 Overview
Far north in the icy tundra, the battle drums roll forth the call of
war. During the harshest winter in decades, the barbarian tribes have
united under a new chieftain and are threatening their neighbors. The
barbarian shaman Hjollder has approached your adventurers and asked them to
come to the far north to prevent the war between the Ten-Towns and the
Tribes of the North. Hjollder beseeches you to uncover the true motivation
of their new leader. It seems that the recently deceased chieftain
Wylfdene has risen from the grave, claiming to have merged with the spirit
of the great shaman Jerrod. This Wylfdene/Jerrod creature is determined to
reclaim the barbarians' ancestral lands from civilized hands. To
investigate these strange events, your party must travel with Hjollder to
the little town of Lonelywood; once there, as you start to uncover the truth
behind Wylfdene's resurrection, your adventures begin…
Gameplay, Controls, Interface
Heart of Winter is an expansion pack -- you must have Icewind
Dale
installed in order to play. The events in Heart of Winter may take place
either before or after the events in Icewind Dale. Keep in mind,
though, that if you choose to start the expansion and use the same
characters you will not be able to return to Icewind Dale and complete the
quests. In some cases, items you collect in Icewind Dale will benefit
you greatly in this new adventure. I recommend that you complete
Icewind Dale before starting Heart of Winter.
Before playing, be sure to download the most recent patch for Heart of
Winter from http://www.blackisle.com/. This patch corrects numerous
bugs. Please view the readme file for the current list of game fixes.
It's only fair to warn you that Heart of Winter is a pretty
heavy-handed roleplaying game. Only those who are AD&D-savvy and have
experience playing the other Black Isle games (Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate
II, Tales of the Sword Coast) will be able to claw their way through this
tough RPG. Since this is an expansion of Icewind Dale, you can count
on the same high attention to detail found in the original, with monsters,
weapons and other Dungeons & Dragons-related items. The game's
storyline is almost an adventure/mystery, since your group of adventurers
must uncover the plans of the newly-risen Wylfdene and find out exactly why
he wants the Northern tribes to violently retake the lands to the
South. Missions include making a reconnaissance trip to an island of
the undead, investigating the strange murders occurring in town, and
locating an ancient seer (psychic) who will provide many important clues.
Again, since this is an expansion, you can opt either to create new
characters or import the ones you created in Icewind Dale. Because
this game is so tough, you must have at least a ninth level characters even
to start the expansion (if you've already beaten Icewind Dale you will be in
a perfect position to play). When creating new characters, bear in
mind that you will be facing new monsters and scores of undead
creatures. Your new characters will start at level nine, but will not
have any items or weapons. Not only that, but to me playing an
expansion game without the original characters is like watching a movie
sequel where all the original actors were replaced. Therefore, if you
wish to jump right in I strongly suggest keeping the characters you had in
Icewind Dale. However, if you do choose new characters and want a real
challenge, Heart of Winter offers a new feature: the Heart of Fury
mode. Heart of Fury mode increases monster difficulty and experience
points, but be forewarned -- the Heart of Fury mode makes this tough game
almost unbeatable. If you are up to the challenge, however, it can be
very rewarding. Finally, the experience point cap has been raised to
allow your characters to reach about 30th level.
Heart of Winter offers some new and friendlier features such as the
drop-away interface. The gameplay interface to the right, left and
bottom of the screen often interferes with the view, and the drop-away
interface feature allows you to hide this interface and view more of the
background at once. This in turn allows you to see and find more
items. Aside from the typical RPG items, you can find gem bags, potion
bags and scroll cases that allow your characters to carry more items in
their limited inventory. This is a big improvement over the old
system, where a single scroll took up the same amount of space in the pack
as a sword. There is also a new hot key (Alt) to locate items on the
ground and highlight normal doors. Considering the amount of carnage
that is usually piled at your party's feet after a battle, this hot key
makes for a nice addition to gameplay.
 Graphics
The backgrounds are still luscious and lovely to look at, much like those
of Icewind Dale. The new drop-away interface really drives this
home, allowing you to view more of the backgrounds at one time. The
new areas really accentuate the feelings of cold and ice, much like the
original. Unfortunately the new areas are not as varied as those in Icewind
Dale. However, after a while of crawling around ice caves, you
actually begin to think you might have cold toes before you finish playing.
The overhead three-quarter view of your party's movement is very effective
and works well with the new drop-away interface. There are new
character portraits, and they seem like they are truly portraits of
adventurers. Again, the art style is rather impressionist and
wonderfully rendered. Overall, the graphics are still very impressive
-- however, no one deserves to see an old naked wise woman (the seer), and
you are unfortunately treated to her presence more than once.
Audio
Sadly, David Ogden Stiers, whose narration was so effective in the
original Icewind Dale, is gone. The only real voice acting in
the game is done by an unidentified woman who plays the seer -- her accurate
elderly voice crackles with age and wisdom. The music is dynamic,
tailoring itself to what is happening on screen. During fight scenes
the music is warlike, and during travel it is rather soothing. As in
all Black Isle games, the attention to gothic and period music is dead-on --
a definite highlight of the game.
Multiplayer Support
There is a multiplayer option in the game, but since Heart of Winter
is so short in terms of gameplay, this game functions best as a
single-person game. If you do decide to play a multiplayer game, try
to identify other players who take multiplaying seriously. Finding
enough players who complement your personal playing style on GameSpy or
another Internet server can be challenging at best. This reviewer
found it difficult to locate other players. It was evident to me that
most players were looking for the single player aspects of the game.
However, once I joined a group, I experienced no lag on my DSL line and had
a pretty good time adventuring with my new online teammates.
System Requirements
Icewind Dale must be installed in order to play.
Windows 95/98 with DirectX 7.0 or higher, Pentium II 233 or faster, 32 MB
RAM, 300 MB hard drive space for installation, 4X CD-ROM drive,
DirectX-certified sound card, 4 MB DirectX-certified video card, 100%
Microsoft-compatible keyboard, and a mouse
 Documentation
The manual has complete details of the new priest, wizard and druid
spells. It also explains the new expanded abilities of the paladin,
ranger and thief classes. Players who wish to use these character
types will want to become familiar with this part of the manual.
Bottom Line
Overall, the expansion is well done, but it will appeal mostly to rabid
D&D players and those who have played the original game as it is
entrenched in the world of Icewind Dale. The storyline is
entertaining and builds on the original, but it only offers about 15-20
hours of play on its own. One can only fight so many undead creatures
before getting tired of it. This is not a game for the casual RPG
player, which is why I gave it a score of 72.
Review Posted On 19 May 2001.
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