you mention in your post, Coel. The story, the combat, the rules (I had never played any form of D&D before, but I loved it), the setting, the 2D handpainted art, the characters, and the plot with a secretive assassin we have to locate (this is probably the main reason I like BG1's story better than BG2's).

Maybe it's not a coincidence that the criticism in this thread comes from people who haven't played the full game yet. It is a gem of a game, but you need to invest some time with it first. It's not for everybody, though. The game has a more tactical and slow pace compared with your typical modern game, so it's certainly different. There isn't much depth to the characters either (which changes in BG2). But what I like about it is the depth and complexity of the gameplay itself. The story is also wonderful, and being a lowly guy trying to figure out what is happening in the world, and surviving in it, is a fantastic feeling of exploration and survival.

I have played many games since, but they don't excite or "hook" me as much as I did and still do with Baldur's Gate 1-2 and Planescape Torment, and presently also Icewind Dale. I don't like IWD2 turned to 3e rules, as everything feels more bland and less unique, but I still look forward to playing that game since it's made by some of the people who made the other wonderful IE games.

The truth is I never wanted to make a real response, because he had already given bad responses to other people.
I understand this is not a game for everybody because it requires both knowledge of the rules and knowing how to play. And I don't care if people doesn't like it, because they are free to have their own opinion. But this game is very cool indeed for many reasons already given all over the internet and forums (and I can assure you that nostalgia is not the main reason, because I played it in my teens, many years after it was released).

So, is this piece of shit one of the greatest in game history? Hell yeah!
Is it law that you must enjoy it in spite of its flaws? Hell no!

But you seem a fine lad indeed, and I shall give you my reasons:
1) It feels like playing P&P D&D.
2) VERY interesting history.
3) REAL freedom (kill boys and cows lol).
4) It makes you use your brain (experiments have proved that even those lil' fuckin' xvarts can kill a lvl 3 warrior equipped).
5) Cool NPC's.
6) Being able to pick pocket virtually everyone.
7) The exploration and that fantasy feeling.
8) Music and landscape.
Flaws:
1) Speed: I can fix it, so I don't care.
2) Difficulty: The key is being more hardcore than the game.
3) It's boring (?): if you find it boring, then it's not your kind of game, ergo play another game.

So that's my humble opinion. That's why it's my favourite game ever. But it is my opinion, so if you think that it is a stinking piece of shit, I won't blame you. Just play what you want.

A philosophy minor and the law degree I am working on have refined my senses of critical thinking to the point that when I attempt to ask a question in a sincere attempt to understand (not necessarily agree with, but understand nontheless) someone who has a radically different philosophy or preference between Kirk and Picard or predisposition towards an obscure sexual fetish and am treated to a response that boils down to "just because" as if it's supposed to help me understand anything (which it absolutely does not), my brain feels like it is being stabbed with spoons.

That said, I apologize if I have offended you, and I go on to point out that my life experience as a whole has also made me rather more optimistic than is optimal to the point that I honestly believe that anyone is capable of being able to not only state the conclusions that form the foundation for, say, their views on Baldur's Gate, but to also go ahead and maybe outline some of the underlying premises behind those conclusions if prodded enough, hence why I submitted a further query.

Well, that's all the response I can offer. I like the game. I don't put any more thought into it than that - I like it because it entertains me and that's as far as I need to analyze it. I pointed out some of the specifics that I like in an earlier post - obviously that's insufficient for you. Well such is life. It's a computer game - I and others like it, while others don't. It's not Shakespear or a Renoir, it's a computer game. For me, anyway.

You didn't offend me, I took offence at some of your word choices and how I perceived the tone of your reply to me. Regardless, apology accepted.

I mentioned the story, the NPCs, the fact that the game used 2nd ed AD&D rules, the 2D graphics, etc. That's pretty much as in-depth as I go with regards to why I like it. As I said, I don't analyze my preferences too deeply, when it comes to a computer game - perhaps others do.

Anyway, you've seen a number of replies now, mostly saying the same things from multiple players, so if that doesn't answer your question, perhaps you are stuck with the tautology that "Those who like the game like it because they like it."

Perhaps that's personally unsatisfying for you [I don't know] but it may have to do.

Thank you for your reply.

My reply isn't going through, so I'm trying cutting it into smaller posts.

Just wanted to thank you all for your responses. I will try to address them as best I can, and feel free to comment; if I'm off about something, I would rather engage in dialogue as opposed to inadvertently starting some kind of flame war.

I understand that it can be hard, but as I mentioned earlier, I am always open to the attempt to try to reverse engineer one's opinions and to discuss why they hold them. I really do appreciate any effort to try.

I have little enough experience with D&D in general (and will not be mentioning which rulesets I have said experience with for fear of starting an edition war), but from what I do understand thanks to talking to people who have played AD&D 2E, the game doesn't adapt the rules all that well in certain key respects. One person I know was astounded when I brought up the inability to run and assured me that 2E definitely allowed for characters to move at more than one speed without the aid of magic, and had it been implemented, I would have had far more fun by having a way to get my party out of a losing fight other than sauntering away and hoping that we were able to outstroll that seemingly harmless wolf that surprised us by breathing ice or that other party of Xzarts that we were initially unable to see due to the fog of war, n ot to mention being able to use it to make up for the pileups that resulted from party members crashing into each other as they waded into melee. If it really is the case that running didn't exist in 2E and that Planescape Torment made it up, then I concede that it might be more accurate, but I don't understand how it results in the game being more fun.

It may very well be that it does tie into my story eventually, but I can't help but think that if it had been tried in any other work of fiction that I like, I would have written it off as bad storytelling. For example, let's say that in an alternate universe, Frodo, Samwise, Merry, and Pippin get to the Inn fresh from having the Nazgul chase them and do god only knows what as far as they and we know at this point, but when they find Aragorn, he takes them on a journey to clean out a mine that was rumored to be haunted. Unless the story made clear that Aragorn knew that the mines were somehow tied to the Nazgul and Sauron, it would just feel random and there would be an almost audible thud as the driving plot was dropped until it turned out that the mine was being used to ferry orcs to Mordor underground. Sure, it might turn out to be important, but noone knew that from the outset, and it results in it feeling like a chapter from a completely different book was spliced in by mistake.

I get that a level one character would have no way of fighting the guy after him, but I expected the party to start contacting some friendly magic users or even underworld contacts in order to gather some information on who is after the PC and why, maybe earning some exp as they make exceptionally good use of their social skills to acquire more data about the threat that faces them or as they train; hell, I'd even understand them going to that mine if Khalid or Jaheira had told me something about how they believed that the mine's problems were being caused by one of the guy's lackeys, and that maybe we could clean out the mine and kick down the flunky's door to get some answers in order to form a plan of action. In other words, I expected the game to follow the main plot.

Instead, the game went in a completely random direction that only turned out to have anything to do with the PC due to divine intervention from the writer. Even then, it didn't go back in time and make me feel like I had any more personal investment in the stakes, which, again, were next to nil at that point. If a real person had been DMing this, the plot would have come to a grinding halt once it became clear that not one of the PCs had any reason to go to Nashkel other than DM mandate, as opposed to making the characters want to go there by hinting that someone knew something about who killed Grawp's father or how there was an exceptionally palatial home for Sneakyfeet the thief to rob blind.

Maybe the story gets better later on, but writing of this kind is akin to someone shitting the bed when their significant other is over for a few days: if they wait until the sheets are changed, maybe there will be the possibility for fun times later on, but the sheer disgust makes it far more likely they will just leave in the morning. Again, I am honestly not sure what everyone else is seeing here.
Here's my problem: one of my pet peeves in D&D is how alignment functions to turn any game into a reductionist game of Good Guys and Bad Guys that happens to be played inside with dice as opposed to outside on a playground. Some people bag on LotR for oversimplifying good and evil, but at least there morality was actually theoretically questionable, while in D&D the discussion of morality is all but foreclosed by alignment making it empirically determinable. The only time I have seen alignment done well at all was in Planescape, and that was because the game was hell bent on showing just how idiotic the effect alignment has standard D&D can be deconstructing some of the more cemented alignment stereotypes.

So I think you can understand where I am coming from when I say that any one of the characters being boiled down to being almost entirely defined by their alignment is 20 characters too many. The moment Khalid asked Montaron to consider being a little less evil, I wanted to quit right then because I knew that where there is one PC this flat and underdefined, there are sure to be many others to the point that I was pretty much statistically guaranteed to be stuck with at least one (which, again, is far too many). Again, I just do not understand how anyone can overlook something like this, unless the rest of the game makes it pale in comparison or people prefer D&D to be purely escapist to the point that it removes any semblance of depth from the proceedings.

You have no idea how close I am to agreeing with you on this.

No, really, I mean it. I have totally loved this approach to combat in Planescape Torment, and I thought I would like it here, and I tried to prepare myself for it being somewhat cruder sheerly by virtue of being older. The inability to run was what really killed it for me, though, on top of the amazingly bad idea to start the PC off at level one, a level notorious for all but leaving it up to the machinations of fate as to whether or not characters die, meaning that any time I won a hard fight that was required to further the plot, I got through not by skill, but by combinations of save scumming and meta-gaming, which I did not find fun at all. Maybe that last part gets better later on, but I can't see the first part changing later in the game.

All very good and well, but what with me not being able to run and only being able to tell if I am in over my head is to try to fight and either find out that there are reinforcements moving in or taking potshots from beyond the fog of darkness or that the seemingly winnable fight against a low level monster is going badly and trying in vain to walk away. If I could run, I could see it, but as it stands, the fact that it is way too easy to get into a situation where you have no hope quickly starts feeling like a bug rather than a feature.
No complaints here, I'm fine with the graphics. Then again, the lack of a run function really makes me wonder if the artists felt the same way and tried to make sure players would spend as much time as possible looking at the backgrounds as opposed to getting anywhere quickly or being able to fight more effectively. Look, I'm not trying to be a dick about the running thing, but it really overshadows a lot of the game.

I apologize in advance since this isn't quite something you addressed, but this brings up a good point: why is it that virtually everyone who praises BG plays it with mods installed? On at least one occasion, I have found someone on this forum mentioning that they find vanilla BG unplayable (think it was in a mod thread); if that's the case, then I really have to question the praise it gets. If a game that is otherwise fully functional requires mods in order for it to be fun enough to consider playable, then that's a pretty damn big problem.

I usually cite to this wiki for a laugh, but a game that is supposed to be perfect wouldn't need anything to excuse it; I know that some people are not saying they think the game is perfect, but in my experience, anyone who isn't saying that might as well be, and even if they aren't, then I question how exactly they can lavish any praise on it while insisting that it be modded before playing. Am I missing something here?

The main reason most people play it with a BG2 conversion mod installed is that the game files convert perfectly into the new snazzier updated game engine. This is not really a game altering thing, but more of a graphics update that is made possible because BG2 uses the same game engine that had been improved by a few years.

Its really not much different from other games where some people choose to always apply a widescreen patch and the like.

So after many people have given their input to why they think the game is great, which is also well established up through the years, your wall of text basically boils down to you not liking it because you can't run? Is there any point in continuing this dialogue? Many of us have given you input and advice, but you keep coming back with criticism. If you don't want ot play it, fine, there are other games out there. If you dismiss a classic game because you can't run, essentially, well then I have little else to say really. It seems what we say doesn't go in, and if the idea is to convince us the game is crap, then that won't succeed either. We like it, you don't (despite only playing a small fraction of it). That's the gist of it.

Just jumping in on this point - (and NB: I don't enjoy BG due to nostalgia since I only played it for the first time about 2 years ago).
The point with going to the Nashkel mines is that others want to investigate the problems plaguing the sword-coast - the fact that you're running scared and don't know where to go for help results in you tagging along.
That all the big problems stem from the same source isn't divine intervention leading you to the plot - it's revelation story-telling. If you know where to go and what to do for everything, it would feel more 'on-rails' to me than it does already.

You give the example of Aragorn taking them on a jaunt down a mine without explaining why - I'd see this as following a mysterious/secretive character. I don't need to be told "we're going to find the bad guys in this mine" as that wouldn't be what my character gets told. He's a newbie, he must prove his trustworthiness and nature.
Khalid and Jaheira, due to their associations (and the same goes for Xzar and Montaron who work for an opposing group) are close-lipped about their work. It takes time for them to open up to you. (Something that comes across better with the NPC-mod, though I didn't have that for my first play-through)
As for using social graces (and some more swords as well) for investigation - you get more of that later on.

You make another point that 'if a game needs modding, it's not that great a game' (I'm simplifying of course) - I'd say it more like this: 'That the game has so many mods made for it, speaks of its popularity' - also, if mods make it better, then play it with the mods and enjoy it.
There are those who love vanilla-BG and wouldn't dream of 'spoiling it' with mods - I'm not one of those. And although I think the game is better with mods, I still think it's a great game without them.

I haven't played another game that's made me want to go back and play it again so many times - different classes and alignments (or rather role-playing the choices based on your chosen alignment) with different NPC companions gives the game a lot of replayability.

Just my 2p /

If the game is too slow for you, just speed it up on the config menu, for fucks shake.

Just speaking for myself as a newcomer to the series, I think part of why I've been a little surprised/disappointed in BG1 is that it is spoken of reverently as the God-King of all RPG's, when in reality it's just a pretty good game.

I can't really hold the Nashkel Mines storyline against the game. Yes, I've just met some friends of my mentor who want to travel far away and investigate some stuff that apparently has nothing to do with me. However, my character really has no direction at this point. Following some friendly people on an important mission seems as good as anything else.

Furthermore, since I'm the lead in a fantasy RPG, as a player I know that anytime "something strange" is happening somewhere that it darn well has something to do with me. Once I learned to expect this kind of cliched storytelling the game became much more enjoyable. It's sloppy but it's entertaining.

It took a little longer to come to grips with the non-fleshed out party members and NPC's. I expected the greatest game ever to have strong character-driven stories, but my friends are just kind of along for the ride.

I'm about to finish it up and move into BG2 (playing BGT). I may have to revise my opinion when I finish BGT and consider it as one big game.