Icewind Dale II plays like Baldur's Gate with one major difference: you create and control your entire party, which leaves you free to experiment with the huge array of options D&D 3rd Edition makes possible. Halfling paladins, wizards with thieving skills, it's all possible because Black Isle dutifully added all the new skills, rules, options, and feats given to D&D characters in the tabletop game.

The story line is long and epic and maybe too focused for its own good. You can experiment with any character combination you want, but you can't really range far and wide, adventuring as you wish. The story concerns a goblin army that is threatening human settlements far to the north. Infernal implications quickly surface as you learn that the goblins' masters might not be of this prime-material plane. The combat is fast, furious, constant, and extremely challenging. One of the reasons Baldur's Gate II worked so well was that your priest always had enough healing powers and Raise Dead spells handy. In Icewind Dale II, you begin at first level, so for half the game you must trudge homeward whenever somebody dies, which is frequent. The enemy appears in large numbers, usually with a spell caster in tow--and just beyond one group of enemies is another one. It's relentless and strategically satisfying, if more than a little frustrating too.

Fans of the earlier games who were perhaps a bit unsatisfied with the single-PC focus of Neverwinter Nights will delight in another chance to play party-based D&D. --Bob Andrews

Pros:

• Full implementation of D&D 3rd Edition rules
• Same old glorious tactical gameplay as the Baldur's Gate series

• Retro looking in this 3-D age of Neverwinter Nights
• Often too difficult for its own good