-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Reinstalling Baldur's Gate 1 (What mods should I get)
- Thread starter delirium
- Start date
lastendconductor
Put your snobby liquids into my mouth!
Baldur's Gate Trilogy is fucking great.
BGTutu.
Which enables you to play BG1 looking like BG2 (better ui, 800x600 instead of 640x480). I couldn't play BG1 without it. Can be found (actually named EasyTutu for better installing) here: http://usoutpost31.com/easytutu/
Which enables you to play BG1 looking like BG2 (better ui, 800x600 instead of 640x480). I couldn't play BG1 without it. Can be found (actually named EasyTutu for better installing) here: http://usoutpost31.com/easytutu/
Minsc
Gold Member
http://www.gibberlings3.net/widescreen/
If you have a widescreen monitor, GET THIS RIGHT NOW. It works for most of the Infinity Engine games. I love it.
If you have a widescreen monitor, GET THIS RIGHT NOW. It works for most of the Infinity Engine games. I love it.
Shake Appeal
Member
I played through the entire BG saga during January-March of this year. BG1 isn't as good as BG2, no, but it's not true that it's 'nowhere near' as good; it's still one of the top-tier CRPGs.
darkressurection
Banned
ElyrionX said:
Haeleos
Member
My avatar was Jon Irenicus before... well... my bad. 
Anyways, this will always be my favourite game. I love the entire series, and it's sad to realize that probably no other game will come close to the storytelling, characters, humor, art, depth, immersiveness and fun that these games provide. Even Bioware admits they will never tackle a project of this magnitude again.
The amazing thing is these games still play well today, and are what I think some of the best games to have aged well, and with the mods you can get for BG1 they are even better today. So yea, grab BGTuTu and the BG2 Tweak Pack (works on BGTuTu). With BG2 Tweak Pack, you can install what tweaks you want to make to the game (ie. unlimited stacks of ammo so Imoen doesn't turn into a bag of arrows)
To a lesser extent, but better than most RPGs still, is the Icewind Dale games. IWD works a lot better in multiplayer than BG did since it's more of a dungeon hack, but I'd still only play it if you have a LAN or something since it's more fun to play with the person in the room with you for some reason.
Anyways, have fun!
Anyways, this will always be my favourite game. I love the entire series, and it's sad to realize that probably no other game will come close to the storytelling, characters, humor, art, depth, immersiveness and fun that these games provide. Even Bioware admits they will never tackle a project of this magnitude again.
The amazing thing is these games still play well today, and are what I think some of the best games to have aged well, and with the mods you can get for BG1 they are even better today. So yea, grab BGTuTu and the BG2 Tweak Pack (works on BGTuTu). With BG2 Tweak Pack, you can install what tweaks you want to make to the game (ie. unlimited stacks of ammo so Imoen doesn't turn into a bag of arrows)
To a lesser extent, but better than most RPGs still, is the Icewind Dale games. IWD works a lot better in multiplayer than BG did since it's more of a dungeon hack, but I'd still only play it if you have a LAN or something since it's more fun to play with the person in the room with you for some reason.
Anyways, have fun!
A Black Falcon
Member
Unmodded. Only use the official patch, the BG1 Fix Pack (1.1), and the BG1 Game Text Update -- the unmodded, fixed game experience, as it should be.
BG1 may be not quite as good as BG2, but it's still the third best RPG ever, after just Torment and BG2... I think that it stands best on its own. Sure, BG2 made some interface enhancements, but BG1 is still more than good enough to play just fine without them. After a short adjustment you'll get used to the BG1 system... something like Tutu to run it in the BG2 engine really isn't needed or really helpful. Just use the fix packs, nothing else.
BG1 may be not quite as good as BG2, but it's still the third best RPG ever, after just Torment and BG2... I think that it stands best on its own. Sure, BG2 made some interface enhancements, but BG1 is still more than good enough to play just fine without them. After a short adjustment you'll get used to the BG1 system... something like Tutu to run it in the BG2 engine really isn't needed or really helpful. Just use the fix packs, nothing else.
A Black Falcon said:
Tutu is a lot easier on the eyes and the GUI improvements are helpful. The camera is also zoomed out more, which is helpful. Also, if you're planning on importing your BG2 character, you can choose some BG2 exclusive kits in BG1 with BGTutu.
All I know is that I wouldn't want to play BG1 without it anymore.
Prime crotch
Banned
Icewind Dale holds up a lot better than BG1, of all Infinity Engine games I would probably put BG1 at the lowest rank, but it's still a lot better than some games nowadays.A Black Falcon said:
A Black Falcon
Member
Dina said:
Zoomed out view... that isn't really an enhancement. It just makes everything smaller. It doesn't increase playability, it just hurts it, because everything was designed for 640x480. The game doesn't benefit from higher resolutions.
The same applies to BG2, really... going above 800x600 is counterproductive. Even there everything is a lot smaller than it was in BG1, but it's designed to be smaller, so it's better that way (even though I really liked the larger sprites in BG1 and Torment, the higher resolution does allow for more detail).
As for importing... import a BG2 character into BG1? Why? Reset to level 1 I'd assume, but still... the whole point is to start in BG1 and then import into BG2, not go the other way around... just for a couple of extra kits? Doesn't seem worth it unless you really want to use one of those, and in BG1 (for BG2 you could just use a save file editor to change your character to the kit you want if you use an import character from BG1, I'd imagine).
Prime crotch said:
The IWD games are good, but they're not nearly as great as the BG games or Torment.
crowphoenix
Banned
I've been meaning to give this game another go. I bought the game on release, but didn't get it. It's sitting in my room. Does Vista kill it?
A Black Falcon
Member
crowphoenix said:
I have Vista. BG1 works fine. I did have to turn on Standard Software Blt in the graphics option menu to get rid of graphics errors (black outlines and stuff), but other than that, no problems.
*launches game*
... Black Isle logo video, TSR logo video, BioWare logo video, then the incredibly great Baldur's Gate intro video... so, so awesome...
Minsc
Gold Member
Prime crotch said:
They're actually the newest of the bunch (IWD is actually newer than BG2), so it's pretty expected they'd hold up the nicest (graphically). If I had it my way, they'd have come out first, so the rest of the games could have been a little flashier ;-)
BG1 was really good. I don't think one should overlook it because of it's age (it was the first/oldest), the game was really well polished and gave a open world to explore feeling which the sequel didn't quite have.
A Black Falcon said:
Actually 1024x768 works really nice too, it's once you go past that it gets weird. The interface gets scaled when you go to 1280x960 (try it), and looks bad. Also things are too tiny, even on a 24" monitor.
I think you might have confused the point, BGTutu allows you to start a new character from scratch, just like a BG game without it, but when you make your character, you can choose from anything you could in BGII, so there's like a few dozen more classes/kits available. You aren't actually downgrading a BGII character, so much as making a previously un-selectable BG 1 character who you can take in to the sequel as a class not available without Tutu.
A Black Falcon
Member
Minsc said:
Icewind Dale isn't newer than Baldur's Gate II. It did come out just three months before it, though... but it's running a version of the engine much closer to BG1's than BG2's. Still locked 640x480, etc. It was Black Isle's second Infinity Engine title after Torment... I was always kind of surprised that the same studio made both, given how totally opposite those two games are...
I never played IWD1 much, actually. I did play IWD2, though, and yeah, that was the last Infinity Engine title, coming well after BGII: ToB. It's the only Third Edition title of the bunch, though whether that is good or bad depends on what you think of classic AD&D... it does have great graphics for sure, though. Musicwise, however, it doesn't have much audio... I never understood that. Long stretches of the game have no music at all... the entire soundtrack is only 15 minutes long, and they don't use even that a lot of the time!
Still though, for a dungeon crawler, it did have some pretty good writing and plot development. You could tell that it was a Black Isle game.
BG1 was one of the best. As I said, third best RPG ever... it's an amazing game. Graphics, music, gameplay, design, everything... it's all done amazingly well. It ties into the other two parts of the story perfectly, it's got lots of hidden references to things later on that you won't notice your first time, it's got a big, open world to explore that is unlike the more focused quests of the later two games... it does make it easy to just wander around and never make progress (indeed, most of my time playing BG1 is in the first half of the game... I don't think I ever actually finished it... I spent too much time in the first couple of chapters and never got around to it... :lol (I also lost my save files a couple of times, I think (I first played the Chapters 1 & 2 version, then started over for retail, then lost my saves, then started over, then Disc 2 (of the original 5-disc version) broke so I couldn't play anymore. Some years later I managed to get another copy of the disc, so I started over again... and maybe one more I forget...)... I've done the Nashkell mines like five times but never gotten near the end of the game... I keep meaning to play the rest of it. But currently... my only save file is in the Nashkell Mines again. I'd gone through it once, but missed an item, so I had to load an old file and start over... argh! It got me to quit. I've done those stupid mines too many times... :lol)), but even so... Beregost and Nashkell especially are places I remember strongly. The Friendly Arms Inn too.
And I'm not sure if I ever even managed to reach Baldur's Gate city itself... maybe, maybe not? If I did, it would have been the first time I played, but I can't remember. I saw parts of it because my sister was playing the game too though, and she actually to the end, though. That makes it harder to remember how far exactly I got.
I like actually being able to see things. I stuck with smaller desktop resolutions long after most people had gone higher, I never used any resolutions higher than the recommended ones in BG games, etc... I actually like the large sprites in BG1. I can't imagine any benefit to shrinking everything and being able to see more. It wouldn't add anything to the game and, as I said, it'd just hurt it due to how small everything would be... I mean, I didn't like how in C&C Red Alert (for instance) you couldn't tell all the tiny little guys apart. One (of many) reasons Blizzard's stuff was better was that they always used large, easily visible sprites.
Anyway... 1280x960? Isn't that a widescreen resolution? I have a a normal, 17" CRT monitor. I doubt it could do that resolution... *checks* Windows lists 1280x720, x768, and x1024. No others.
I've never looked into BGTutu in depth, because I'd rather just play BG1 as it was meant to be... (just fixed with the fix-packs to clear up obvious bugs) That makes more sense.