Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance - Full-length Game Plays like a Demo

Fans of the Baldur's Gate series and even the other Dungeons and Dragons games at large will be rather disappointed in Dark Alliance, though the game does offer many subtle joys for even the most experienced gamer.

The first thing that you'll notice when playing Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is how impressive the graphics are; this game has such fine attention to graphic detail  that you can almost overlook the game's many flaws.  The water in the game moves and flows like actual water, and you can sit in the middle of a pond turning in circles and watching as the ripples hit the edge and come back in.  It's a very rare moment that we see this, even in a game for the PS2, but subtleties like the water, or the blurred air above a flame as though from smoke - they'll make you think that no matter what else you could possibly have to say about the game, you have to give it credit; the graphics are absolutely breathtaking.

The camera angles can get a bit obtrusive, especially on maps where the camera doesn't rotate, but at worst, this is a minor annoyance; it's not a matter of life or death as it is in something like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  For the most part, the game is overwhelmingly easy to navigate.  Unlike so many games before it, where the game had to be paused in order to give a character a potion, Dark Alliance sets L2 and R2 for potion consumption, cutting down drastically on all those frustrating moments navigating through menus to perform simple commands  Consuming a potion doesn't even cost you a regular action; you can, in fact, consumea potion whie performing another action (such as casting a spell or attacking), and while this is a glaring D&D rules oversight on the part of the gamemakers, it's a terribly convenient one..