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Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Baldur's Gate 3 is an amazing game to play.


I've been playing some Baldur's Gate 3. This game by Larian studios is a ton of fun. If you've always wanted to try out Dungeons & Dragons but you've never gotten a group together, I'd really recommend giving it a go. I actually (in many ways) think it mimics the tabletop experience. And I also think that in some ways it is superior. That's weird, right? But seriously, it is so much fun. I won't spoil any of the details for you in case you'd like to give it a go, but I will tell you these things:

1) It's worth the money. The game is complete as is, and the developers do not plan on charging you for other things. This game comes with a huge story arc, and it's all done and in the can. And there are no "loot boxes" that require money.

2) The interface is marvelous, and the graphics are just so sublime. I get full immersion playing this game, and I wonder where the hours have gone. There are some NSFW things to it, so you need to keep an open mind. The characters can do nearly everything in the world, and I've heard that your characters can even get into relationships and have sex (I haven't experienced this facet of the game yet). This is totally strange for a video game, but there you have it. I guess games these days are really evolving.

3) It uses the 5e D&D rules with some modifications. But they are easy to grasp because the computer does it all. You just need to sit back and enjoy playing. When combat starts, it breaks it down into turns so you don't get overwhelmed. Even people with slow reflexes can play this thing, because you can take as much time as you want to figure out what you want to do.

4) There was some controversy with the release of Baldur's Gate 3, because other, larger game developers got nervous that the game was so good. Some of their programmers took to Twitter to say things like, "Please don't compare Baldur's Gate with our game, because we aren't up to that standard due to not having enough resources." It was a really strange thing to admit, especially when Larian is a small studio that apparently created a masterpiece.

5) You should explore the setup options when first starting the game. For example, the game defaults to "metric" measurement. But a lot of us live in the U.S., and we may not understand metric as much as the "Imperial" system unfortunately. I changed mine to that so I could get readings in "feet" that make sense to me. There's also one that turns off a dice rolling thing that defaults to a setting where it fudges dice rolls for you so that you don't ever get "streaks." In other words, if you roll really good, it will force the next roll to be a failure. But vice-versa, if you roll terribly, the next roll will more than likely be good. I don't like this at all, so I turned it off.

6) Click on everything and read everything to see what's there. Even doing this, I know I'm missing things because I just can't see them. But it's so much fun to find something unique and unusual hiding in plain sight.

Anyone else already playing Baldur's Gate 3? If so, let me know about your experience with it. I'm including the opening cinematic below so that people can watch it that might not have heard of this game.

3 comments:

  1. I don't have the money, inclination, and maybe the technology to play games like that. It's hard enough just keeping up with the couple of games on my phone. But someone else's blog I followed during the A to Z thing has talked about it
    https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2023/08/baldurs-gate-iii.html

    In another entry he talked about how he basically got a free character when someone got locked out of the room they were in or something:
    https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2023/08/baldurs-gate-3-keller-silent-monk.html

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  2. Sounds like fun. It's great when you can get into a game like that.

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  3. As soon as I finish with Diablo IV, I'll get it. Enjoyed the first two.

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