The skinny:
Baldur’s Gate is a must-have for anyone who’s ever dreamed of finding a Vorpal weapon in a K-Mart parking lot or picked up an old Dungeons & Dragons novel. The rest of you, however, probably think it’s for dorks. If you’re in that camp, you’ll miss out on a solid sequel to the one of the best action/RPG games to ever hit the console platform. Dark Alliance II unabashedly markets itself as a “hack ’n’ slash” game, so if button-mashing isn’t your forte or you have freakish lobster claw–like appendages for hands, you should probably move on. While there isn’t a whole lot of depth in the strategy aspect of the game, you can still enjoy crushing hordes of undead ghouls and skeletons across more than 80 scenarios while leveling up your character’s abilities, weapons and spell-casting powers. You choose from a cast of five standard races found in the popular Forgotten Realms series of books: a barbarian, a human cleric, an elven necromancer, a dwarf and a dark elf (a drow for those in the know) monk. If you’re still on the fence, we can at least assure you that you will not find one single hobbit in the entire game. We bet Elijah Woods’ life on it. And we hope we lose.

If you liked this game, you’d like:
Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, The Temple of Elemental Evil, referring to Tom Hanks as “sell-out” for following up his role in Mazes and Monsters with Splash. Come on? A movie about mermaids?

Hours to complete:
It all depends on how feverishly you can press away. Well, that is the question of the day isn’t it? How feverish are you?

We had a buddy who gave a book report dressed as a drow elf:
It was about a character from one of the Icewind Dale books. He wore a sword and a cloak and everything right there in class…Hey, shut the fuck up, it was cool. It was AP English, all right?

Tantalizing tidbits:
Dark Alliance II has a co-op mode that allows you to team up with another gamer to slash your way to victory and, for variety, melee styles differ from character to character. While it’s fun to watch the dwarf hacking away with his ax, the death spells cast by the necromancer make for far more enjoyable viewing. And if you think the bastard swords for sale don’t live up to your expectations, you can create your own blade at a local forge. Don’t know a bastard sword from your asshole? Try watching the History Channel. Maybe it’s Barbarian Week!