The popular PC series, Baldur's Gate, makes its console debut with an all-new adventure, where the fate of the Forgotten Realms of Aber-Toreil lies firmly in your hands.

Baldur's Gate is classic RPG fare and a welcome change from standard console games, where the RPG is sadly neglected. You are a stranger arriving at the busy town of Baldur's Gate, but no sooner do you walk into the place than you are mugged and all of your possessions taken. In fact it's only the intervention of the city guard that prevents your murder as well. You awake in the Elfsong Tavern, where the buxom half-elf landlady Alyth greets you. After explaining your plight, Alyth warns against pursuing your attackers but you insist and so she tells you they are most likely using the sewer system beneath the city. She says that if you manage to clear her cellar of rats, you can have the key that leads from her cellar into the sewers and so your quest begins.

Not exactly the epic start given by some RPGs, but it's not long before you discover a mysterious conspiracy that could mean the end of civilisation and become embroiled in a battle that will determine the fate of the world. That's more like it! You have a choice of three characters to choose from; a human archer, dwarf warrior or elven sorceress. Each character has strengths and weaknesses that I'm sure you can figure out for yourselves, so pick according to your preferences of fighting style. One of the greatest things about this game is its two-player mode where you and a friend can battle through the whole game together. You can even switch between 1 and 2 player modes so it's not essential for both of you to take part all the way through. As you can imagine, it's far more exciting to play with a friend and battles against large numbers of creatures (which happen all the time) are easier and require less running about to avoid being surrounded!

The action is viewed from a 3D overhead angle, meaning that the characters and enemies are quite small on the screen. However, this hasn't stopped the developers from creating some of the most gorgeous graphics I've ever seen. Everything is crisp and wonderfully defined; you can see all of the character details and even spot an individual gold coin on the ground. The scenery is lush and detailed, even in the cellar and sewers, with the location changing periodically to keep your interest. Baldur's Gate also features one of the best water effects I've ever seen, just watch it ripple and flow as you run through a pool or stream, it's absolutely amazing! Lighting effects and reflective surfaces are equally well crafted and the special effects of the various spells are colourful and spectacular.

There's a wide range of enemies to encounter and although you start off with giant rats and spiders, it quickly gets more interesting. You'll encounter human thieves, rat men, huge ugly orcs and trolls, bizarre gelatine blobs, zombies and skeletons, and that's just in the city itself; beyond is a whole world of new and equally unpleasant creatures. The graphics are also as gory as they are detailed, when you slash at your enemies their blood splatters on the floor and they fall dead in a pool of the stuff. The animation is wonderful, it's all so smooth and natural, with the death animations being particularly good, as enemies fall and drop whatever they're carrying. The giant spiders' legs curl in like a real dead spider looks. The zombies are also noteworthy in that you can chop off their arms and they'll still keep coming at you, even chopping off their heads isn't always effective. Sometimes you'll strike them down and the top half of the body will come crawling after you on its hands, leaving the legs behind! The bodies stay put too, allowing you to see the trail of carnage you've left in your wake, which is a great touch!

For character interaction the camera zooms in so you can see who you're talking to and again, the graphics are wonderful. Great attention to detail, perfect lip synching and well-animated facial expressions really add to the realism. The story develops at a good pace and every so often you'll run into a new character or event that will unfold a bit more of the plot and keep you interested. The script and voice acting is very good, opting for a traditional fantasy feel with great success. The sound effects and music are also both outstanding, with a realistic range of sounds for clanking swords, footsteps and water, great effects for magic and background noises like dripping water, pattering feet and howling wind that really add to the atmosphere. Meanwhile, there is a full orchestral score to further immerse you that is by turns eerie, dramatic, sad and violent. It's good enough to be the score to a film and another reason why this game is so great to play.

The gameplay itself is primarily about combat and exploration as you hack and slash your way through hordes of creatures, in a bid to fulfil your quests. You get both compulsory and secondary quests to carry out and they almost always result in gold and gifts of some kind such as weapons and potions. You can smash barrels and crates and open chests to find gold and treasure, plus enemies regularly drop weapons, gold and potions for you to take. You can get potions that restore your health and magic levels, but one of the best aspects of the gameplay is that your health and magic gradually restore themselves with time, so if you're running low on potions you can hang around for a minute and wait until your strength is back. You can sell all the weapons, armour, potions and treasure you find and don't need, some of which can be worth a lot of gold and it's well worth holding onto them. You can use a recall potion at any time to transport yourself to a place of safety, this being Elfsong Tavern in the Baldur's Gate area. After you offload all the extra stuff you don't need and stock up on supplies you do need, you transport back to the exact location you left. This is a brilliant and very handy feature as every item has a weight and you often reach your capacity and need to trade in your findings for cold, hard gold.

The combat system is perhaps a little simplistic but does the job and is still very satisfying thanks to the amount of blood that gets splattered around the place! The spell system is also simplistic but this is definitely a good thing, you can select the spell and weapons you want without going into an inventory screen and you can also use health and magic potions at the touch of a button too, which is very useful as it doesn't mean you're breaking the flow of the game all the time. The inventory screen is dead easy to navigate and tells you everything you need to know about your character and all that he or she carries.

There's really nothing to criticise in this game, I suppose you could say the action is a little repetitive at times but there's no such thing as an RPG that isn't and the amount of goodies you find all the time, plus the variety of enemies and the various characters you meet all prevent the action from becoming tedious.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is a classy RPG with divine graphics, great sound effects, an orchestral soundtrack, a gripping story, interesting characters and talented voice acting. It's a very compelling, addictive and satisfying game to play and it's also huge enough to keep you going for some time, providing the kind of value for money you rarely get on console adventure games. Take time out from the shooters, racers and platformers to give this one a try; you will not be disappointed.

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).