![]() Look at that intro - no it's not the new Lord of the Rings series, it's Dark Alliance 2! I hope you enjoy the part where I die because I'm standing in the fire right near the beginning of the game. So there's all this history wrapped up in the game. People from Black Isle would go on to form new studio Obsidian Entertainment thereafter. But Dark Alliance 2 would also be the last game Black Isle would release, with Interplay closing the studio and laying off all of the staff months before release, and cancelling a Dark Alliance 3 in the process. This was the house of Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale and Fallout, a bonafide RPG legend, and its involvement added a layer of intrigue and excitement to the game. This time, however, the beloved Black Isle Studios would make it. There was reticence but when BG Dark Alliance came out in 2001, it was surprisingly well received, so a sequel was greenlit. So it enlisted Snowblind Studios (which would go on to make something of a spiritual successor in The Lord of the Rings: War in the North - remember that? We gave it 4/10) to make one. Interplay didn't want a slower, wordy adventure like BioWare's Baldur's Gate but something more suited to a console audience - something faster, something more action-packed. ![]() Quick history lesson: Dark Alliance was an experiment, really, in bringing Dungeons & Dragons to console. The PlayStation version was held up at the last minute and is still not there a week later. ![]() ![]() Availability: Re-released 20th July 2022 on PC, Xbox and Switch for £30.Publisher: Interplay, Wizards of the Coast.In fact, I love them, because they're what revisiting Dark Alliance 2 is all about. ![]() So all those lumps and bumps I feel while playing it - all those things that have been smoothed by the many waves of action role-playing games since - I don't mind them. There's nothing you can do short of remaking it that's going to make it feel young and exciting again - and Wizards of the Coast tried that last year with Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, and look how that turned out (clue: not well). This is history I'm playing the game is 18 years old. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 is old, clunky and boring, but at the same time I am entranced by it. ![]()
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