Review: Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition for Mac relies heavily on nostalgia
Fifteen years ago, BioWare launched Baldur’s Gate, an opus that redefined what it meant to be a deep, open-ended, and epic role-playing game. Now, Overhaul Games has remastered the original plus its expansion Tales of the Sword Coast, and relaunched the package as Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition for the PC, Mac, and iPad.
The challenge for Overhaul Games was to justify the rerelease of a late-’90s game that, while iconic, looks dated and is still available for purchase (patches, expansions, and all) for those who know where to look. And Overhaul largely meets that challenge, thanks mainly to its choice of a game that is so influential and exceptionally well written that any attempt to bring it to a new platform (and update it) should be applauded.
Granted, Baldur’s Gate—despite the Enhanced Edition’s higher resolutions and improved interface—will still look dated to modern players. But since we’re a generation that has embraced the retro, that isn’t a death sentence. The core elements of the game are still sound, despite the time lapsed between initial release and remastering.
In fact, as someone who missed the game the first time around, I was surprised to discover how many of the combat elements, character interactions, and key gameplay features I appreciated. This is partly due to my familiarity with BioWare games; in retrospect, it’s easy to see how certain combat elements evolved into the features I so enjoyed in Dragon Age: Origins, a later BioWare title.
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