Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

Back in the day, I played Baldur's Gate II on Mac but never had an opportunity to play the first one because it was only on PC. When Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition came out, it seemed like a good opportunity to fill that hole in my gaming history.

Baldur's Gate II is pretty much my favorite game, and the first one was pretty much along the lines of what I expected. Isometric RPG style that I love, focus on story, and it kept my interest like whoa. When I started out, I did every side quest and searched every inch of every map. My Labor Day weekend consisted of playing this game and only playing this game. That next day at work, my forearms hurt. I temporarily carpal tunneled myself.

This madness kind of ended after a timed quest screwed me over. In my enjoyment of every side quest and every map, I had dicked around too long, and there was a timed quest I didn't realize was counting down. One of my NPC buddies, Minsc, wanted me to rescue a woman from gnolls. After completing a bajillion side quests beforehand, I showed up to the place to rescue Dynaheir, and Minsc flipped his shit, saying I took too long. He then attacks the party. The 20 in-game hours it took to travel to that location put me over the time limit. I had to load a saved game from way before to make it in time, which made me lose a ton of playtime.

Most of that lost progress was spent on fluff, extra maps. I kind of stuck to the main quest line after that. I was paranoid that any one of my companions could have been a ticking time bomb.

It took me about 40 hours to finish, but I could have spent far more if that whole Minsc thing hadn't put a damper on my funtimes. Baldur's Gate II is still better, but this one's certainly worth the play.