Baldur's Gate : Dark Alliance is easily one of the best looking games of the year. The game is entirely played from a 3-quarter perspective, not an easy one to impress the player.

But the developers from Snowblind Studios have been able to create enormous environments rendered in real time that are masterpieces of miniaturization. During the game you’ll travel through very different places - from dark dungeons to mountains - and the graphic engine is always there, running steadily at 60fps, to create a living D&D world.

Textures quality is always excellent, and special effects are everywhere to bring an exciting level of realism into every single room. From fire effects to truly perfect water effects, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance is an evident proof of the incredible skills of the developers.

Every character and creature is made by a high number of polygons and animated smoothly and realistically. From giant spiders to skeletons, from ogres to bugbears, all the beings of the Forgotten realms included in the game look just gorgeous.

Baldur's Gate soundtrack was written by one of the best composers who has ever worked in the industry of videogames, Jeremy Soule. Jeremy Soule is the author of the award winning soundtrack of Icewind Dale and of the score of Giants: Citizen Kabuto. Actually, the themes in Dark Alliance are just a few but they are intense, dark and they really enrich the atmosphere of the game.

From ambient sounds to weapons sounds, sound effects are always good and the voice acting is simply flawless. Each non playable character is characterized by a unique voice perfectly in synch with lips and body movements.

About fifteen hours are needed to complete the game the first time and that’s a good value if we consider the game as an action title – a bad value if we consider it as a RPG. Anyhow, a wonderful cooperative multiplayer mode is a reason to play this game for a very long time.