Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II (PS2)

Five new adventurers arrive in Baldur's Gate after the fall of Eldrith the Betrayer and the capture of the three original heroes. The threat of Eldrith has been eliminated, yet sinister, evil forces still rally againsts the City. There are many intrigues to unravel, enemies to defeat and characters to meet,both new and old, before Baldur's Gate is saved from a terrible fate.

Your adventure will run through spectacular enviroments (most much better than the first) such as a ruined dwarven city, the labyrinthine, the shadowy and many more exciting, and often bizarre, levels.

The Five new characters are:

ALLESSI FAITHHAMMER: She is a deity of guardians and protectors, the Cleric of Helm. She adventures for the cause of good and is a good all-round fighter.

BORADOR: Borador is a treasure hunter and a particularly tough breed of rogue who exels with a crossbow and various other ranged weapons.

DORN REDBEAR: Dorn is a massive, carousing, thrill-seeking barbarian. He is an exceptional melee combatant who is extremely powerful in combat.

VHAIDRA: Vhaidra is a deadly martial art fighter who loves nothing btter than fighting bare-handed.

YSURAN: Ysuran is a moon elf, a necromancer and a wizard specialising in the dark art of dark magic.

The graphics and sound are excellent once again, and the water effects are still just as spectacular. The cut sequences are good, but later in the game some of them long pauses in conversations and between changed camera angles. The opening sequence is slightly disappointing as it's not as attention catching as the first one was.

The character choice in this game was slightly disappointing too. There was no ordinary archer or basic warrior types and, to be honest, only one character really appealed to me. Even though there was fewer characters in DA1 they were, in my opinion, better. There has been an attempt to give the characters more of a background than in Dark Alliance 1.

The level design is more complex than the first game with many hidden areas, different levels, and a world map feature . Unfortunately some of the areas are a bit too small which can lead to annoyous when it takes longer for an area to load than for you to acually complete it. Also weapons and armor can now be created and customised, which expands the range of options available to characters significantly. Loading times are still generally quite good, and the loading screens now have hints and tips about the game or general infomation about the making of it.

The multiplayer feature is again excellent, but unfortunately because of the structure of some sections if your character dies you may be sitting out for a long time before your team mate resurrects you.Hence, you can still resurrect fallen characters at any save point along the level.

Most of the weapons from the first game return, and there are now levels of equipment including "Grand" and "Imperial" etc, which affect how good the weapon/armor is and how far it can be upgraded. A nice addition is the ability to make magic items in the workshop which wasn't available in the first game and make weaponary more powerful and unique. Stones like: Amethyst, Coral, Topaz and Jet are added to give magical properties.

The problem with the game is that the gameplay can get very repetitive. Each level is effectively run around and kill the monsters with little variation. The puzzles are very basic, and the plot does not progress quickly enough to keep this interesting. The text on the loading screens was interesting the first few times i saw it, but it quickly began to repeat itself. This game has little replay value too, even if you use different characters the levels are still exactly the same as before with minor personal quests available.

In summary, a good game with good graphics and sound, and an excellent multiplayer mode, but gets boring once completed and started again