Baldur’s gate 3 (PSN) PS5

Baldur’s Gate III for PC is an action adventure role playing game, the third in the series, and based, like the others in the series upon Dungeons and Dragons, the cult 80s boardgame that has recently seen a resurgence both online and in-person. You can play alone, or multiplayer in the co-op mode, enjoying the well-rendered characters and amazing graphics that have take a lot of excellent inspiration from the fifth (current) edition of the books.

What’s the Story?

There is an excellent opening scene in which you and a merry band of strangers are travelling and are attacked by pirates who subject you to the ministrations of mind-flayer worms. You are rescued through a battle which strands the ship you are in on an unknown planet, leaving you and several other survivors to band together from necessity.

You may be reluctant collaborators, but this does not mean that you should fully trust everyone… They all have backstories, secret desires, and their own agendas, ranging from the thoroughly untrustworthy to just looking for love in a cruel and uncaring world!

Explore the world thoroughly, and one advantage of having your odd-ball companions is that collectively they have all – or very nearly all – the answers to any questions you might have. For example, should you pick a mushroom, wondering if it is edible, one of your companions will know the difference between the tasty and the fatal!

As you go, the NPCs react in a genuine and authentic manner to the races of your companions and their backstories, giving you more information about the world you are on, your companions, and how their race or class is regarded on the planet.

The Nitty Gritty

This is a nicely creative messy sandbox game that is great fun even for those who have not heard of the boardgame. You can wander around as you explore, push people off cliffs if you so desire and even try random objects in lieu of conventional weapons. Throw a skull at someone, see what happens!

So far, the game has only six of the twelve canon classes so far: namely wizard, mage, cleric, ranger, warlock and rogue, but this is plenty to explore personalities, good guys, villains and magic!

You all have the remnants of the mind-controlling mind-flayer tadpoles in your brains, and this results in giving you extraordinarily persuasive abilities. But these can backfire if overused, confusing and muddling your victims until they lash out, with lethal consequences for anyone nearby!

Who Am I?

You explore the planet – and don’t forget to have a look at the underdark too! – as one of the following characters, complete with all the traits and characteristics of the class and species at your disposal:

• Human: the Wizard called Gale
• Half-elf: a Cleric known as Shadowheart
• High elf: a powerful vampire called Astarion
• Human: a Warlock, Wyll, who is often at odds with his fellow human
• Or: Githyanki: a Fighter called Lae’zel. This character is maybe the most fun to play, being the species rescued everyone on board by attacking the mind-flayer ship. This gives him an arrogance that might be supreme confidence – or are there issues lurking beneath that suave and smooth surface? Play on and find out!

All decisions are made and checked by rolling the dice, giving an authentic boardgame feel to the gameplay, a delight for D&D aficionados and a charming quirk for newcomers to the game.