D&D cRPG

As I mentioned in my other blog post, Gary Gygax has passed away. I put some recollections of my PnP days in my other post but I wanted to share some cRPG memories in this blog.

D&D computer role playing games have been around for years. I think the earliest computer games based on D&D would be the Gold Box games released by SSI (nevermind the endless games which were inspired by D&D!). Although I have a friend who grew up playing these Gold Box games, I never really spent that much time on them.

The first thing I think of whenever I think D&D cRPG is Baldur's Gate. Just to be clear, BG wasn't the first D&D cRPG I played - but it is the first one I think of. Although cRPGs had been very popular, by 1998, the genre as a whole was starting to die out. Not many new cRPGs were being developed and most gamers had moved onto other genres.

BG was released in 1998 and single-handedly revived the cRPG genre. It managed to perfectly capture the excitement and feel of playing D&D. It even had multiplayer and my friend and I would pop online in the evenings to play whenever we got the chance. By 1998, I had entered the workplace and PnP D&D was a thing of the past - you can imagine how excited I was to be able to recapture some of my past while sitting at my PC at home!

What makes the infinity engine (developed by BioWare and used in BG) so amazing is that the engine itself is so customisable. Recently, I've been replaying the original BG lately but using the highly improved BG2:ToB engine and with the addition of a banter pack mod (which makes the NPCs more talkative). Even if I get bored, there are tons of other mods that I could install.

Considering that this game was released a decade ago, it's incredible how much fun it still is.