Gadgetory

hello again ladies and gentlemen I'm Joe handy the Android authority app guy baldur's gate was released in 1998 and it was single-handedly responsible for renewing the RPG genre on PCs now it's been released for Android and we're going to check it out if you play baldur's gate before a lot of this won't feel new to you however the last time you played it you probably played it with a keyboard and a mouse which allowed for a lot more action at once in this version you'll be playing with touch controls and believe me the experience is vastly different you can do pretty much everything you used to be able to do attack cast and learn spells pick up and use items switch between characters and all of the other things you're used to being able to do for those who have never played before your character and another character named mo in our lifelong friends who embark on an adventure to save Baldur's Gate from sinister forces it is a very long adventure along the way you meet new friends and digest a lot of story line the game can go for well over 40 hours even if you're a quick game player for first-time players it'll be much longer than that comparatively speaking folders gate is one of the largest longest and most complex games ever to be released on Android and that's really it for gameplay folks you start the game you play the story get through the quests and the story ends it is worth mentioning that there are two additional characters available as in-app purchases along with a voice set and a portrait set you can use these to augment your experience and customize your character a little bit it also includes pretty much all of the dlc and expansion packs from the original boulders gate mechanics are where things start to get sticky where there were once hotkeys and keyboard commands and mouse movements there are now touch controls admittedly things are a lot slower on mobile than they were on PC you tap on areas to navigate to them or on objects to interact with them this includes staircases doors chests traps people enemies and general navigation on the left side there are icons that open various things such as your spell list inventory journal character sheet as well as buttons that let you rest and pause the game resting of course also doubles as a way to learn spells and pausing the game is an essential element to get your party in order during intense moments of the game because touch controls simply aren't fast enough on their own on the right side is your party list where you can switch between characters as well as buttons that do things like raise and lower character names on the screen and show objects on the bottom is an action bar where you choose your special abilities attacks spells and items that you can use much everything in this game is tapping you tap to move tap to attack tap to select things and tap to do pretty much anything else there really aren't any weird swipe or gesture commands in the journal you can take down your own notes and use the device keyboard for that okay so here's what we liked about baldur's gate the story is long and complex it ranks among the longest games available on Android it's almost twice as long as Bard's Tale and that's not counting the black pit dlc and the other various expansions that come included with this game for free if you're a gamer and you like games that actually take a long time to beat I think you're gonna like this the graphics and music are above average they're not amazing because if you pinch-to-zoom on screen things get a little bit fuzzy however the game as a whole including the cutscenes are very fun to look at there are virtually none of those things that people typically complain about with android games there are microtransactions but they in no way affect the game and are optional add-ons there are no advertisements or buying energy or anything ridiculous like that just the pure baldur's gate experience the story is actually pretty good considering the time when it was written and considering the scope of the game it also has those reputation mechanics that you can earn or lose depending on your action and dialogue choices all of this adds to the complexity but in a way that the player can control lastly there is multiplayer support you can connect using tcp/ip connection or through the game server and play through the game with friends if you so choose and here is the bet the controls are quite complicated and it may take a beginner some time to master there are a lot of screens and need a lot of customizations and commands if you're a beginner it can be quite overwhelming until you get used to it some of the mechanics are tedious for example you'll have to pause the game fairly frequently to plan out ways of attack in order to stay on top of things if you are hoping for a Diablo or World of Warcraft style realtime hack and slash you were mistaken while the port is responsibly done for the most part there are occasional glitches and missing features some people have reported screen freezing and lockups lastly there are no Google Play game services so no cloud saving no achievements or anything like that and this is a game that could have used those things overall whether or not you will like this game or hate this game depends on what kind of gamer you are if you're strictly casual like Angry Birds or even clash of clans you may not like this title if you're a PC or console gamer looking for that level of game on droid you may very well like this title if you get to play it without most of the bugs that are being reported it's a long and amazing game that pretty much any RPG enthusiast will enjoy it does have its problems but fans of the series and the genre can likely get past them to enjoy the game it's $9.99 which is a little steep but in all fairness this isn't your standard $1 game if you want to try it out so we'll have a link posted in the written companion which is in the video description below once again I'm Joe Hitty the Android authority app guys don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and if you want to follow Android authority myself for the rest of the video team you can find our social media links in the video description below if you're hanging out for a minute we have a couple of awesome videos for you to watch right over there including my review of Riptide gp2 as well as my review of CSR racing finally don't forget to check out the written companion in the video description below because that's where you're gonna find the download link as always thanks for watching everybody and have a wonderful day