The drool is over.

About a year ago, after having returned 2 games already to Electronics Boutique due to them being horrible, I took a flyer on a game called "Baldur's Gate II".

I'd never played Dungeons and Dragons before, and the closest I'd ever been to an RPG was the "Legend of Zelda" series from my old 8-bit Nintendo. I was initially put off by the price, but the salesman had told me that I'd get well over 150 hours of play with it, so I figured it was worth taking the plunge, especially with EB's risk free buying system.

I've already written a review for Baldur's Gate II, and I think I state it pretty clearly in said review how much I loved that game. It DID take me about 200 hours to finish, and on top of that, it was so good, that I played through another 3 times.

No other game had done that to me, and I'll be shocked if another ever does...it having been a first time awakening and all.

So it finally dawned on me after my 2nd time through, that there would probably be a sequel of sorts, due to the open-ended nature at the conclusion of Baldur's Gate II. So I hit the net, and found out that rather than a sequel, Bioware was releasing an EXPANSION to the original, entitled "Throne of Bhaal".

Woah thought I.

So like a little dork I ran to my nearest EB and breathlessly asked when it would be available. The reply? June 1st, 2001.

So I knew D-day.

And then it got delayed.

And then it got delayed more.

I started dreaming the damn game, and what I thought it would be like, and what the designers would do with the characters.

I even hit up the Bioware messageboard, but was careful to not get spoiled.

I swear, no wait for me was ever as excruciating as this one- not music, not food, not urination. I NEEDED this game.

And then it came.

My grubby hands were soon tearing open the plastic wrap, and I quickly installed it on my computer. No problems with that by the way, as it was as effortless as the original. It did take an extra 700 MB of hard disk space though, making a full install of the expansion and the original approximately 3 GB. Not for the weak of stomach.

A quick note before I go further- you need Baldur's Gate II to install and play this expansion. Without it, you have a 35 dollar coaster on your hands.

So anyways, I install, and start up. I had 4 previous parties saved up from my previous games of Baldur's Gate II, and was eager to export them into Throne of Bhaal, so without delay, I exported one over. I had to rekill the boss from Baldur's Gate II, and then I was whisked away to Throne of Bhaal.

Or actually I wasn't.

In a now known bug, half my party didn't materialize in the expansion. D'OH! Not an encouraging start.

So I waited some more, and then 3 days later, saw that Bioware had a bug fix. Boom, I download, and lo and behold, I'm PLAYING!

Having slotted a weekend for my gaming (I'm a geek I know), I was now ready.

Throne of Bhaal continues your character's story as one of the children of Bhaal, and your path towards or away from godhood. I'm not going to spoil, but the gist of the game is that there are only 5 children of Bhaal left in the world, including you, and all of them have been brought together for the purposes of selecting an heir to Bhaal.

In addition to the new storyline, Bioware implemented a number of new features in this expansion, both in order to deal with the high classed characters that Throne of Bhaal allows you to become (up to level 40, or 8 million experience), and to make the game more fun to play in terms of replayability.

The first big addition is the addition of a new kit, or character class- the wild mage. Similar to a normal mage, the wild mage can't always control his magical energy, causing some strange occurences during spellcasting every once in a while. However, when they do work properly, they can be stronger than a normal mage.

The other big addition to the game was the implementation of extra 9th level mage spells, and special high level abilities for all other classes.

At high enough levels, each class has special skills to which points can be allocated to. Fighters for example, have whirlwind attacks (10 attacks per round) as one of their skills. Mages can cast spells such as Dragon's Breath or Comet now. Crazy stuff for sure.

The third big change was the addition of a new dungeon for you to explore- Watcher's Keep. A neat feature of Watcher's Keep is that you can access it even from Baldur's Gate II. You don't need to be in the expansion to get to it. Furthermore, it works on a sliding scale, so if you're lower in experience, you won't be fighting uber-characters, and if you're a tank, you'll only be fighting high level enemies.

The Keep itself is a wonder. It is made up of levels, and each one is beautifully rendered, and has a myriad of puzzles, challenges, and monsters to deal with. And as you'll find out, a very special endboss...I guess I can say, since it IS on the back of the box- Demogorgon, Prince of Demons. Not for the faint of heart. :)

The controls and feel for the game are the exact same as in Baldur's Gate II, so there's no learning curve at all, since you need to have Baldur's Gate II. Get it? :)

Graphics are the exact same, and more than adequate, especially for a 2D game.

The sound keeps the quality found in the original, and adds some new scores, all of them orchestral in type. All beautiful, and you need to play this game with some good speakers to really appreciate it.

The story was solid, and explained things very well. The only criticism I might have is that the endboss was too easy to predict (it's supposed to be a surprise I guess), and in general, too linear. There's only a couple of sidequests, unlike the original, where you had about 50 different things to do in addition to the main plot. I guess it's understandable though, since this IS an expansion.

Another great job was done with the addition of a TON of new weapons, armour, artifacts, and other stuff. You'll find stuff that will put what you accumulated in Baldur's Gate II to shame. A nice feature is the fact that you have your own "smithy" of sorts who can upgrade many of the things you get, making them even more powerful- for a price.

I think that's about it...oh yeah, one more thing- you WILL meet someone familiar at the beginning of the game. THAT I won't spoil. Hehe.

In the end, a MASSIVE thumbs up, and a fitting end to the Baldur's Gate Saga...great job by Bioware, and I'm almost done with my 4th party....WOOHOO! :)