Icewind Dale (series)

Icewind Dale is a computer role-playing game (CRPG) series developed by Black Isle Studios. It is set in the Forgotten Realms Icewind Dale region, but takes place decades before the events described in R. A. Salvatore's books which made the area a well-known part of Faerûn.

The games are based on the famous Bioware Infinity Engine. The Infinity Engine offers a pre-rendered isometric worldview, with sprite-based characters. This engine was also used to power the Baldur's Gate series and Planescape: Torment.

As with all games developed on the Infinity Engine, the Icewind Dale series is based on a real-time modification of the 2nd and 3rd editions of the AD&D (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) ruleset. The player begins the game by generating a party of up to 6 characters, but is unable to recruit NPCs as was possible in other games on the Infinity Engine, and as the entire party is generated by the player, the player-characters do not have preset personalities, and are all capable of assuming the role of "protagonist" with minor differences at most.

In 2000, Icewind Dale was released to mostly positive reviews, although the game drew some criticism for its linearity and lack of character development when it came to the player's party. The game is far more hack-and-slash than Baldur's Gate, and has often been compared to the Diablo series of games for its combat-heavy focus.

Game Overview
The gameplay of Icewind Dale is very similar to that of Baldur's Gate. As with Baldur's Gate, the game is based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition ruleset, and the combat system is a quasi-real-time adaption of the normally turn-based Dungeons & Dragons combat system used - dice rolling and the like are all done automatically, without requiring the player's participation, although it is possible to pause the game at any time to issue orders to the party.

One of the most noticeable differences from Baldur's Gate is the much larger beastiary: ettins, orcs, goblins, and orogs, for example, are all major foes in this game, whereas they weren't even present in the original Baldur's Gate. Some other differences are the heavily raised experience level-cap, much bigger battles sometimes involving 20 or more foes at once, and far larger spell selection - used by or against the player's party, 6th level spells and above make frequent appearances throughout the game.

Also unlike Baldur's Gate, the game makes use of a semi-random item generation system. In Baldur's Gate most items were completely pre-placed - meaning that the same items were in the same places every time the game was played. In Icewind Dale, however, most quest-earned items are randomly picked out of a handful of pre-generated ones, and items taken from the corpses of foes are similar in that regard, although slightly more random.

Icewind Dale was received by mostly positive reviews. Most critics cited the game's musical score and fast pacing as high-points, although others found fault with the game's time-consuming character creation and numerous bugs.

Plot Synopsis
The game begins in the town of Easthaven, where the player's party of adventurers is resting at the local pub. Soon enough, the town's leader, Hrothgar, invites you to take part in an expedition to the town of Kuldahar, which has recently sent word of strange goings-on. However, before the group makes it to their destination, they are ambushed by Frost Giants, who cause an avalanche - apparently crushing the entire expedition force save for the player's party, and blocking the way back to Easthaven.

The party continues onward to Kuldahar, where they meet the Archdruid, Arundel. He explains that, due to the evil which has been terrorizing Kuldahar, the magical ring of warmth surrounding the great oak which the town is built around has begun to recede. Arundel sends the party to help discover the source of the evil before the great oak dies, and Kuldahar is destroyed. After an unsuccessful attempt to locate the evil, Arundel asks the party to find an ancient scrying item, known as the Heartstone Gem, so he may discover the source of the evil more quickly. The player's party then ventures to a temple where Arundel believes the gem may be kept, only to find that it had been raided quite recently, and that the gem had been stolen. However, Arundel is able to discover the location of the raiders responsible for the theft of the gem - the caverns of Dragon's Eye. After making their way through the vast network of tunnels, the party finds and defeats a powerful demonic creature named Yxunomei. Yxunomei claimed to be using the Heartstone Gem for personal reasons, and mentioned a vendetta and age-old war with someone she sarcastically referred to as an "old friend."

When the party returns to Kuldahar, they find it under assault by orogs. After making their way to Arundel's hut, the player converses with a shapechanger disguised as Arundel, who reveals that he is the one Yxunomei was waging war against, and that the real Arundel is dying in another section of the hut, before vanishing. With his dying breath, the real Arundel tells the party to take the Heartstone Gem to "Larrel" at the fortress of the Severed Hand, as he is now the only one capable of using it. Unfortunately for the player's party, Larrel is found to be insane upon arriving at the fortress, and he only brokenly mentions something about freeing his cursed people, along with a hint on how to go about it. After completing his task, Larrel regains his sanity and uses the Heartstone Gem to discover the source of the evil, which apparently resides in the dwarven city of Dorn's Deep.

After carving their way through Upper Dorn's Deep, Wyrm's Tooth, and Lower Dorn's Deep, the party at last reaches Brother Poquelin - the villain of the game. Poquelin explains that he arrived in the material plane due to his superiors exiling him from his home plane - according to Poquelin, calling his vendetta with Yxunomei "out of control." Poquelin had predicted that Yxunomei would follow him to the material plane, so he had sought a base of operations in order to begin a military force capable of crushing her. While he was doing so, he stumbled upon the ancient artifact Crenshinibon, which he claims had been "calling" to him. Using its power of attracting evil-intentioned creatures, Poquelin began amassing an immense army with which to conquer the lands of Icewind Dale. He claims that everything was going as planned until Hrothgar's expedition had set out to investigate Yxunomei's activities in the area around Kuldahar. He used his frost giant minions to cause the avalanche to crush the expedition. Apparently, he didn't see the player's party as a threat until they stole the Heartstone Gem from Yxunomei, to which he responded by killing Arundel - the only person he thought would be capable of using it. Although the party discovered his location by taking it to Larrel, Poquelin wasn't bothered, as all the while he was amassing his forces outside of Easthaven. After combating Poquelin, he teleports the party back to Easthaven, which is now in ruins. After freeing the surviving villagers and speaking with a local cleric of Tempus, the party makes its way to Poquelin's lair - Easthaven's temple, which has been enveloped by a Cryshal-Tirith (Elvish, meaning "crystal tower"), courtesy of Crenshinibon.

In the end, it is revealed that Poquelin's true intention was to re-open Jerrod's Stone (a portal to the abyss created long ago), so that he could conquer the North with an army of demons at his command. Although after opening the portal, the local cleric of Tempus hurls himself into it just as its namesake did - sealing it off at the cost of his own life. This buys the party enough time to fight Poquelin, who has reverted to his true form - the demon Belhifet. After defeating Belhifet and banishing him back to the abyss, the Chryshal-Tirith collapses, and the party barely escapes in time. Easthaven begins to be rebuilt, and the game ends with the party victorious.

Game Overview
Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter is an expansion pack to Icewind Dale that introduced many changes and additions to the original game. Some notable changes include such things as the addition of several types of classic Dungeons & Dragons enemies that were missing from the original - including barrow wights, a much higher experience point cap, new magical items to find/purchase, a special "Heart of Fury" difficulty setting for increased enemy power and higher experience point-gain, and the ability to set the resolution higher than 640x480. The game is still based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition ruleset, but like Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, it included several changes (such as new spell progression tables) from the 3rd edition ruleset.

Another addition is the inclusion of several more areas to explore, although to access them, the player must enter a previously locked door in the town of Kuldahar while possessing a party of level 9 characters or above.

Although the game contained numerous changes that most felt were for the better, it was heavily criticised for the length of the campaign, which was much shorter than the original game's. Despite this, the game still achieved fairly positive reviews.

Trials of the Luremaster
Trials of the Luremaster is a free, downloadable expansion pack to Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter. It was released by Black Isle Studios due to criticism that, on its own, Heart of Winter was too short. It contains several new areas to explore, and a handful of new enemies to combat.

Game Overview
Icewind Dale II is the sequel to Icewind Dale, which is based on the Bioware Infinity Engine, and incorporates nearly all of the changes and additions to the series made by the Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster expansion packs. Unlike its predecessors, the game is based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition ruleset, which brings such things to the series as feats, the ability for any race to be any class, and the ability for any class to use any weapon. As in Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, the 3rd edition character classes of Barbarian, Sorcerer, and Monk are present in the game, but unlike that game there are also many sub-races, such as Drow, and Tieflings, which all have racial advantages and disadvantages.

Another significant change is the once more increased beastiary, which now includes such creatures as bugbears, hook horrors, and driders, as well as many returning monsters from the previous Icewind Dale game and its expansion packs, the Baldur's Gate series, and Planescape: Torment. In addition, a much larger section of Icewind Dale is explorable than in the previous games.

The game was praised by many critics for its pacing, music, numerous improvements over the original game and its expansions, although most found fault with the game's graphics, which consisted of sprite characters and 2d prerendered backgrounds, and were considerably less impressive than those of other CRPGs released that year, such as Neverwinter Nights and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Regardless, Icewind Dale II achieved mostly positive reviews.

Trivia

 * If the player follows a certain dialogue with Belhifet in the original Icewind Dale, it is revealed that Crenshinibon actually betrayed him to his death. According to the conversation, it didn't agree with Belhifet's scheme to open a demonic portal.
 * The music for Icewind Dale was composed by Jeremy Soule, while Icewind Dale II's music was composed by the relatively unknown Inon Zur.
 * Icewind Dale II was the final Black Isle Studios game released for PC. After their next game, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II, they were shut down by Interplay Entertainment, their parent company.
 * Icewind Dale II was the final game developed on the Bioware Infinity Engine.
 * The "Shadowed Orc Grunt" enemies in the Fortress of the Severed Hand often shout "Zug Zug" as a battle cry. This is a reference to the WarCraft series of games.
 * The voice actor for the Narrator in the original Icewind Dale is David Ogden Stiers, who played Major Winchester from the television show M*A*S*H.