Baldur's Gate EE finally released for the iPad today. $9.99, IAP each new character (two) $2.99, portrait pack $2.99. IAP's are not required to play but will make the iPad game same as the PC version which sells for $20.
Never played the original.... should I get this one?
If you never played the original, I would say go for it! I will be separated from my PC for the holidays, so I got it on the iPad to have something to play while away. It really is one of the best RPGs, or at least one of the most iconic.
How is the interface? I have a little bit of trouble with the ipad versions of Combat mission and Battle Academy and am thinking of a capacitive stylus to make playing easier.
So, anyone playing this?
Sounds like the reviews about how well BGEE got ported to iPad are a bit mixed... More might have been done to make it iPad-interface friendly. Reviews on the dev site are generally enthusiastic though:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/10904/post-your-bgee-ipad-reviews (http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/10904/post-your-bgee-ipad-reviews)
I bought it when I was on vacation last week. Haven't had a chance to play it much though. I'm going to try and spend some time with it this weekend.
The tutorial doesn't really do a good job of explaining the different buttons on the interface. It will tell you to open your inventory but it doesn't point out what button is your inventory. So I've ended up just randomly clicking things until I find what I need. Movement also seems a bit off. I haven't played long enough to find out how combat plays out.
I caved in and bought it last night.
Initial impressions are that they did a nice job overall porting this to ipad, but there are definitely some basic frustrations with the interface. For example, you can't seem to de-select your character, which means when you try to scroll the environment with a swipe of the finger, you more often than not wind up inadvertently ordering your character to move to the place you swiped. This is annoying, and in combat, dangerous.
That said, it's cool and definitely not a waste of your $10, if my initial reactions hold up -- and hopefully future patching will continue to refine the interface --
UPDATE -- My enthusiasm for BGEE has definitely cooled a bit since I first booted it up. The main problem is combat. It's just very hard on a screen the size of an iPad to manage this. And the game doesn't do enough in the way of letting you know simple things, like when you've successfully selected an enemy to attack. Combats involving big parties seem almost unmanageable, or require so much micro-ing that it's just tedious, not fun.
I'd be curious if anyone has similar or different reactions. I'm not saying "abandon ship!" yet, but i'm skeptical about how much combat can be improved by patching, etc.