Decline The best of the Infinity Engine games

[Corvinus]

Let's settle this once and for all. Which was, over all, the best of the Infinity Engine games?

The choices include all content up to and including the final patch - meaning the entire product.
'EE' denotes the 'Enhanced Edition'. Which are later, separate versions all together.

You get one choice and cannot change it once you have voted. It will also be possible to see what you voted for. Please motivate your choice here with a few lines of text, so that you can be bullied for your shit taste.

 

[Corvinus]

I'll say this myself:

While it is doubtful that the IE games were a sign of true incline, I'd say that the first one, Baldur's Gate (1998) is a more than passable attempt to translate a low-level D&D campaign to digital output. Such a campaign would probably be impossible in the P&P format (just try to survive from beginning to end without getting killed and reloading a save!), but still. As for the others... BGII is nice but it goes overboard with level inflation. The Icewind Dales has too little interaction besides combat for me and I never once cared for PT's 'afterlife' setting. The EE's are obviously for those who enjoy a side of POZ to go with the culture death, and as such, no thanks.

 

[Butter]

Icewind Dale obviously.

 

[Melcar]

Icewind Dale. Second place Baldur's Gate.

 

[Glop_dweller]

Icewind Dale (which I like very much) has critically flawed AI mechanics. The game treats sighting a lone scout as though sighting the entire party—even in a twisting labyrinth. This means that when a chased party member evades pursuers (especially by use of invisibility spell), the NPC/monsters all switch to attack the next non-invisible party member... even if they are hidden on the other side of the map, past a dozen walls and corners. The result is a that all monsters join a laughable (shortest path) conga line from one side of the map to the other, in order to attack PCs they could never have known about.

 

[fantadomat]

Torment for a storyfag,IWD for a combatfag and BG for explorofag. As a avid storyfag archmaster i voted for torment .


Also is there some gift for the people that vote EE,like a perma ban or stack of razor blades? Why even put them in?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

lmao at voting for IWD, how fucking hipster can you be?

 

[AdamReith]

Man I really need to get around to trying Icewind Dale.

Full party creation always scared me off.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

I go with BG1, because it gave and still gives me an unparalleled feeling of adventure, freedom, exploration and believable world building. On second place PS:T because of its narrative mastership. I never particularly enjoyed BG2 however - it has great quests but always felt more like a sightseeing tour than an adventure for me, jumping from one highlight to the next almost without transitions. I only completed it two or three times. IWD felt too much on rails for my taste and the endless battles were interesting to experiment with tactics but became very tedious for me. I hear that IWD2 is better but I never really played it for more than some hours.

 

[Dramart]

BGII has the best combat encounters, the best dungeons not annoying like IWD or BG1 and not boring like IWDII. IWDII dungeons are dull, like the ice temple and Draong's Eye (this trash dungeon is also in IWD1) and the other near the end where you have to travel in time to the past. Torment is okay if you like its setting and story but the fights are pathetic. Also in BGII you can go almost instantly to places you have to visit often like the INN in Athkatla, not like the bad designed Kuldahar in IWD1. All the other games lack at something but BGII is the perfect game almost flawless.

 

[Corvinus]

Also is there some gift for the people that vote EE,like a perma ban or stack of razor blades? Why even put them in?

So that they may be targeted for termination, naturally. fabrulana, mkultra and probably tred: We see you.

 

[Radiane]

My vote goes to IWD as well... uses the Infinity Engine quite well for all the combat and just overall great game, and the story is also pretty decent (imo still better than BG).

 

[Kalin]

Planet Escape: Tournament

 

[Gargaune]

Baldur's Gate 2. It's not the best at any single thing, but it's more than competent in each department and comes together wonderfully. And I'm not entirely on board with BG2 getting both regular and EE poll entries, but okay, in that case Quickloot over Neera.

 

[octavius]

I voted Icewind Dale since it's the party based CRPG I've played most times.
BG1 is very solid with SCS installed, the Bandit Camp battle being one of best CRPG battles ever.
I used to love BG2, but I guess I got a severe cheese overdose when I played Throne of Bhaal. The base game also deteriorates once you reach The Underdark and start massacring Beholder and Mind Flayers.
I'd rather read a book than play PST.

 

[Corvinus]

The base game also deteriorates once you reach The Underdark and start massacring Beholder and Mind Flayers.

That's exactly the part I had in mind when I said "BGII is nice but it goes overboard with level inflation". Still good entertainment, but yeah... A bit much maybe.

 

[Nano]

IWD. And I'm a storyfag.

 

[NJClaw]

Icewind Dale. Great atmosphere, sense of adventure, beautiful and evocative locations, fun combat, and minimal writing that gets the job done. Perfectly captures the spirit of a good dungeon crawl adventure.

Bonus points because the soundtrack will stay with you forever:

Spoiler

 

[Melcar]

A SCS mod for IWD would be rad.

 

[Faarbaute]

Everytime Icewind Dale is brought up I get the urge to reinstall and replay it again.

 

[Melcar]

Do it faggot.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Every game based on Bioware's execrable Infinity Engine has terrible combat and exploration.

Planescape: Torment has an incredible setting (courtesy of David Zeb Cook) and great writing (courtesy of Chris Avellone), which combine to make it worth playing despite the deficiencies of the gameplay.

 

[fork]

Planescape: Torment obviously.

This, by a landslide!

 

[curds]

Voted for PST because I simply don't enjoy IE combat. For me the engine is better suited for adventure game style shit than tactical RPG shit due to those pre-rendered bakgrounds.

 

[fantadomat]

Sooo looking at the stats,it seems that rusty is our only retard...for now.