'Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition' Arrives for iPad

[dcorban]

Entangle spell effect slooooowed the game on my iPad2. I' guessing this will be a problem in larger combat with other area effect spells.

Interesting. This was a verified problem with Baldur's Gate II on the PC when using OpenGL mode. All spells with transparencies and area effects dropped the framerate significantly. Maybe they are using a port of the BG2 OpenGL engine.

 

[arcite]

FYI, since BG:EE has been out for the PC the devs have already released no less than 4 patches for it. They say the first iPad patch will be out in about a week (whenever App store approves it), and it will incorporate all the fixes, including fixing some of the interface annoyances.

 

[Renzatic]

Interesting. This was a verified problem with Baldur's Gate II on the PC when using OpenGL mode. All spells with transparencies and area effects dropped the framerate significantly. Maybe they are using a port of the BG2 OpenGL engine.

They are...sortakinda. They used the BG2 ToB engine as their base, but rewrote the underlying OGL renderer and and everything else they could modernize from scratch. The spell slowdowns shouldn't have anything to do with issues from the original games, even if they do seem related at first glance.

FYI, since BG:EE has been out for the PC the devs have already released no less than 4 patches for it. They say the first iPad patch will be out in about a week (whenever App store approves it), and it will incorporate all the fixes, including fixing some of the interface annoyances.

Good deal, specially on that last bit. The game is pretty decent as it is now, but a few extra bits here and there would make for a smoother experience. The biggest changes I'm hoping for are a few feedback effects, bigger hit boxes around loot and dropped objects, and give us a way to highlight doors, stairs, and transition spots. They fix these issues, and BG will play just as smooth with a touchscreen as it does with a mouse and keyboard.

 

[mfulton]

This was a great game... 14 years ago when it first came out. In 1998.

The new iPad game is probably pretty decent, going by the trailer, but if I want to feel nostalgic, I'll install the PC version and play it again before I'll pay $10.00 to play it on the iPad.

$5.00 is pretty much the cut-off point for a iPad game, as far as I'm concerned. I don't mind paying more for an application I'm going to use over and over, but most games get played a few times over a few weeks, and then they're mostly forgotten.

 

[Snowshiro]

Found it a bit annoying so far. The tutorial really poorly thought through. It often says stuff like "touch the spell button, then do this" without giving any indication which button that is - which makes you wonder what the point of a TUTORIAL is. Some of them have fairly cryptic icons on them and it's not obvious what they do at first. I found it overall to be more confusing than helpful. It smacks of being written by someone who knows the game inside out and hasn't really bothered to consider what someone coming to it new might NOT know.

Also the touch precision and responsiveness is some of the worst I've ever seen in a game. Sometimes it fails to respond at all to a quick tap, and sometimes the cursor doesn't appear where you think it will when you tap.

On the other hand, the graphics don't look as bad as I expected, and it's a generally enjoyable story, so if they can fix the UI a bit, it should be worth a try.

 

[iCole]

Found it a bit annoying so far. The tutorial really poorly thought through. It often says stuff like "touch the spell button, then do this" without giving any indication which button that is - which makes you wonder what the point of a TUTORIAL is. Some of them have fairly cryptic icons on them and it's not obvious what they do at first. I found it overall to be more confusing than helpful. It smacks of being written by someone who knows the game inside out and hasn't really bothered to consider what someone coming to it new might NOT know.

Also the touch precision and responsiveness is some of the worst I've ever seen in a game. Sometimes it fails to respond at all to a quick tap, and sometimes the cursor doesn't appear where you think it will when you tap.

On the other hand, the graphics don't look as bad as I expected, and it's a generally enjoyable story, so if they can fix the UI a bit, it should be worth a try.

Exactly my thoughts. I never played Baldur's Gate so i'm totally oblivious to what all those buttons mean. Give me some guidance goddammit. Also, it's to easy to accidentally scroll around the screen if you just want to tap something. Very annoying. I'll try to get as far as possible (because the game does look good) but I'll rather try it again on the mac

 

[splitthebiscuit]

Little update for anyone planning on buying this.

Boo is bugged. He doesn't squeak in response to the things Minsc says, and clicking on him in his inventory crashes the game without fail.

HOW COULD YOU BUG BOO BEAMDOG?

Boo never squeaked in response to Minsc's outcries in BG1, you're thinking of BG2. The game crashing when clicking on him seems to be a bug though.

 

[MattA]

This was a great game... 14 years ago when it first came out. In 1998.

Sometimes the oldest morsels are the tastiest.

It was a great game then and it's a great game now.