Bioware's Infinity Engine, no matter its age never appears to age. With a spiffy new wooden interface, and a 32bit color pre-rendered world, nothing else looks so realistic. Character images can sometimes look a little difficult to identify, and there are certainly not enough positions of animation, resulting in choppy character animations at times. Also, some of the spells could use some work still. Aganazzars Scorcher shoots a jet of fire out. For some reason, it now has a greenish hue to it, as opposed to the pure orange back in BG. Other than a few things like that, there is nothing to complain about with the graphics.

Icewind Dale utilizes many of the same sounds that Baldur's Gate used. They still sound just as realistic and 3D as ever. In addition, some new sounds were added for monsters, spells, and the like, and they are of the same high quality. The important dialogues are now even completely spoken rather than just the first few words, although some of the non-essential characters don't even have their few words anymore, which brought a more lively atmosphere to the place, as well as the now-missing tavern music. Actually, most of the music is gone now, only playing for a few seconds when entering an important area, although its reasons were good, with so much combat, you'd be switching music all the time. The music that is there is spectacular though, and is fully orchestrated. It sounds like it is a movie.

The gameplay in Icewind Dale is a cross between Baldur's Gate and Diablo. Keeping to the exploration and highly complicated rules system of AD&D, but tossing in more action like Diablo and other ARPGs. If there is one place I'd have to be a bit more upset is the slow beginning, and the fact that the game gets insanely difficult towards the end. That was one of my biggest problems with Baldur's Gate, too. In BG it took me over 20 fireballs, plus the ranged attacks of my archers to take down the final boss and his minions. Icewind Dale, while a bit more sane, takes a similar approach with some of the bosses. Overall though there are many gameplay improvements, ranging from small tweaks such as sleeping, to major overhauls such as more creative quests rather than go and kill.

With the exception of Fallout, no other games have ever come anywhere even nearly as close in depth to AD&D games. A storyline that twists at every turn, taking every lead you predicted and destroying them, leaving you in complete curiosity as to what is really going on. There is nowhere that you are safe, no matter how much you think you are. Characters are as complicated as in the real world, magic is a life's work, morale, personal grudges, racial hatred between species, and fatigue are all present, and weapons have so many properties. It is amazing that it doesn't take much longer to make these games.

Multiplayer is not the shining point of a linear game like the AD&D games. If you're a hardcore fan of it, you'll have no problem with the multiplayer, but if you're a multiplayer fan in general, or are interested in seeing if multiplayer adds another facet to the game, rest assured that it doesn't. Cumbersome, and restrictive, multiplayer really doesn't even have much of a place in a really strong single player game like this, but is tossed in as a thrill to the most dedicated of Pen and Paper players who can now play with people other than those that can sit at their kitchen table with a pad of paper. A great feature for a fan, but not the best for an outsider. This in no way detracts from the overall value of the game, though, as it was never meant to be a clan fest game.