Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance is a hack and slash game set in the Baldur's Gate world. You get to choose among three characters to fight first for revenge, then to protect Baldur's Gate.
One or two players, (seemingly) unlimited named save game slots, requires 343K, vibration, digital and analog pressure-sensitive control.
Does not support widescreen, and looks horrible if you try.
Rated T for blood, violence, use of alcohol.
Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance feels far too short. I finished it with my girlfriend in about 20 hours, and took about the same amount of time by myself. The story is very linear (unlike the first PC Baldur's Gate game), which limits its replayability.
There are three different character classes, a Dwarven Warrior, a Human Archer, and an Elven Sorceress. The warrior is very easy to play and level up, the sorceress the most difficult. Save points are frequent, and save time is very quick (about 5 seconds), which is nice if you happen to get killed alot.
You start the game getting robbed in Baldur's Gate, where you set out for revenge. You uncover a dark plot against Baldur's Gate, and you set out to uncover it. Unlike Baldur's Gate, BG:DA allows you no choices in conversation, so you're pretty much a good guy all around (oh, an army's coming to help you? bah! I'll do it myself, spare them the trouble!).
After beating the game, a 'Gauntlet' mode shows up in the new game menu, and when you beat it, you can start in on Extreme mode. Extreme mode is hard, you can't slack off, and you don't get to bring along any of your goodies from past save games, just your experience. Presumably you get to play Drizt from the gauntlet after beating Extreme mode.
There are a few very nice touches to the game. At the loading screen, moving the right control stick moves the flames flaming "Loading" text around the screen, which is a nice touch. When you get to about 30-40% health, the controller makes a heart-beat like vibration to warn you to pop a few health potions.
Unfortunately, there are a few bugs related to too many flashy-things on the screen at once. If the brightness is too high (just a smidge above the default), some of the ground tiles do not get painted, and instead are just squares of the appropriate color. I've also had the game crash once or twice if too many spells were cast at the same time.
At only 20 hours of gameplay and low replayability, I was glad I bought this game used.
These cheats must be entered with controller one.