Best Infinity Engine Games
The Infinity Engine is a proprietary cRPG engine built by BioWare for Baldur's Gate. The other Infinity Engine games were developed by Black Isle Studios. This ranking is for the original versions of the Infinity Engine games.
The score has been awarded as a percentage.
| cRPG Blog | Baldur's Gate 1 | Icewind Dale 1 |
| Neverwinter Nights 1 | Baldur's Gate 2 | Icewind Dale 2 |
| Neverwinter Nights 2 | Baldur's Gate 3 | Planescape: Torment |
Interesting ranking, I'll add my two cents with my ranking:
ReplyDelete1) Baldur's Gate - agree 100%, there's so much attention to detail in this game. I wonder, why only a small percentage of players appreciates this title.
2) Planescape: Torment - I know I'm probably alone in this, but I enjoy the combat in this game, it's a bit messy, but still like it. The atmosphere is just gorgeous
in this title. Just love the philosophy, the music (my favourite out of all IE games), the locations, the characters, the design. The only thing it lacks is the almost total freedom that BG1 has.
3) Icewind Dale - agree with this one, but it can get tiring after a while. Plays awesome in multiplayer, though.
4) Icewind Dale II - really enjoy the early parts of the game, excellent design. The later stages not so much. I'm also not a huge fan of 3rd ed. D&D (in tabletop as well) + annoying BG2 engine.
5) Baldur's Gate II - ugh, what a mess. They got so many things backwards and I just don't understand the praise it's receiving. Don't like it as IE game, don't like it as a cRPG, don't like it as a game. Now go away BG2, or I shall taunt you a second time!
Thanks for posting your ranking, Tuth. I have posted a combat-related write-up for PS:T here:
Deletehttps://lilura1.blogspot.com/2018/04/Planescape-Torment-Tanking-and-Physical-Based-Damage-Dealing-AC-DR-HPs-Regen-THAC0-ApR-Strength-Itemization.html
The portraits link in the IWD section leads to Torment portraits, please correct. Additionally, I think it would read better if you put your BG and BG2 comparison link in the BG2 paragraph; I found it peculiar how you made criticisms about BG2 but didn't back them up with anything other than a link to the expansion at first.
ReplyDeleteFixed.
DeleteI think I would be inclined to rate BG2 and PS:T a little higher than you do, though I do not necessarily disagree with any particular criticism or their overall inferiority to the other IE games. One good feature of BG2 (and one that makes comparing it to BG1 or most other D&D games an apples to oranges comparison in some, though of course not all, respects) is that it offers a rare opportunity for some high level D&D combat, which tends to be a very different beast from low-level D&D. It is difficult to find that in any game, much less one that is any good.
ReplyDeletePS:T was memorable but it is true I never felt the same urge to replay it as the other IE games. I expect that is because bad combat gives little incentive to try out new tactics and very limited character build options, most clearly inferior to a Nameless One emphasizing mental stats and oriented towards being a mage, gives few ways to make one version of the protagonist notably different from another.
The Icewind Dale games benefited from not being too ambitious and avoiding a futile attempt to be all things to all people. They are just straight-forward dungeon crawlers that are good at what they do and do not need or want to do anything else.
Solid summary, Rogueknight. Many of us are looking forward to seeing how you continue to balance epic-level NWN combat in your final Swordflight chapters. (I see that "Swordflight Chapter 5" is a keyword listed by Google.)
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