Game Daze #1: "Baldur's Gate" Day 1

by Joshua Packard, Fullness of Happy

I am starting a new blog column discussing my time playing various games, whether they are computer, video, board or other kind of games.  I will be giving reviews of games as I play them, and will try to write a blog entry for every time I attempt to play a game. These entries will describe the challenge level, difficulties, fun parts, frustrations, and tactics or strategies I use to attempt to get the most out of the games.

The first game I have begun playing in preparation for writing about it is the original "Baldur's Gate" for PC.  This is the original version, which I bought as a 4 in 1 DVD set containing all the Baldur's Gate I & II and their expansions as well.  I remember buying the game when it first came out a long time ago, back when the latest Windows was Windows 95.  It spanned 5 CD-Roms.  The edition I have is not the Enhanced Edition available on Steam. It is the original version, just put onto one DVD instead of 5 CDS.

I started playing yesterday.  I have given up on this game so many times, because it is a pain to level up.  It is a role-playing game, based on the rules of pencil and paper RPG Dungeons & Dragons, and set in the Forgotten Realms world.  There is so much to do in this game, and while that is one of its blessings, it is also a curse.  To advance, you need to do quests and fight monsters and enemies to get your characters experience points. This makes them stronger, better fighters, gives more abilities and magic spells, and otherwise improves your characters statistics and abilities, in order to make them more powerful and deadly against enemies.

Unlike Japanese style RPGs ,where you can just walk back and forth until a random fight occurs, in Baldur's Gate there is no real easy way to find enemies to fight.  And it doesn't take too long for the enemies you encounter to be too powerful to survive.  My strategy for leveling up has been to rest in an area containing enemies I know my characters can handle. I get woken up by Bandits and kill them for 65 experience points each.   This is just extremely tedious and I have not leveled up very much.

Both of my characters, my main character and my NPC nonplayer character, have gotten up to level 3.   I am trying to level up enough that I can defeat a powerful magician in the first place I am supposed to travel to, the Friendly Arm Inn.  But I am just going to keep grinding through these battles until I get to at least level 5 for each character.  This is going to take forever.  I will update you on whether I have figured out any other ways to gain more experience this early in the game.

This game is great, except for the difficulty level.  Everything is based on random dice rolls, or random number generators. These determine the success or failure of attacks and the amount of damage or other effect done.  The enemies are just too powerful early on, and until I can level up more, I am going to have to just keep fighting weaker enemies one at a time. I will do this until I am strong enough to fight the more deadly enemies in the game, who give more
experience points on being killed.  Maybe I can find some better armor and weaponry, as well.
I was going to try using a cheat that would allow me to heal any character just by right clicking on their portrait. But for some reason, I can't get the cheats or the console where I enter them to work.  So I will be playing without cheats, and I will make updates on my progress in the game until I beat the game, or give up in frustration.

The version of the game I am playing can be purchased here.

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