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| IWD Expansions Review (fin) by Bill Dungsroman 07/21/2003, 4:29pm PDT | ||||
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| Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter/Trials of the Luremaster Review
Whores that those clowns at Black Isle Studio are, naturally they had to pump out a quick expansion to Icewind Dale (IWD), Heart of Winter (HoW, as in “HoW the fuck can you charge this much for a fucking three-hour add-on?â€), since IWD was a game they pumped out to pad their pockets until they could finish Baldur’s Gate 2 (BG2). Also, naturally, I had to buy it as soon as it came out. HoW retailed for 30 bucks out of the gate, and it was fucking shorter than Blue Shift. Lead developer Phil Sawyer at BIS offered as a non-explanation that HoW outsold Sacrifice, so ha ha on us. Asshole. But somebody somewhere (Interplay, maybe) suffered a twinge of guilt, and thus the Trials of the Luremaster (TotL) expansion to the HoW expansion was offered as a free download from Interplay. Heart of Winter After you install HoW, you won’t be able to play it until you are at least 9th level. I’d wait until later, maybe near the end of IWD. It ain’t easy. That stupid locked door in Kulda-fucking-har will suddenly open, and some hairy, smelly barbarian will conveniently teleport you to Lonelywood, my favorite (by name alone) of the Ten Towns. The residents of Lonelywood are more or less trapped in their own town by neighboring barbarians, who aren’t acting normal. How about you go check it out, Muscles? Lonelywood the town is like most towns in BIS D&D games. It’s got its share of fairly stupid Fed Ex quests, naturally. A mildly interesting aspect is that over the course of the expansion, the dynamics of the town change somewhat, which is pretty surprising considering the static dumbness of most towns in these games. But like IWD as a whole, Lonelywood has little to offer for supplies. And there’s no way out of the expansion world until you finish it. Whatever, where’s the first dungeon? With areas called Burial Isle and Gloomfrost, what do you figure your chances are for fighting more undead and cold-based monsters? Cinch, pipe, lead. Below Burial Isle is a barrow, and – surprise! – there are wights in there. That’s fine, but what the fuck are Drowned Dead? Mebdinga? Wasn’t he one of the Shogun Warriors? And Vexing Thoughts and Wailing Virgins sound more like my senior year of high school than an underground lair of undead horrors. Gloomfrost is like the Vale of Shadows – oooOOOooo! – from IWD on steroids: a tortuous maze of little snowy paths, with hordes of trolls and such attacking you at every turn. The last part of HoW is a four-level temple plus an outside area, all packed to the shingles with monsters. Once there, you cannot go back to the Lonelywood or the rest of the expansion until you defeat it (NOTE: if you intend to play TotL, you must start it before traveling to the last part of HoW). But it isn’t all that hard if you move slowly and draw monsters back to your party alone or in small groups. If you’ve played BG2, the end boss might give you pause, but don’t worry, it really isn’t that tough. The only tricky bit is all of his obligatory allies in the fight must be killed as well. The verdict on HoW is simple: it’s short, and it really is an expansion of IWD. It has a large bit where you fight a lot of undead, several bits where you fight cold-based creatures, and a couple of nifty items here and there, and not much else. It’s probably pretty cheap by now, or it comes bundled with IWD. Go ahead and get it, install it right away, but don’t attempt it until near the end of IWD, as it’s pretty tough. Trials of the Luremaster Obviously, you need to have both IWD and HoW installed to play TotL. Also, you can’t go to the last bit in HoW before playing TotL, since your jump-off point is in Lonelywood, and you never return to there after departing for the last part of HoW. So, install it and go to the Whistling Gallows Inn – oooOOOooo! – in Lonelywood. There will be some little faggot Halfling with a little faggot Halfling name, Homo Stuntedbones or something. Talk to him and just like your trip to Lonelywood, POOF you’re wherever the hell TotL takes place. Oh, that’s right, the desert of Anauroch. Hobart will call you names, just like every goddamn person does in these fucking games, and then run and hide as you are immediately attacked by a large group of harpies and wyverns. This place – a half-ruined castle – isn’t very big, so getting around isn’t too difficult. You have to solve some dumbass puzzles to advance through the game, but it doesn’t take too much to figure them out. Clues hint at some fag who calls himself the Luremaster, a title that sounds more like a child molester than a diabolical nemesis. He tells you a stupid riddle and you get into the castle, whereupon you fight more fucking shadowed monsters who are hard as hell to kill and drop no items CUZ THEY’RE DEAD SEE. Mostly, you’re killing lots of monsters to find a key to get to another area that has lots of monsters and another key somewhere. What’s the riddle, How much is this game like Doom? The (sort of) upside to this whole Chinese fire drill is that you’re in some desert somewhere, so break out those cold-based spells, boys and girls! You’ll need them, as wave after wave of shadowed “spectral warriors,†wyverns, umber hulks, beholders and the like will pop up around every corner. Guess what? The last part of TotL takes place in…a dungeon! Never mind that, defeating the Luremaster is retardedly easy, although he is one of the single most annoying bosses I’ve ever fought. He likes to continuously teleport all over the big Throne Room you’re in, summoning in fake made-up foes like “Shadowed Heroes†to assist him. I just hasted everyone, equipped them with missile weapons, and let them run Benny Hill-style all over the map. Every so often they’d score a hit, and in time his dumb ass died, and all of his stupid summoned buddies disappeared. In all, though, I don’t really recommend TotL. I felt compelled to download and play it, since those BIS faggots gypped me for HoW. There are some neat items to be had, I guess, but my fuck is it annoying to get through this expansion. There’s something about crusty old faggots telling inane riddles and making me jump through stupid hoops (which are all just killing things and getting a key or hitting a switch) that really grates on my nerves. Trials? You bet they’re trials. If BIS bundled it all into one package, yeah I’d play it. It only takes a day or two to complete, so you could do worse. |
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