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You must be kidding me. Ne'er in my years have i heard of such a game! I have only read the enticing books and come out to tell the tale. Please tell me if this game is worth buying or not as it has the name i have come to cherish so deeply. But if it doesn't have Drizzt I'm probably not gonna play it.

No Drizzt, so you can put your fantasies of role-playing a drow elf away (like the rest of us).

Icewind Dale is a combat-heavy game with minimalist roleplaying elements. It uses the same game engine as Baldur's Gate. If you're looking for a party-based game with lots of fighting where you can create and control all your characters, this game is for you. If you are looking for a carbon-copy game of Salvatore's Icewind Dale trilogy, you will be disappointed. There are really no similarities other than some of the settings. The game is supposedly placed about 50 years before Drizzt hit the surface (e.g. when he was still a child).

You also must remember Icewind Dale is a small part of the world of Faerun, and Drizzt, no matter how many diehard fans he may have, is only one character from one author. The Companions of the Hall don't exsist yet, as earlier mentioned. If you cherish the adventures of the dark elf try reading other books about him. Alot of people only read the Icewind Dale trilogy, there is a trilogy that takes place during his life in the Underdark and his trials on the surface, then two more after Icewind Dale, the most recent trilogy( the third after Icewind) is the hunter's blades trilogy and the third book of this one is due to be released in october. I apologize if you already knew this, but as I have an entire shelf dedicated to the dark elf I figured id share the knowledge

Also, in icewind dale, while you are creating your party it is possible to create a party similar to the companians of the hall if you wish. Instead of having a choice of drow in the races, just choose elf, and change his skin color to black and his hair to white, i think there is even a drow portrait to choose, or you can find a picture of Drizzt and make your own custom portrait. In IWD2 you may choose drow as your race, and even gain the two-handing fighting and ambidexterity feats, so you can bewilder the surface races with your duel-weilding scimitar tactics Just don't hurt any surface elves or i'll have to hunt you down and kill you personally

I was disapointed with IWD, it could have been so much more, but they had to settle for 2ed diablo...no Drizzit no famous characters and there isnt much besides hack and slash.

There are very few games in this genre that really are "role-playing" in the dramatic sense; most have limited, pre-plotted interactions with a few NPCs and most time is spent in typical AD&D-style dungeon crawls. About the only one that really lets you be a character in a book-like story is Planescape:Torment. The original games made with the Bioware game engine, Baldur's Gate I and BG II:SoA/BG II:ToB have a more interesting plotline and such (IMO) but are still combat-focused.

You actually need to look for puzzle-type games to get more of that "booklike" feel.