BG Dark Alliance 1 and 2 appear in Mac App Store

[Solomani]

To my surprise, in the last couple weeks, Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance both versions 1 & 2 quietly make it to the Mac App Store.

Yes, it's the same games from the Playstation consoles years ago. But now they are released into various non-console platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc).

What surprised me even more is the developer is InterPlay. Ehh.... I thought they went extinct yeeeeears ago. Reminds me of the ancient dev MacPlay (that was InterPlay's Mac gaming arm in the 80s and 90s). Be careful.... the games were just released to MacOSX. It's version 1.0 and it seems that "InterPlay" support website is basically non existent.

I would not touch it for a few months, until at least seeing some patches (and bug fixes) forthcoming...

 

[Nugat Trailers]

To my surprise, in the last couple weeks, Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance both versions 1 & 2 quietly make it to the Mac App Store.

Yes, it's the same games from the Playstation consoles years ago. But now they are released into various non-console platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc).

What surprised me even more is the developer is InterPlay. Ehh.... I thought they went extinct yeeeeears ago. Reminds me of the ancient dev MacPlay (that was InterPlay's Mac gaming arm in the 80s and 90s). Be careful.... the games were just released to MacOSX. It's version 1.0 and it seems that "InterPlay" support website is basically non existent.

I would not touch it for a few months, until at least seeing some patches (and bug fixes) forthcoming...

Well, Interplay had a heap of near-bankruptcies, but managed to avoid them.

It's actually been developed by Black Isle Studios and Square One, with the first coming out December last year. General consensus seems to be 'good ports, but minor issues, worth buying if on sale'.

I'd say to keep an eye on Beamdog as well, they did the remastered Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights Enhanced (M1 native), etc.

 

[Solomani]

Well, Interplay had a heap of near-bankruptcies, but managed to avoid them.

It's actually been developed by Black Isle Studios and Square One, with the first coming out December last year. General consensus seems to be 'good ports, but minor issues, worth buying if on sale'.

I'd say to keep an eye on Beamdog as well, they did the remastered Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights Enhanced (M1 native), etc.

Consensus is that Larian did a good job of the latest, which is BG3 ---- the one with the Mind Flayers, their crashing Nautiloid ship, the Githyanki, etc. I would have gone for that one.... except that my iMac is about 4 years old, so my graphics card (Radeon Pro 560 4GB is not that shabby) and the cpu (intel quad-core i7) is just so-so with the requirements for game performance.

I also don't like the first-person view of the newer BG3. I really prefer the old-school isometric... which is the top-down style in the older BG games, and also the same (top-down) style of the Diablo games too.

Pretty sure that Larian and others are already lined up for the NEXT generation of D&D games, most likely following and based on 2023's upcoming Dungeons and Dragon's movie. Hoping that we finally get a D&D movie that doesn't suck. 😙

 

[diamond.g]

Consensus is that Beamdog did a good job of the latest, which is BG3 ---- the one with the Mind Flayers, their crashing Nautiloid ship, the Githyanki, etc. I would have gone for that one.... except that my iMac is about 4 years old, so my graphics card (Radeon Pro 560 4GB is not that shabby) and the cpu (intel quad-core i7) is just so-so with the requirements for game performance.

I also don't like the first-person view of the newer BG3. I really prefer the old-school isometric... which is the top-down style in the older BG games, and also the same (top-down) style of the Diablo games too.

Pretty sure that Beamdog is already lined up for the NEXT generation of D&D games, most likely following and based on 2023's upcoming Dungeons and Dragon's movie. Hoping that we finally get a D&D movie that doesn't suck. 😙

Who is Beamdog?

 

[Nugat Trailers]

IdeaSpark Labs, tradename Beamdog, is a Canadian developer founded in 2009 by Trent Oster and Cameron Tofer, both ex-Bioware.

They've done overhauls of quite a few Infinity Engine games, namely enhanced editions of Baldur's Gate (I and II), Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, NWN, and the expansion Siege of Dragonspear.

They were purchased by Embracer Group, through Aspyr, in April 2022 for an undisclosed amount.

 

[Nermal]

Consensus is that Beamdog did a good job of the latest, which is BG3

Didn't Larian do BG3?

 

[Nugat Trailers]

Sort of. There was Baldur's Gate III: The Black Hound, which was in development earl in 2011, but that got cancelled when Interplay surrendered the licence to Atari.

With the success of BG1 and BG2 Enhanced a yer or so later, Atari gave permission for two new titles to be developed, one of which was the expansion pack.

Larian's developing Baldur's Gate 3 at the moment, who have done the Divinity series.

It's actually quite interesting to see how many old games are returning to Mac, either officially or throug the source ports. Just a few days ago, a loader to let Fallout 2 run on Intel/ASi Macs was released, which is pretty mindboggling.

 

[Solomani]

Didn't Larian do BG3?

Whoops, my mistake. Indeed it was Larian that did BG3, not Beamdog. Corrected my post.