Yes, oh omnipresent authority figure...

Baldurs Gate is such an impressive game that I have yet to come up with one adjective to sum it up, so I'll have to use several. A few that come to mind are: addicting, engrossing and huge.

You Begin in the Candlekeep Inn and all is not well. You and your foster father must leave the keep because you are no longer safe. Someone is after you and you don't know why. Your foster father is killed and you must strike out on your own.

Your Character
You have the option of being male or female, choosing your race from:
Elf, Half elf, Human, Halfling, Dwarf, and Gnome. You also have the option to choose from several degrees of Good, Evil and Neutral, and what specialty you character has, i.e. mage, thief, fighter…

You are given several character pics to choose from, but you can import your own. If I had ANY artistic talent whatsoever, I would just love that feature!

Game Play
The game as over 50 maps and will give you many hours of game play. Saving often is a necessity because once your character is killed you must reload and start again. The Quick save feature is a lifesaver.

This game is played by using your mouse 95% of the time and can become a royal "clickfest." My only vice is that you can't control your party with the keyboard. (I have hope for BG 2)

The pause feature allows you to stop and think. You can stop the action in order to cast spells and select weapons. It also pauses the action when you are engaged in dialog with other characters within the game.

I'll tell you now, that you'll have to do a lot of reading and rereading to play this game successfully. You might even expand your vocabulary. The premise of the game isn't set right out in front of you, so you must pay attention to what is going on around you to advance.

Specs
The game consists of 5 CD ROM's, 6 if you purchase the expansion pack Tales of the Sword Coast. If you have a big enough HD you can do the full install and avoid switching CD's all the time. It takes up just over 3 gigabytes w/o the expansion.

There are several guide sites out there with hints, walkthroughs and cheat codes. The cheats are nice but you may want to play "fair" for a while first. I would suggest heading to www.bgchronicles.com to see what the game is all about. If you are a fantasy/RPG fan this is a must play game!

BTW… did I mention that the writers incorporate some off the wall humor and witty comments in here? Anything to keep you interested! My title is a pretty decent example of that.