Icewind Dale

Icewind Dale is a role-playing game developed by Black Isle Studios and originally published by Interplay Entertainment, with the Mac version being handled by Mac Play. In the vein of the Baldur's Gate games and Planescape: Torment games, it was made in the Infinity Engine and is based off of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons system. It was originally released for PC and Macintosh on June 29, 2000 to generally positive reviews from critics and audiences.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) As greatly detailed in the pointers below, even if it may be seen as inferior for focusing more on the combat than anything else, Icewind Dale improves over a lot of features found in Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment and brings back some features that weren't present in those games, as well as trying to navigate away from the traditional identity of the Infinity Engine titles to be different, and ends up being one of the best CRPGs ever created in the process.
 * 2) Rather than trying to be more story-focused and plot driven like the past two Infinity Engine titles, Icewind Dale instead tries to do something different by acting more like a huge traditional D&D campaign for the player. What it basically does is a lot more combat and dungeon crawling focused, relying more so on battling enemies, taking loot, exploring dungeons for new equipment and money to gain, and working more to progress in your party's power to complete the game. This was quite a risky move on Black Isle Studios' part, as the strong story elements were a primary reason why the Infinity Engine games were so beloved by players and critics in the first place, and the combat was usually more of a secondary focus rather than the main one. The combat also had its fair share of issues to it (See "Bad Qualities"). However, in the end the game doesn't turn into a disaster as you would expect, because the larger combat focus brings in more of a fun factor than the earlier games, which were fun but were more dedicated to exploring the world and making dialogue choices to affect the outcome. Icewind Dale succeeds in its task of a combat focused adventure by having more dungeons and combat scenarios by putting the story at a backseat, and the more combat battles lead to a lot more unique encounters for the player to hurdle over, and the game largely succeeds at what it's trying to do. It still pales in comparison to the other games in the series because of this, and can be seen as the least good of the Infinity Engine games as well for this reason, but is an overall fun experience nonetheless and is worth checking out for people who enjoyed the combat of the other titles.
 * 3) * In addition to overall being a more enjoyable experience, this combat-focused approach also helps make the game appeal a lot more to casual players or people who are not as familiar with the role-playing genre, and works as a great introduction to those kinds of games as well as Dungeons & Dragons in general.
 * 4) *The larger focus on combat also allowed the creators more time to have lots of more unique enemy encounters to help test your skills as a player. You may have one encounter with a dungeon that continuously teleports you around to different places and forcing you to stay conservative for your spells and plan ahead, or battles with many archer enemies that can chip off the health of lower-ranked party members easier and requiring a chance at defensive tactics. These encounters help this game stand out more against the other Infinity Engine titles in that regard.
 * 5) The character creation system is a bit deeper than before. Rather than starting out with a single character that the player can fully customize and grow over time while gaining companions along the way, you are instead supposed to create a whole six character party that you can individually create and determine their stats to best suit how you play, with the latter being particularly useful for people who played the other Infinity Engine games. This opens up a large window of opportunity to create a really unique party with their own strengths and weaknesses that give the game a lot more replay value. For example, you can have a party based around thieves and mages, giving you a lot of magic potential and giving you more access to secret areas, but at the same time leads to a weaker party in terms of health. You can even have a team where everyone's the same class, such as the party consisting entirely of fighters, which makes you more weak to magic attacks, and brings up the group's damage potential and having higher HP counts. And later on down the line, you can easily change any character's class if their stats allow them to, so you can still mix and match party combinations even after you have already created your party. This overall creates a deeper system than any of the other Infinity Engine games and gives the game more replay value.
 * 6) By far another aspect that makes Icewind Dale such a good game is the improved quest system that was unlike a lot of other role-playing games at the time and certainly a first for D&D in general. Rather than having every quest in the game available for the player to complete in the entire playthrough, Icewind Dale decides to do something different and have quests that can only activate if the player has a character of a certain class or race in their party. While this may be seen as unfair at first, it helps balance out the experience quite a bit for a number of reasons.
 * 7) * For one, having these quests only being available with a certain character class or race makes the game a lot more balanced as a whole, as these quests were designed specifically for having one of those characters in mind. Had they not implemented this form of gatekeeping the player would either be able to easily cheese through these quests or have such a difficult time that there wouldn't be any point in trying to finish the quest in the first place. Even if those issues aren't present than not having those characters wouldn't really work for the plot of the quest in general and would be very off-putting for the player. It is for these reasons that the lock out design choice really works and helps increase player enjoyment rather than deafening it.
 * 8) * This system also once again brings us to the game's high amount of replayability. The gatekeeping system plants the seed into the player's mind that they should play the game again with a different group to see what those quests hold, which is both a cheap but very effective way to keep you playing.
 * 9) Another really cool aspect about Icewind Dale is that due to it's change in gameplay focus, the game actually acts as a great starting point for CRPGs, other games in the Infinity Engine, and even for Dungeons & Dragons as a whole. Since the game is more action-oriented and gives less of an emphasis on story, this can lead to game catching the attention of people who are into dungeon crawlers or action-RPGs like Diablo, since both are focused around exploring dungeons to kill enemies and get a certain item, collect loot and gold, and repeat many times until the game ends, making it much more easier to get into on a gameplay level. Icewind is also generally more forgiving of the player in terms of combat, especially on lower difficulty levels. Next, you will also get a feel for combat more since you will be doing it quite often throughout your playthrough. Finally, the large party you work with from the get go allows you to experiment with the different class and character options to see what best fits your playstyle, and can help carry over from other games in the series. Even if it doesn't explain the rules of AD&D as much as it should, the game is still a really great place for newcomers to the series and CRPG genre, and can really help determine whether those games are right for the player.
 * 10) After being absent from Planescape: Torment, the character races return for the player created characters in this game, giving the player a greater amount of player customization than it already has, and they are still quite unique from one another.
 * 11) *Humans are the jack-of-all-trades aspect of the races. They can be any class (Also meaning they are the only race capable of being a paladin) and is the only race that can be dual-classed, but have no special advantages and don't have multi-classing
 * 12) *Elves are focused more on the magic aspects of characters. They can be a fighter, ranger, cleric, druid, mage, thief, and sorcerer and can multi-class. Their special advantages and disadvantages are 90% resistance to charm and sleep magic, being unaffected by raise dead, infra-vision, +1 THAC0 bonus to smaller arms, a disadvantage to the Open Locks thief skill but an advantage to Pick Pockets, Move Silently, and Hide in Shadows, a +1 to Dexterity and a -1 to Constitution.
 * 13) *Dwraves are more of a tank focused race and is good for melee. They can be a fighter, cleric, or a thief and have only two multi-class options. They have a +2 bonus to vs. Paralysis/Poison/Death, vs. Rod/Staff/Wand, and vs. Spell saving throws. They also have infra-vision, a bonus to the 4 main thief skills, a +1 to Constitution, and -1 and -2 to Dexterity and Charisma respectively.
 * 14) *Gnomes are smaller and are bit like a magic and dexterous race in one. They can be either a fighter, cleric thief, or mage and can multi-class. They have a +2 bonus to vs. Rod/Staff/Wand and vs. Spell saving throws. They also have infra-vision, have more bonuses to thief skills than any other race, and have a +1 to Intelligence and a -1 to Wisdom.
 * 15) *Half-elves combine the human and elf classes. They can be a fighter, ranger, cleric, druid, mage, thief, bard, sorcerer, and shaman, and have multi-class options. They have +30% resistance to charm and sleep magic, infra-vision, and have only increases in the Pick Pockets and Hide in Shadows thief skills.
 * 16) *Half-orcs is a bit like a strength focused human. They can be a fighter, cleric, thief, or shaman and have a small amount of multi-classing options. They have infra-vision and a +1 to Strength, +1 to Constitution, and a -2 to Intelligence.
 * 17) *Halflings are the most rogue-ish of the classes and are like a dwarf and gnome in one. They can be a fighter, cleric, or thief and have only one multi-class option. They have a +2 bonus to vs. Paralysis/Poison/Death, vs. Rod/Staff/Wand, and vs. Spell saving throws. They also have +1 THAC0 for slings, five thief skill bonuses, and a +1 to Dexterity, -1 to Strength, and -1 to Wisdom.
 * 18) The character classes are still really cool and give room for a lot of customization options for the player.
 * 19) *Bard: Similar to thieves with their roguish personality and style, but have a great deal of knowledge of the world. They cannot use armor heavier than chain mail and shields that are larger than bucklers, and can use any weapon. They also can only have one-slot proficiency in weapon and fighting styles, have the Pick Pockets thieving ability, have the highest starting Lore of any class, can cast arcane spells later on, can play a bard song to bring a positive effect to the party, restricted to neutral for alignment, and primarily use Dexterity and Charisma. They use a d6 to determine health.
 * 20) *Cleric: These guys are sort of the healers in the party, but they can also stand their ground well enough to be useful in combat when not using spells. They can wear helmets and use any armor, are only allowed to use non-bladed and non-piercing weapons like maces or flails, can only have one-slot proficiency in a weapon and fighting style, can turn undead, can cast priest spells, and use Wisdom as their primary stat. They use a d8 to determine health.
 * 21) *Druid: Sort of like spellcasters, expect they tune in with nature to use their powers. They can only wear non-metallic armor and shields, as well as bucklers. They can only use clubs, daggers, darts, quarterstaff's, scimitars, slings, and spears. They can only have one-slot proficiency in weapon and fighting styles. They can druidic spells and also gain the ability to shapeshift starting at level 5. They are restricted to True Neutral for alignment and use Wisdom and Charisma as their primary stats. They use a d8 to determine health.
 * 22) *Fighter: Fighters are probably the least special in terms of abilities, but make up for it in sheer physical power. They can use any armor and any weapon, and can also wear helmets and shields. They can gain Grand Mastery level (five-slot proficiency) in any weapon class, and Specialization (two-slot proficiency) in any fighting style. They do not have any special abilities and use Strength as their primary stat. They use a d10 to determine health.
 * 23) *Mage: While this class lacks heavily in physical power, they make up for with powerful magic. They cannot wear any armor and can only use daggers, quarterstaff's, darts, and slings as weapons. They can only gain one-slot proficiency in any weapon and cannot be proficient in a fighting style. However, they can cast arcane spells, which deal the most damage of all spells. They use Intelligence as their primary stat and use a d4 to determine health.
 * 24) *Monk: Similar to fighters, but rely more on powerful unarmed attacks and fighting styles. They cannot use any armor and can only use non-two-handed weapons from the thief class. They can gain one-slot proficiency in any weapon and can only use Single-Weapon Style and no other fighting style to be proficient at. They move faster than other classes and unarmed attacks are much more powerful and are executed a lot faster than attacking with weapons. Eventually the attacks are treated like magic attacks. Armor class is lowered by 1 every 2 levels. They can also use a power called stunning blow and gain resistance to a lot of things as they level up. Alignment is restricted to Lawful and primarily use Strength and Dexterity. They use a d8 to determine health.
 * 25) *Paladin: Essentially a fighter crossed with a cleric. They can use any armor and weapon and can use helmets. They can gain Specialization (two-slot proficiency) in weapon and fighting styles except Two-Handed, in which three-slot can be allocated. They can use Lay on Hands and Cure Disease once per day, and can cast Detect Evil, a special version of Protection From Evil, and Smite Evil. They can turn undead starting at level 3, cast priest spells starting at level 6, have a +2 bonus to all saving throws, and are immune to all disease types. They can only be Lawful Good and primarily use Charisma. They use a d10 to determine health.
 * 26) *Ranger: A bit like a fighter, thief, and druid in one class. They can use any armor, weapon, and can use helmets. They can achieve Specialization (two-slot proficiency) in any weapon or fighting style, but also begin specialized in Two-Weapon and can be increased to three-slot. They have a tracking ability and the power to charm animals, as well as a racial enemy of the player's choice where you gain a +4 bonus against them. They can also hide in the shadows and cast druid spells at level 6. They primarily use Strength, Dexterity, and Wisdom. They use a d10 to determine health.
 * 27) *Shaman: A more spiritual version of a druid and exclusive to the Enhanced Edition of the game. They can only use leather and hide armor and bucklers, as well as all druid weapons along with a shortbow. They can only gain one-slot proficiency in any weapon and fighting style. They select new druid spells to learn every time they level up and have access to a Detect Illusions skill. They can also do a Shamanic Dance to summon a spirit ally and use Wisdom and Constitution as primary stats. They use a d8 to determine health.
 * 28) *Sorcerer: A variation of the mage. As with mages they can't wear armor, only use their weapons, and can only gain one-slot proficiency in a weapon. They can't gain proficiency in a fighting style. They cast arcane spells, but also have the added bonus of choosing what spells they want to learn when leveling up rather than only earning by copying them into your spellbook. They primarily use Intelligence. They use a d4 to determine health.
 * 29) *Thief: This class is stealth and sneak based. They can not wear armor heavier than studded leather and shields larger than bucklers. They can use clubs, crossbows, daggers, darts, katanas, long swords, quarterstaff's, scimitars, shortbows, short swords, and slings. They can gain one-slot proficiency in any weapon and fighting style. They can use any thief skill and can allocate 25 points (40 at level 1) between them per level. They have a backstabbing ability for more damage, can sneak attack, set snares, and also gain a special evasion move at level 7. They can be any alignment except lawful good and use Dexterity as their primary stat. They use a d6 to determine health.
 * 30) As expected with the Infinity Engine games, the attribute system allows for a lot of variety when crafting your character and can allow you to make any sort of character you want, from a powerful and smart barbarian to an agile and fast wizard.
 * 31) * Strength determines the physical strength and muscle of a character. First and foremost it determines your THAC0 rating for melee attacks as well as helping influence how much damage is dealt from melee attacks. It also increases the effectiveness of bashing things open and increases how much a character can carry without getting slowed down. It is an essential stat for the fighter class.
 * 32) * Dexterity influences how agile and stealthy a character is, as well as how accurate they are at ranged attacks. It mainly influences a character’s Armor Class and how often you get attacked by enemies. It also influences the THAC0 score for ranged attacks but doesn’t influence damage from such attacks. It is best used for thief characters, as it influences their thieving skills and how well they succeed at actions such as stealth and lockpicking. It is also a useful attribute for rangers.
 * 33) * Intelligence determines how smart a character is and helps their memorization skills. It influences the maximum spell level for the mage and bard classes, as well as increasing how many spells those two classes can memorize and use and increases the chance of learning a spell successfully. It also helps influence Lore, which is used to aid how well a character can identify an unfamiliar item without having to pay to identify it. Finally it helps increase the usability of wand items for characters. It is an essential skill for mage and bard characters.
 * 34) * Wisdom is the attribute that determines a character’s knowledge of the world such as the towns, magic knowledge, and backgrounds of important figures and characters. Because of this, the higher this attribute is, the higher their Lore skill is, the second attribute that helps determine this skill. It also influences how many spells can be used per day for the priest class. It is an essential attribute for the cleric and druid classes.
 * 35) * Constitution directly affects how much a character can take in terms of damage and status effects. It directly influences how many hit points you start out with and how many are gained per level. It also influences how much health is regenerated over time, how well you resist status effects like fatigue and intoxication, and how saving throws are determined for short races like gnomes. It is essential for all classes, but is not the main attribute for any of them, the only one where this applies.
 * 36) * Charisma affects how influential and beautiful a character is. It is used to affect the prices of items and gear in the shop, and also influences how much money you’ll gain from selling items. It will also affect the characters reputation when they do a major action in a quest or related to an NPC. It is the primary attribute of Paladins, Bards, and Druids.
 * 37) Outside of the attributes and along with the other Infinity Engine titles, the other AD&D systems translate well into the video game form and influence the overall experience a lot.
 * 38) * Armor Class: Also somewhat self-explanatory, armor class determines how heavily armored a character is and how well protected they are from damage. The lower your armor class, the harder you are to hit (For example, a character with AC of 6 is easier to hit than one with an AC of 2). More advanced armor like plate armor and buckler shields will help lower armor class, along with your overall Dexterity score. Armor isn't the only thing that changes AC, some magic weapons & items can affect it to. In terms of gameplay, it changes it up quite a bit as attacks don't deal any damage unless it gets a good chance roll to beat it, as the attacker's THAC0 affects whether it will hit while the defender's AC determines the roll for a THAC0 attack to succeed. And speaking of which....
 * 39) * THAC0 determines what kind of roll is required for a character to hit an enemy with an Armor Class of 0. This is based on the Strength or Dexterity stats depending on what weapon you are using, as well as any roll modifiers you may have such as status effects. Similarly to Armor Class the lower your THAC0 score the easier it is to hit targets.
 * 40) *Turns are done rather differently in the Infinity Engine games, as the combat is done in real time and an action is done in a varying amount of time depending on what kind of action is being used, and each action in these intervals represents an in-rule turn. This translates surprisingly well, as it makes combat move a lot quicker and being less tedious on the player while also including the pause feature to plan out actions out easier and when needed.
 * 41) *Dual-Classing & Multi-Classing works pretty much the same way as it did in the standard AD&D tabletop game. Depending on what race you start out the game with, you will be given the option to either dual or multi-class with a character. For one, dual-classing isn't accessible until a certain level, where once you reach it an chose to share a class with the one you already have, even two if you want. This'll reset your character back to level 1 so a lot of planning is needed to use these characters successfully, but can be very powerful when mastered. As for multi-classing, that basically means the same as dual-classing except you can chose to share two or three classes right from the beginning of the game. In addition, only the basic classes (fighter, mage, thief, cleric) can be shared with each other.
 * 42) Beautiful world and art design that does a good job of making you feel immersed and truly in a fantastical setting. For one, a lot of the areas of the outdoors take place in a snowy environment full of blowing snow and unique landmarks such as an avalanche that prevents player progress, large areas of snow everywhere that makes following the road harder or even shows the dangers of exploring in an area before you are ready, and makes a stark contrast to any light or heat sources found in the world which gives the player a sense of safety and accomplishment. Even outside of the use of the deadly weather, everything else about the world real shines in charm and help show the life of the residents in Icewind Dale as well as the many unknowns. Unique landmarks such as a luscious town full of greenery or the gigantic dragon-shaped form in the snow help make the world stand out from other AD&D and video game settings.
 * 43) *It certainly helps that the graphics in both the original version and the enhanced edition do a good job of showing these nice environments and the characters within them despite being from an isometric angle and using heavily blurred and/or pixelated models. For one the backgrounds the player navigates through are pre-rendered with the NPC and graphical effects placed over it and having invisible barriers to make it look like you are traveling the world naturally, which ends up making the game look pretty good as a result. The character designs themselves are a bit simplistic but evoke the idea of hat they look like well enough, and some have character portraits anyway to help visualize them anyway. The isometric view used also helps make the environments seem more grand in scale. Finally, the graphical effects used such as the ones for magic spells or the weather overlays like blowing snow look really nice and give it more realism.
 * 44) Really pleasant soundtrack that can be both very relaxing and also adds feelings of tension and dread to it effectively. Most of the songs, usually the overworld ones and the town themes, are all used to be relaxing for the players ears, possibly used to give them a sense of safety in contrast the the dangers of what is found outside of town and to help apply an exploration and restoring path before they get out for their next quest. Even outside the town, the overworld themes and places outside of towns have as similar quiet tone but have a more foreboding undertone to them which is more apparent in the caves and dungeon areas. Finally the battles themselves are accompanied by a faster, louder, and more tense sound that makes you ready for battle and add to the pressure of combat.
 * 45) Despite the story being in the background, with the combat being placed in front, there is still a focus, even if it is small, on the story and while it doesn't hold up anywhere as well as the stories of Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, it's still worth checking out in its own right. For one, since its less of a focus, this also means that less characters will be used and this lives them more screentime, and leads to giving them some good development as characters as a result, which is pretty neat.
 * 46) After the release of the base game, two expansions were released that expanded upon the base game and actually helped iron out some of the fundamental drawbacks from the original campaign.
 * 47) *The larger of the two expansions, Heart of Winter, adds a whole new separate campaign to experience that can be started any time during the main adventure and helps change up the main formula a lot, as well as adding bug fixes and a few new features to help elevate it higher.
 * 48) **What makes the campaign of Heart of Winter so good is that it removes a lot of the generic questlines and how to finish them that were present in the main campaign and goes out to create a bit of a different progression style that is a bit more like the past Infinity Engine titles. One of the largest examples is that the player now has some sense of choice and consequence with the decisions they make in the game, which was something that was really absent from the main campaign, so having a choice between dialogues and having different effects from them really helps. Secondly, the game has a bit of puzzle solving and thinking elements to finishing the quests, as players will have the read scrolls or talk to NPCs for information rather than just being given a place to go and that's that, so including that element is a nice breather from the main campaign. Not only that but each area has a different puzzle to solve and an overall "theme" paired with it. For example when playing with the Trials of the Luremaster add-on (See below) to Heart of Winter, there are areas such as the Courtyard being around solving a riddle, the Catacombs about piecing together the fate of a Bard, the Castle about fighting and piecing together how to fight the Luremaster, and the Prison and Tunnels are your road to the final boss, but in during your time in them you have to use the items in different caves and use them to progress. And even without that, the base expansion holds its own incredibly well, especially the prologue, with the town of Lonelywood being a very engaging starter location, and pretty much every location feels like their own big adventure, something that wasn't really a thing in the main game. All of the game's areas having an detailed amount of lore to keep the player engaged, and the game's writing is stronger and less generic than it was in Icewind Dale.
 * 49) **Outside of the main meat and potatoes of the expansion, the level cap has been increased to a maximum of 30, allowing for more character expansion down the line. In the original version of the expansion the resolution maximum was also increased to 800x600.
 * 50) **The expansion along with Trials of the Luremaster can be played either separately or completed through the main campaign, which is a nice touch.
 * 51) *The second expansion known as Trials of the Luremaster was one made to add on to the content of the base Heart of Winter expansion. Originally released for free from Black Isle Studios, it addresses the expansion's main criticism of being way to short by including a brand-new dungeon and several new areas patched into the base Heart of Winter campaign, as well as including a few new enemies and fixing multiple bugs, essentially acting as the game's final patch.
 * 52) **The add-on essentially removes one of Heart of Winter 's biggest issues by expanding upon the base expansion with a brand new optional dungeon and several new areas intertwined with the expansion, and not only does it help make the expansion last longer but it also helps make the base expansion even more fresh.
 * 53) **New enemies and items were also introduced, as well as multiple bug fixes.
 * 54) The Enhanced Edition is the definitive way to play the game, and has some great additions as well.
 * 55) * As usual, these versions include multiple bug fixes to make the experience more smooth as well as a revamped user interface.
 * 56) * It includes both the original game and the Heart of Winter expansion in one package, so having the whole game in one complete collection, as well as having a low cost, is already worth owning the collection in the first place.
 * 57) * Unlike the disastrous launch of Warcraft III: Reforged, Beamdog did not remove the original versions of the game from digital stores, rather made the originals included with the enhanced editions when you purchase any of the personal computer versions, showing Beamdog wanted to keep the legacy of the original games intact instead of trying to purge them from the world.
 * 58) * The graphics have been updated a bit to look a lot clearer. In addition, widescreen support is now available without needing the use of mods.
 * 59) * Even though the 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons rules were what was being used at the time of the Enhanced Edition's release, the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ruleset (Also known as the 2nd edition rules) are still used to remain as faithful to the original material as possible.
 * 60) * There is an updated multiplayer feature here, which allows people to play the game together while also having cross-platform support.
 * 61) * Over 60 new items and 30 class/kit combinations (Basically variations of the 11 classes) are included here, as well as the blackguard class that came from the enhanced edition of Baldur's Gate II: Shadow of Amn.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Despite improving over Baldur's Gate's system and having a more combat focused experience is really cool, more entertaining, and helps the game stand out among its more recognized predecessors, the combat is still heavily flawed as it was in the other Infinity Engine games. In particular the faster pace of the real-time combat requires the player to pause their game often to issue commands over and over until you win, which can get tedious in larger scale battles. Really the issue is it's not a matter of how deep the combat system is, and it certainly is very deep and ripe for strategic opportunities, but rather how long it takes to actually do anything strategic with it.
 * 2) *In fact some of the more hardcore fans will probably see the larger focus on combat to be an issue, as one of the things that made the earlier Infinity Engine games so special was the stories they told and the combat always took a backseat most of the time.
 * 3) *The combat itself still has its fair share of issues, the bigger being the pathfinding AI, as both your own party and enemies can get stuck between walls or block your path unintentionally often and can waste you valuable time. In your case it'll make fighting a lot harder, but if the enemy AI gets stuck it'll make battles easy to win and unsatisfying to complete.
 * 4) *Along with that, a lot of encounters can feel a bit like filler, such as ones that focus entirely on enemy melee combat and has little input needed to win successfully.
 * 5) It does have a number of issues over the other Infinity Engine titles despite making some really nifty improvements.
 * 6) * The game's story is much more linear this time around, and you are not given the freedom of choice and a more open-ended design that Baldur's Gate had. This makes some of the replayability enjoyment drop a bit, as while even if you have a bunch of new party setups to try and new quests opened up if you try a completely new playthrough or two, you are still going to be given the same forced path either way which can get tiring after a bit even on your first playthrough.
 * 7) * The mages are practically useless in this game, as they will have very poor quality spells for a great chunk of the game, which makes them more like cannon fodder rather than being useful since mages are built around their powerful magic and are easy to kill without it.
 * 8) * Since the only party members the player gets are who they create at the beginning, with no companions being gained as the story progresses, this makes Icewind have a bit less personality than the other games and are more or less self/other inserts.
 * 9) * The alignment of the player characters have no real impact on story or gameplay, which is rather disappointing.
 * 10) *The writing that progresses the story itself can feel really generic at times and is pretty bland often, as here isn't much personality given for each character, they just kinda say stuff without any flavor to it.
 * 11) Despite them looking really good and evoke what they are showing really well, the graphics definitely show their age in both versions of the game. While it may not be that bad up close, as it's hard to see any pixelated or rough edges that way, if you play up close it's really easy to tell that the models are a relic of their time, as they look pretty messy up close and have a variety of different lighter or darker shades of the same color that don't add anything else to the character models themselves.
 * 12) When running the original game on their intended platforms at the time such as Windows 98, there are some occasional crashes that can be encountered depending on the machine you were using, which are a minor annoyance.
 * 13) Having the Story Mode difficulty in this game may be seen as pointless depending on the player, as the story, while decent and has good lore to it, isn't interesting enough in the base game to warrant playing just for the story. Not to mention that you don't get any good combat practice at all here due to increased damage output from the player and the enemies not really putting up much of a fight at all.

Original Release
Upon its original release, Icewind Dale received positive reviews from critics, currently sitting at an aggregated score of 87/100 on Metacritic. The most positive review given was a 9.5/10 from GameZone, with raise being directed at the game's combat. Other reviewers similarly praised the combat, with GameSpy saying "Icewind Dale was a fun dungeon romp that can hold its head up high, even if it can't match its big brothers". Chris Chan of the New Straits Times (No, not that Chris Chan) said that Icewind Dale was one of the best games he ever played and compared it favorably to Diablo II. Kevin Rice of Next Generation rated the game 4 stars out of 5, stating that it was a very immersive game that had fun and constant combat, and that "earns its place on the hard drive of any self-respecting RPG fan". Computer Gaming World found that the game was "dangerously close to being the most purely fun RPG that we've played in a long time." and nominated it for the award of best computer role-playing game of 2000, but lost of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. GameSpot, The Electric Playground and CNET Gamecenter also nominated the game for the same award, but again all three lost to Baldur's Gate II.

In retrospective reviews, Icewind Dale is considered one of the best Dungeons & Dragons video games ever made. In 2015, Ian Williams of Paste ranked Icewind Dale as the 3rd best D&D video game, stating "After several story oriented outings, Black Isle turned its Infinity Engine to a story-light, hack and slash throwback. And it was great" and "I know it’s passé to go all in on system, but Icewind Dale is best viewed as a system first, narrative second, type of game". IGN ranked Icewind Dale as the 6th best D&D video game on their list of the 11 best games in the franchise.

Enhanced Edition
Similarly to the original release of the game, Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition received positive reviews from critics. The PC version currently has a Metacritic score of 80/100 based on 13 reviews, while the iOS port is sitting at a 83/100 based on 4 reviews. The iOS port in particular was praised for transitioning the complex PC experience onto a small screen. Gamezebo gave the iOS port a 3.5/5, while critisising it's difficulty for people unfamiliar with the genre and being hard to play on a touchscreen in some cases (Especially considering the sizes of icons, a similar issue with the mobile version of Old School RuneScape), they enjoyed the inclusion of the new features that added more replay value to the overall package, as well as having a customizable UI. Similarly Softpedia gave this version an 8/10, complimenting the amount of replay value as well as the huge and complex world that felt lived in. They also liked the new features including, but criticized it's difficulty for new players and lack of explaining the AD&D ruleset for those unfamiliar with it. Gameplanet awarded the game a 9/10 for similar reasons, and also liked the tweaks added to the game's ruleset and removing a lot of bugs.

Trivia

 * While this game used the Advanced Dungeons & Dragon's ruleset for its gameplay, but the sequel instead used the 3rd Edition of the D&D rules, creating a balance change between both game's gameplay.
 * The Enhanced Edition doesn't use its original engine due to the source code being lost, so it instead ran on the framework used for Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.