begolf00

It's a little unfair to thrash an UI just cause it doesn't scale to 1920x1080 when the game's max was 1024x768. Like for example Deus Ex. Great UI, doesn't really work with modern resolutions. Does that make it a bad UI? No it doesn't. Let's see how good DA remains if used on a 4x as big as intended resolution. I am going to assume you're using the same "bad scaling" then. So yeah, let's keep future or past resolutions out of the discussion and just base what we like on the merits of the UI. Not how well it passed time, giving 5 years old way more leeway than 12 year in an unfair way. *clicks link* OH MY GOD. That looks SO horrible. God no. No. No. NO. I honestly have to tell that's the worst RPG UI I have seen so far in my life. I agree. IWD2's interface was a big step back from the IE interfaces of BG/BG2/IWD1. A big step. Character harder to keep an eye on? Check. Less intuitive way to go to submenus like inventories? Check. Heck, check Adam's play of IWD2 and how many times he opened up the wrong menu. How often did that happen to you playing Baldur's Gate 2? I rest my case. Worse position of combat log (and not being able to resize it, it seems). Check! Overall, I didn't like it a bit. I totally agree with this, it's just worrisome a bit because I thought I heard one of the developers saying that the IWD 2 UI was good and I think it's pretty much horrible. I'm not to worried though, I'm sure they will come up with something awesome. As long as its intuitive, easy to use and fits the look of the game I'll be happy. A bad UI though is one quick way to make a game not that enjoyable.

I personally thought between Baldurs gate and the First Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale 2 had way worse UI. Buttons were two small and it just was not quite as intuitive as the originals. Actually playing with the Icewind Dale 2 UI just annoys me after playing with BG2.

@Czinczar: I loved being able to go into most of the houses in BG. Also Athkatla, Vizima, Sigil, (Alexandria, Lindblum, Burmecia, Treno, from FF IX) are probably my favorite cities of all time. I love the Athkatla, I just wished it was bigger lol. Every time I looked on the map at all the places you couldn't go in the city it made me sad. Final Fantasy IX's cities are probably my favorite stylized cities of all time. Especially Lindblum and Alexandria. The CG opening for Lindblum is amazing, sadly you can hardly explore anything compared to what the CG video shows. I always thought a game set in an accurate representation of Water Deep would be awesome. Anyway exploring a well thought out city truly can make a game just that much better. The Elderscrolls games mostly had crappy cities in my opinion, though MW was my favorite. Dragon Age cities sucked to, I just thought they were trying to pretend that they were big. I would be cool to see perhaps different styles of architecture in different regions.

LOL thanks for letting me know Demoss. I just checked IMB, seems like three composers worked on that one. Howard Drossin, Michael Hoenig and as you said Inon Zur. I really like Inon Zur. Need to find more of his music.

I don't really care in all honesty but I generally think games that make the protagonist unique generally give the game a more memorable experience. I know that a lot of people Like Morrowind b/c the character is somewhat unique. The BG series had a very interesting PC. Icewind Dale series I could give two ..... about the PC. Oblivion and Skyrim both sort of have lackluster player characters as well. If the player character can be unique and is just some blow joe then great, If the character is special to begin with but it's done good then that's great to. I just feel that a lot of games have either really boring characters or Super characters. It would be nice to have something in the middle. Since they say Project Eternity is going to be a culmination of some of the Greats, I expect that the Player character is going to be somewhat unique. Could some people here list games with normal characters that had good stories. I cant think of very many.

I though this remix for BG was amazing. Michael Hoenig is by far my favorite composer for the IE games. I especially liked some of the themes for BG2 and Throne. I just want to say I think Music is very important in drawing the PC into the game world.