Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is one of the better games available on the PS2. It's not all that different from other games of this genre but it is still a lot of fun.
The graphics are at least a nine with some of the best cut scenes I've seen on a PS2. The characters and NPCs left a bit to be desired in the sense that you don't really get to know them... but I guess seeing as this isn't an FF game I can't really place that expectation on Baldur's Gate.
The audio was great with small subtle sounds like rocks rolling down a cliff sounding just as good as the now infamous "lightning ball" spell which allowed anyone who used the Sorceress to pretty much stroll there way through the game.
And that gets me to the reason this game only scored an eight - it was way too short and too easy. The first time through on normal mode I beat it in about 8.5 hours... the second time through, using my already powered up character, on hard mode I beat it in less than 3 hours. Granted I had a powered up character but she wasn't fully powered up and you would think the level of difficulty should have been raised enough to make the game challenging again. After getting through the first level of extreme mode fairly quickly I decided to give it a rest. The one saving grace is the Gauntlet (which you need to beat in order to get to extreme mode), which was actually kind of difficult to get through considering you have only 2 spells and one piece of armor.
All in all BG:DA is still very much a game worth owning... getting through all 4 difficulty modes and the Gauntlet definitely adds a certain amount of replayability to the game but a couple more levels and characters could have elevated this game to ten.
Oh well... there's always the next Baldur's Gate game!
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