More tales from the Steam sale, this time a very positive one; Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition.
When BG:EE was first announced, I was excited about it. Then as more news on what exactly was going to get enhanced came out, my excitement died down a bit. At release, I read some reviews and those soured me on the game even more and ultimately I never picked it up until now.
That was a mistake. BG:EE is EXACTLY what I wanted.
It’s still very much BG1, and by that I mean still arguably one of the greatest RPG games ever made. If you have not played it by now do yourself a massive favor and grab it. The main issue I had with BG1 and its collection of mods to make the game playable on modern machines is that, while they accomplished most of what was intended, they never quite came together 100% perfectly, which somewhat detracted from the experience.
BG:EE makes BG1 playable on modern machines without any of the flaws. It runs silky smooth, the UI fits your screen and works well while still retaining the BG feel, and everything comes together to just let you enjoy that amazing RPG content.
The actually new content is decent as well. The new party members mix things up well, and I actually like all of them in terms of character voice and such. Their side quests fit into the game rather than feeling tacked on, which given what they are stacked against, is saying a lot.
The only thing keeping me from picking up BG2:EE is that, much like when BG:EE was initially released, I guess it has some bugs. Might as well wait for a sale and some patches before jumping into that, assuming I can hold off once I’ve finished BG1 (about 70% through it right now).
Hardcore Casual 
I did something kinda fun on this playthrough. In the past I’ve used multiplayer characters with my friends faces as custom portraits. This time I knew which npcs I wanted in my party, so I changed their portraits in advance. It was fun having them pop up throughout the world giving me quests, and having dialogue.
I just finished a playthrough of BGEE myself and am now happily blaying BGIIEE. While mileage may ofcourse vary I’ve not found any significant bugs in BGIIEE yet, whereas I did in BGEE, but truth be told that was one quest (your aprty getting poisoned) that bugged in the original as well and for which there’s ways around thansk to CLUAConsole.
BGIEE is very much as playable as the patched version of BGEE is. Noted, that was buggy at launch but indeed very much worth it today.
I have not tried any of the extra potential partymembers yet. While I have no doubt they’re very decent as soon as I run into them I run into a “Should not be here” emotional wall. don’t have the same issue with extra content though.
TLDR: Don’t worry about BGIIEE’s quality, it’s there. In spades.
I also recently finished a playthrough of BGEE and have moved on to BG2EE. I’ve been very pleased with both games – and I’ve not encountered any bugs with the second game yet, either.
A really nice job by Beamdog on both games.
That’s good to hear about BG2EE being solid, will be picking it up once I finish BG1 (ch5 now).