Baldurs Gate 2 Shadows of Amn Download PC

The game received critical acclaim upon its release; GameSpy, GameSpot, and IGN awarded Baldur's Gate 2 their «Role-Playing Game of the Year» awards for 2000, and the game has sold more than two million units. An expansion pack, entitled Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal, was released on June 21, 2001. Besides adding a large dungeon and enhancements to the game, it concluded the Child of Bhaal saga. Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition, an enhanced version of Baldur's Gate 2, was released on November 15, 2013. Baldurs Gate 2 Shadows of Amn Download free Full Version.

Gameplay

Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn is an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition computer role-playing game. The central quest of the game consists of about sixty hours of play, while the full game, including all side quests, totals around 300 hours.[2] The player controls a party of up to six characters, one of whom is the protagonist;[3] if the latter dies, a saved-game must be loaded, or a new game begun. The game begins with character creation,[4] where, through a series of configuration screens,[5] the player creates a player character protagonist, choosing such things as class, ability scores, appearance and alignment.[6] Alternatively, an existing character from Baldur's Gate or Tales of the Sword Coast can be imported.[3][7] Once in the game world, the player may recruit certain non-player characters (NPCs) to travel with him or her, though only five may do so at a time; depending on who is present in the group, bickering, romance, and side quests can result.[8] NPCs in the party often converse with the player or with one another, and at times interject into the player's conversations with others.[9]

The game is played from an isometric perspective,[10] and the screen, which does not need to remain centered on the protagonist, can be scrolled with the mouse or the keyboard. Areas are revealed as they are explored by the player's characters. A fog of war effect hides explored areas when the player's characters move away from them. The player can also change the formation in which the party moves.[11] Clicking an area exit, such as a doorway or staircase, causes another area to be loaded. Clicking on the edge of an outside area causes the party to travel there; the game then presents the player with the World Map, from which the player may select a destination.[12]

The player interacts with characters and objects by clicking on them.[13] Clicking on the ground causes the player's selected characters to move.[14] The gameplay, though in real-time, can be paused, whereupon commands may be issued to controllable characters, who will attempt to execute them when the game is unpaused.[15] The game can also be set to pause automatically at certain times.[8] Dialogue is started by NPCs at certain scripted times, or by the player's clicking on NPCs who are not immediately hostile. When speaking to an NPC, the player must often choose what to say from a list of responses. Dialogue may lead to quests or important information. When the player clicks on a hostile being, the currently selected characters will advance to attack it.[13] Information about characters, creatures, items, and buildings in the game environment is shown on a tool tip, which appears when the mouse pointer is held over game elements. Baldurs Gate 2 Shadows of Amn Game free Download Full Version.

When a character in the group gains the necessary experience points, he or she gains a level.[17] Experience points are awarded for certain player actions, such as killing enemies or completing quests.[18] The party also has a reputation, which is affected by the player's moral actions, and which, along with the party leader's charisma attribute, influences how NPCs in the game world react to the player.[19] The characters in the party will also complain if the party's reputation conflicts with their alignment.[20] Resting heals the characters in the party and refreshes those who are fatigued; also, resting allows a character to memorize spells.[21] The game contains over 300 spells available for memorization.[22] With the exception of sorcerers, magic-users must memorize spells before they can be cast.[23][24] Spell-casting takes time and may be disrupted by attacks or other spells.[24]

The player can access sub-screens through the interface: area and world maps;[12] the journal, which tracks important information, such as quests and the game's plot;[25] the inventory page, which is used to manage and equip items;[26] the record screen, which is used to view information about, as well as level up, characters in the party;[27] the mage book and priest scroll screens, where spells can be inspected and memorized;[28] and the options screen, where settings may be altered, saved-games loaded, or the game saved or quit.[29]

Classes and kits

See also: Character class (Dungeons & Dragons)

During character creation, the player chooses a class:[30] fighter, ranger, paladin, thief, bard, mage, cleric, druid, barbarian, monk, or sorcerer; the last three are new for the sequel.[3][31] Different classes have different special abilities and restrictions;[31] a thief character, for instance, can find and remove traps,[32] but thieves have limitations on which weapons and armor they may use, and cannot be of lawful good alignment.[33] Most classes also have a subset of kits, or specializations within a class, from which to choose.[31][34] Kits have special advantages and usually, disadvantages;[35] one of the kits of the paladin class, the cavalier, for example, specializes in fighting monsters such as dragons and demons, but cannot use missile weapons.[36] At some point in the game, the player may join or take over a stronghold. The type of stronghold is determined by the protagonist's class. Baldurs Gate 2 Shadows of Amn game free Download for PC Full Version.

Multiplayer

The game also has a multiplayer mode, in which up to six human players can adventure through the game, controlling player-made characters as well as recruited NPCs.[38] The content of the game is otherwise the same,[38] and one of the players controls the protagonist.

Plot

Setting

The Forgotten Realms, the high fantasy campaign setting in which Baldur's Gate 2 is set, is a fictional world similar to a medieval Earth, but with its own peoples, geography, and history. In the Realms, as its inhabitants call it, fantastic creatures and magic are common.[39]

Baldur's Gate 2 takes place mainly in Amn, a country on the subcontinent of Faerûn. This country, known commonly as the Merchant Kingdom,[40] lies south of Baldur's Gate; wealth and trade are the chief concerns of the region.[40] The capital city of Athkatla, around which a fair portion of the game revolves, is the most important in Amn, and is ruled by the anonymous Council of Six. The local thieves' guild, the Shadow Thieves, also has considerable power.[41] The group, which operates all along the Sword Coast,[42] is based in Athkatla.[43] Another powerful organization in Amn are the Cowled Wizards, who regulate the use of magic in the region.[42][44] The Shadow Thieves, the Cowled Wizards, and the Harpers, a semi-secret conglomeration of good organizations,[39] all factor prominently into the story and provide side quests.[22]

Besides Athkatla, other places the player will pass through include: an island, on which stands both the port town of Brynnlaw and the asylum Spellhold; the Underdark;[3] the city of Suldanessellar; and the Astral Plane.[3] There are also other places, which may be explored: the Umar Hills,[3] where people have been disappearing; a temple ruins,[3] fallen under the shadow of the Shade Lord; the de'Arnise Keep, home of the de'Arnises but recently overrun by trolls; the town of Trademeet, under attack by animals; a druid grove connected to Trademeet's woes; the Windspear Hills, where the player becomes entangled in the intrigues of Firkraag, a dragon; the underwater Sahuagin city; and the Planar Prison.

Baldur's Gate 2 is set in the year 1369 DR (Dale Reckoning),[45] and thus takes place not long after the Time of Troubles (1358 DR), when the Tablets of Fate, powerful magic items which maintain a balance between good and evil, were stolen.[46] Lord Ao, the Overdeity, forced the gods to become mortal until the Tablets were found;[46] some gods died while in this mortal state.[39][45]

Characters

See also: List of Baldur's Gate characters

Bhaal, the God of Murder, was one such god, slain by an adventurer named Cyric, who himself became a god.[47] But Bhaal foresaw his destruction, and walked the land before the other gods.[22] He left behind him «a score of mortal progeny,» whose later deaths, when they were slain by heroes, would fuel his rebirth.[48] The game's protagonist is one of these offspring;[48] but, through the choices of the player, may be either good or evil.[22] The character grew up in the library fortress of Candlekeep, watched over by the mage Gorion.[48] Imoen, who grew up there as well,[49] became a close friend.[48] The story of the first Baldur's Gate follows their adventure along the Sword Coast, where the hero learns of their heritage, and defeats their half-brother Sarevok, a fellow child of Bhaal.

Some notable characters in Shadows of Amn include: Gaelan Bayle, who offers the party the help of the Shadow Thieves;[50][51] Aran Linvail, the leader of the Shadow Thieves;[52] Saemon Havarian, who sails the party to an island;[53] Adalon, a silver dragon whose eggs have been stolen and given to drow;[54] Elhan;[55] and Queen Ellesime, the ruler of Suldanessellar.[56] Jon Irenicus and his sister Bodhi are the chief antagonists, with Irenicus the game's main villain. Drizzt Do'Urden also makes an appearance; and if the player solicits his aid, he and his companions will later help the player.[8]

In Baldur's Gate 2, several characters from the first game reappear, of which the following can join the player's party: Imoen, who grew up with the protagonist in Candlekeep;[49] Jaheira, who, with her husband Khalid, was a friend of Gorion's;[57] Minsc, a warrior who carries with him a hamster named Boo;[58] Edwin, a Red Wizard of Thay;[59] and Viconia, a dark elf cleric.[8][59] There are also many new NPCs who may join the party: Aerie, a winged elf who has lost her wings and was sold to the circus by slavers at a young age;[60][61][62] Keldorn, an older paladin and a powerful and respected member of the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart;[63][64] Mazzy, an honorable halfling fighter and «the nearest thing to a paladin that a halfling can aspire to»;[64] Nalia, who is of the upper class, but, though conscious of class distinction, tries to help those less fortunate than herself;[65][61][66] Valygar, who is of a family noted for its talented magic-users, but hates the art;[67] Anomen, a member of the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart, and whose wish is to become a full knight;[67] Cernd, a druid;[67] Haer'Dalis, a tiefling bard and one of the actors of an acting troupe;[64][68] Jan, a gnome, of the Jansen family;[69] Yoshimo, a thief from the land of Kara-Tur;[69] and Korgan, an evil dwarven fighter.[8][60]

Story

Shortly after the events of Baldur's Gate, the hero and companions are overcome and taken captive.[8] When the game opens, the hero awakens in a cage, and is shortly thereafter experimented upon by a wizard named Jon Irenicus.[8] Irenicus is distracted as his complex is attacked by thieves, and disappears to fight them. The hero uses this opportunity to escape from the complex with a few other companions, including Imoen, and emerges into the city of Athkatla. As soon as the hero and his party have entered the city proper, they see Irenicus fighting off some of his attackers. After he has destroyed his attackers, he notices the hero and his companions. An argument ensues, during which Imoen angrily attacks Irenicus using magic. Immediately Cowled Wizards appear, after a fight arrest both Irenicus and Imoen for the unsanctioned use of magic, and teleport both of them away.[50]

In the slums of Athkatla, a man named Gaelan Bayle offers the party the help of a powerful organization, who can find Imoen or Irenicus for the large sum of 20,000 gold pieces.[50] The party is approached by and offered the help of another rival guild headed by Bodhi;[51][52] it is the player's choice whom to side with.[51]

Imoen and Irenicus are removed to an asylum called Spellhold situated on an island. Irenicus soon breaks his bonds and prepares to experiment on Imoen. In Athkatla, the party raises the money necessary and receives assistance from whichever organization it has decided to work with,[52] and gains passage to the island on a ship sailed by Saemon Havarian. The heroes enter Spellhold, but are captured by Irenicus, who has taken control of the prison and had planned all along to bring the protagonist there. Irenicus subjects the protagonist to a ritual which takes the protagonist's soul. Imoen, who is revealed to also be a Child of Bhaal, has already been subjected to Irenicus's ritual, and her soul has gone to Irenicus's sister Bodhi. Bodhi then abandons the party to the maze beneath Spellhold so she may hunt them. When they face her, the now soulless protagonist loses self-control and transforms into a creature called the Slayer, one of the avatar forms of Bhaal, which scares off Bodhi. The hero returns to their normal self, and the party battles Irenicus, forcing him to retreat. The party follows,[53] and reaches the surface via the Underdark.[54]

Upon reaching the surface, the party encounters the army of the elven city of Suldanessellar. The elves cannot return to the city, for Irenicus has magically hidden it. To gain access to it, the party secures the Rhynn Lanthorn from Bodhi, who has stolen the artifact; upon Bodhi's death, Imoen's soul is restored.[55] The Rhynn Lanthorn lights the way to Suldanessellar,[55][70] which has been invaded by Irenicus and his minions. The party proceeds through the city and, at the Tree of Life, learns Irenicus is draining the power of the Tree, which will doom Suldanessellar. The heroes defeat him, but because Irenicus still has the protagonist's soul, they and the rest of the party, are dragged into Hell with the wizard. When they defeat Irenicus, they return to life, and are honored by the elves of Suldanessellar.[70]

Development

Baldur's Gate 2 was developed by BioWare and published by Black Isle Studios and released for Windows in September 2000. The game uses the same Infinity Engine as Baldur's Gate. BioWare dedicated the game to Daniel Walker, the company's second employee, who died in 1999.[71]

Baldur's Gate was the first role-playing game designed by BioWare, and they applied what they learned in the process to Baldur's Gate 2.[72] They also felt they did not have enough time to reach their design goals with the first game, due to developing both the content of the game and the Infinity Engine at the same time.[10] In Baldur's Gate 2, it was determined that the designers should be allowed "adequate time to allow the game to reach its full potential.[10]" Throughout its development, they focused "on ensuring that Baldur's Gate 2 is significantly better than Baldur's Gate in every way possible, and to make it appeal not only to fans of the original game but also to make it accessible to new fans who never played the original game.[72]"

Development of Baldur's Gate 2 began in January 1999.[73] From the suggestions of fans on message boards and newsgroups, reviews of Baldur's Gate, and internal suggestions, a list of constructive criticism was compiled; from this list, a slightly shorter one of features to be added to the game was made.[73] Some of the items on this list were: support for higher resolutions, such as 800 by 600 pixels and above; 3D support; non-pausing dialogue in multiplayer; drop off panels in the interface; character kits; dual-wielding of weapons; a streamlined journal and annotable map; deathmatch; and inclusion of famous AD&D monsters such as the dragon.[10] Not many features had to be cut, and they kept as many as they could.[10] Because of the engine's mature state of development, most features were fairly easy to add.[10] Ben Smedstad, the producer of the game, said, "The engine was up and running since day one, which is a huge morale booster. When a monster is complete, we put it into the 'override' directory and it appears in the game! This is a huge change from working on the original.[73]" Late in the project, deathmatch was removed, while non-pausing dialogue, which proved «the most problematic feature», was removed early on before being reintroduced in early 2000.[10]

To avoid some of the design mistakes made in Baldur's Gate, guidelines were drawn up for each department; the level designers had the longest set of guidelines.[74] These lists continually changed and evolved as the development progressed.[74] The main design guidelines for the entire project were that the players should feel like their actions have an effect on the game world, and good versus evil options should be available depending on which path the player takes.[74] Guidelines for the story were to keep the focus on the player's character, keep the player updated on the activities on the game's villain, add a significant plot twist, and make the ending of the game open enough so that there would be room for more sequels.[74] Environment guidelines were to break the game into chapters, make some locations key to the central plot, keep areas interesting and easy to quickly navigate, and showcase areas before they were available to explore to capture player interest.[74] For the game systems, guidelines focused on character customization and a well-crafted reward system.[74] The writing guidelines were concerned mainly with dialogue: limiting the number of sentences NPCs spoke at a time, keeping the number of player response choices at three as often as possible, avoiding profanity and accents, and having a small set of random dialogue for unimportant NPCs.[74] Many early design decisions did not follow the guidelines, and programming constraints were not always followed by other departments, such as design and art, leading to slowdowns in some parts of the game that were difficult or impossible to fix.[74]

The process for creating levels was long and complicated.[74] It began with the creation of a general layout of the area to be built by designers. They would pass this concept map to the artists, who added models to it, beginning with the largest objects and ending with small items such as individual pieces of furniture. After everything was put in place by the art team, designers took over again, inserting graphical enhancements, effects, and collision detection code. With a functional level, creatures, items, traps, and triggers were added last, then scripts were written for everything to control behavior.[74] The team found it quite difficult to keep track of changes made to levels, and there were sometimes communication problems between different parts of the team, such as the artists and designers, resulting in inconsistencies between their work.[74] Ray Muzyka, the co-executive producer,[75] wrote, "We learned to make sure all elements of the team are talking to each other and working as a group, rather than as a bunch of individuals![74]" They did feel they had done a good job automating the level creation process, as levels were rapidly designed.[74] «A designer,» wrote Muzyka, "might submit a level description and receive it, art complete, a month later ready for scripting, but missing some key features (almost always a door). We would then have to determine whether the omission was important enough to have the art piece redone, or whether we could simply tweak the design of the level to fit the finished art.[74]"

During the game's development, a quality assurance department was added to BioWare, and the game's publishers lent their assistance in testing.[74] Muzyka said, «because of its immense size, Baldur's Gate 2 was a tester's nightmare,» and "this was compounded by the fact that we didn't do enough testing as areas were being developed.[76]" The game contained about 290 quests, each of which had to be tested in both single player and multiplayer modes.[76] BioWare used a method, introduced to them by Feargus Urquhart, Douglas Avery, and Chris Parker of Black Isle Studios, in which the game's quests were listed on white-boards, with a cross placed beside each quest.[76] Pairs consisting of a developer and a tester were allotted each a quest, and upon their believing the quest to be stable, its cross was deleted.[76]

Muzyka wrote:

In the final days of working on BG2 there was a strangely serene feeling in the office. We didn't experience the headlong panic that is sometimes prevalent while finishing a game, but we certainly did experience considerable stress as we built 21 final candidates in 3 days. After a few long nights with the whole team playing the game over and over again, we reached a point where we built a good final candidate. Then it was sent to the duplicators![76]

The game's music was composed by Michael Hoenig, a German composer who played with Tangerine Dream.[77] He also composed the music for the first Baldur's Gate. Baldurs Gate 2 Shadows of Amn Free Download Torrent.