Baldur's Gate's Place in 1990s Computer Game History

This article is an overview of Baldur's Gate's place in 1990s computer game history as it pertains to technical prowess in harnessing machine-specs; that is, this article places Baldur's Gate in history as it pertains to BioWare's ability or willingness to harness available software and hardware technologies in 1998.

I recommend that you read my 1990s computer game history, which stands as the best tech-lite overview of 1990s computer games on the internet.

Baldur's Gate was released by BioWare in 1998.

It was a good computer game and a great computer role-playing game: the cRPG All-rounder that helped spark the cRPG Renaissance.

However, Baldur's Gate does not constitute an apex-level highlight of 1990s Computer Game History, a decade that spanned 1990-99.

This is not because Baldur's Gate is a bad computer game, it is because other computer games were just so much better.

For example, as it pertains to technical prowess in harnessing machine specs while at the same time featuring top-notch gameplay or interpretable interaction, Baldur's Gate cannot reasonably be placed alongside these juggernauts that preceded Baldur's Gate by several years:

• Sid Meier's Civilization (MicroProse, 1991)
• Frontier: Elite 2 (David Braben, 1993)
• Doom (id Software, 1993)
• X-COM UFO Defense (Mythos Games, 1994)
• Quake (id Software, 1996)

Now one might respond, "Those are different genre!" to which I would respond, "A computer game is a computer game" and that "My commentary does not assess computer games in genre-vacuums."

And that is only five out of 20 apex-level masterpieces of the 1990s. None of the five computer games listed above had the luxury of DirectX. And both Quake and Baldur's Gate required Pentium 100 CPUs and 16 megs of RAM to run well. Which was more impressive?

In addition, Sir-Tech's Jagged Alliance 2 (1999), a contemporary of Baldur's Gate, and a computer game of comparable scope and gameplay, smashes Baldur's Gate to pieces in every single way on the technical level (e.g., game logic + engine-coding + graphics coding + UI-coding).

And Interplay's Fallout (1997) beats Baldur's Gate hands-down as well, both technically and in regards to role-playing a character.

Thus, if those two are second-tier Baldur's Gate must be a third-tier computer game of the 1990s. To be clear, that does not mean that Baldur's Gate is not great, it is great, greater than most people realize.

But as it pertains to technical design BioWare made four main mistakes with Baldur's Gate, namely:

• Eschewing tile-rigged area design in favor of pre-rendered TIS backdrops
• Omitting seamless transition
• Not coding a good pathfinding routine: The problem persists 26 years later in every IE game and every version of every IE game. It was even transferred to every other BioWare cRPG and every non-BioWare cRPG that was built from BioWare's engines.
• Debateable: Employing round-based real-time pauseable combat instead of discrete turn-based combat

The above alternatives constitute long-standing preexisting design-standards that Baldur's Gate failed to meet with its Infinity Engine. Back in the day most computer-game veterans disliked Baldur's Gate for the above reasons and more: Baldur's Gate was a downgrade on X-COM and Fallout.

But Baldur's Gate created a new type of computer-gamer, one with no X-COM or even Fallout pedigree. And so the Baldur's Gate community is particularly useless at criticizing its fave game; it lacks historical awareness; it doesn't think about what Baldur's Gate could have been: it only celebrates Baldur's Gate for what it is, which is nothing more than flagrant fanboyism.

Note how the above-enumerated mistakes are related as well: without tile-rigged area design you can't have seamless transition in 2D computer games. And tile-rigged area design and turn-based combat systems usually alleviate if not eliminate in-combat pathfinding issues entirely.

If Baldur's Gate did not make those mistakes it could have been placed in the vicinity of Jagged Alliance 2 and Fallout without raising too many eyebrows, mainly because Baldur's Gate would in addition boast of a complex magic system, an analogue of which both JA2 and Fallout lack (their "psionics" are limited).

And that is actually Baldur's Gate's biggest technical claim to fame: the best computerization of AD&D 2nd Edition's magic system; one of the best magic systems in cRPG History, truth be told. And BioWare's conversion of that magic system not only constitutes a technical feat, it also stands as the most interesting aspect of Baldur's Gate's gameplay.

As it stands though Baldur's Gate must be placed in a lower, but still highly respectable, league in computer game history: that of the third-rank -- which would place Baldur's Gate in the Top 50 of 1990s computer games -- an amazing achievement for a cRPG that was developed by a fledgling company.

 

Citations:

• Baldur's Gate Graphics gives one dozen reasons why tile-rigged area design is superior to pre-rendered TIS backdrops.
• The virtues of seamless transition are highlighted in, you guessed it, Seamless Transition.
• Baldur's Gate Pathfinding is covered in Baldur's Gate Gameplay.
• And as for round-based RTwP combat, consult Baldur's Gate Combat System.

It is important to remember that the original Baldur's Gate did a ton of things right. Thus, the moniker of cRPG All-rounder.

Baldur's Gate Tech-specs

• Minimum CPU: Intel Pentium 100 MHz (x86, 32 bit)
• Minimum RAM in megs: 16 MB
• Video Memory (vRAM): 2 MB
• Operating System: Windows 95-11
• API: DirectX 5.0: DirectDraw
• Distribution Media: 5x CD-ROM (6 with expansion) 
• Resolution/Aspect Ratio: Square-pixel SVGA 640x480 4:3 ONLY
• Color depth: 16, 24 or 32 bit
• 3D Hardware Acceleration (Direct3D, OpenGL): No
• Audio: PCM 16 bit 22050 Hz sampled mono sound effects; ACM 16 bit 22050 Hz stereo music; EAX
• Input Device: kb/m
• Multiplayer: Internet, LAN
• No. of players: 1-6 (co-op)
• Hard disk space (full install): 2500 MB (2.5 GB)
• Framerate cap: 60 FPS (60 AI updates per second)
• Graphics: Displayed in 2D, but 3D-prerendered
• Playing field perspective: pseudo-isometric bird's eye
• Movement: Select, point and click
• Combat System: Round-based real-time pauseable, party-based, click to attack, reviewable combat feedback, automated scripts, event-based auto-pause
• Ruleset: AD&D 2nd Edition
• Advanced control: Marquee selection, modals, formations
• Dialogue system: Dialogue trees; dialogue window is dedicated and horizontally-centered in viewport; can be extended vertically; is reviewable via scrolling
• User Interface: Switchable modes, multi-layered display, right-click pop-up windows, click and drop, grid-based inventory
• Avatars: Pre-rendered sprites with 8-way rotation
• Area Make-up: TIS prerendered, non-randomized (static, no RNG)
• Playing field triggers: Invisible polygons (coords)
• Seamless Transition: No
• Environmental Destructibility: None
• Gameplay Verticality: Height-mapped terrain
• Screen-scrolling: 8-way avatar-anchorless edgescreen autoscrolling (area-wide radius)
• Fog of War: Yes
• Automap: Separate UI mode, no real-time updating of position
• Environmental Interactivity: click-on playing field markers for text-based feedback
• Cinematization: FMV cutscenes (250 MB), scripted sequences

cf.:

• Fallout's Place in 1990s Computer Game History
• Diablo's Place in 1990s Computer Game History
• A part of: History of 1990s Computer Games
• Shoot 'em Ups MS-DOS versus Amiga
• Return to: cRPG Blog (Master Index)