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Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter | 
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| From: Black Isle Studios
Category: Video Games
List Price: $29.99
Buy Used: $2.35
as of 7/30/2010 00:08 CDT details
You Save: $27.64 (92%)
New (6) Used (18) Collectible (2) from $2.35
Seller: money41018
Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 12010
Format: CD-ROM
Platforms: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 95
Genre: role_playing_games
ESRB: Teen
Media: CD-ROM
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows 95
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 5.5 x 4.9 x 0.5
Model: FG-C95-1253-0
UPC: 040421010097
EAN: 0040421010097
ASIN: B000058A57
Release Date: February 21, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In the northernmost reaches of the Forgotten Realms lies the frozen and untamed Icewind Dale region. Fight the evil that is threatening this hostile environment, in an awesome adaptation of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game system. A new war begins between people of Ten-Towns and the barbarian tribes united under a new king. Journey to the secluded town of Lonelywood to forestall the invasion and discover the secret that lies locked within the frozen Heart of Winter.
Amazon.com Product Description
Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter is the first expansion pack for the role-playing game Icewind Dale. Like all expansion packs, it requires you to own the original title in order to play. Heart of Winter shares the same time frame with Icewind Dale--the year 1281, the Year of the Cold Soul--and its five new major areas are located just north of the original game's locale. Players can take their ninth level or above Icewind Dale characters to Heart of Winter via a small house in the great tree town of Kuldahar. Alternately, players who have beaten Icewind Dale can import living or deceased characters to Heart of Winter, as long as at least one character survived with the same ninth level or above restriction. Or players can simply generate a new party. Both Heart of Winter and Icewind Dale use AD&D Second Edition rules; however some of the special powers and abilities in the third edition are available in the expansion. For example, thieves have access to sneak attack and crippling strike abilities, and the new spell progression tables for rangers and paladins have been taken from the third edition rules. In addition to new areas, powers, and abilities, Heart of Winter features: new portraits, new character sound sets, new monsters, 50 new spells, 800 x 600 resolution, drop-away interface, gem bags, potion bags, scroll cases, hot keys that highlight normal doors and ground items, and the ability to buy multiple items from stores. The biggest change is the ability for all character classes to reach 30th level, and druids can advance higher still.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
 "Yes, what IS it?" March 1, 2009
Michael J. Tresca (Fairfield, CT USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter takes place in a frosty climate, in a harsh terrain separated from the rest of the world by the mountain range known as the Spine of the World. The slowly unraveling plot revolves around the resurrected corpse of an ancient king, possessed by some unseen force that gathers the barbarian tribes into a fearsome army. Interaction with a wide variety of NPCs, each with unique motivations, keeps the story flowing.
The game starts slowly with creation of six characters from scratch, using standard second-edition AD&D race and class combinations. It's a laborious process, requiring attribute assignment as well as redistribution of points. While the customization possibilities are varied, character creation is six times longer for six distinct characters.
Further customization includes a choice of weapon skills, portraits, and even character voices. The assumption is made that you're familiar with the AD&D game, and it's a trade-off of customization versus playability. The character customization feature can't be underestimated in terms of enjoyment for players who take care with their character's biography, portrait, and color scheme.
Combat is not the first action your characters perform, a welcome relief from similar games. Heart of Winter's plot advancement requires taking the time to talk to a wide variety of NPCs. The interaction is rewarding in its own right, as characters can actually gain experience through successfully uniting a family, uncovering a lie, or finding out a bit of lore. The party wanders around for quite some time before traveling off to the barbarian lands, where the action really heats up.
Heart of Winter, like Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate, is Dungeons & Dragons with all the irritating flaws removed. Bards have actual songs they can use, spells are represented by easily recognizable icons, memorization and spell casting are a snap, thieves pick pockets, clerics cast spells, and wizards even specialize. Dual-class, multi-class, and weapon specialization are all included in the game to good effect.
Exploration in Heart of Winter uses an interface that seems better suited to real-time strategy games. Each area lies shrouded in a "fog of war" until characters pass through and reveal the terrain. Even though the game still runs in 640x480 resolution, the large prerendered backgrounds have exceptional detail. Random weather effects add to the impressive and engaging environment.
Alignment and attributes matter, too. Characters with various charisma attributes and distinct alignments garner different responses from NPCs, while some actions reinforce a good character's nature. Killing townspeople is an abominable act, which speaks for itself and has serious repercussions on character interaction. As for characters, you pick a voice for each and they all recite their lines on cue. It's very entertaining, for example, when a surly female gets annoyed and husks: "Yes, what IS it?" or a snickering thief mutters "What now?"
Even more amusing are the phrases the characters utter when they die. Combat is positively lethal, if not impossible, without intermittent pausing. Trying to distinguish a character from the enemy can be extremely difficult, especially in the chaos of combat. Nevertheless, the spell effects are magnificent as characters chant ancient spells with magical effects blasting across the screen.
Other flaws include a miserable path finding function, often requiring repeated clicks to enter a dwelling, or when the party grinds to a halt if the leader gets stuck behind a stool. A potentially fatal flaw is the possibility of accidentally killing a character that is integral to the plot, which can effectively ruin the game. Ultimately, the story makes the game, albeit with interspersed and occasionally annoying action sequences. But each combat has a purpose, which makes gameplay challenging and rewarding.
 A Worthy Companion December 29, 2005
L Gontzes (Athens, Greece)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter is the worthy companion to the best selling Icewind Dale role-playing game. The two together have everything one looks for in such a game; from an incredible setting, to a highly original plot, to excellent multiple roleplaying options, to outstanding graphics, to extraordinary accuracy in relation to Dungeons & Dragons, and much, much more!
There is something here for everyone as the variety of challenges is large indeed, including battles, puzzle solving, and dialogue among others.
The game is set on Toril and specifically in Faerun. It deals with a great evil that has arisen and descended upon the region bringing the people misery and despair.
The story as a whole is excellent! The plot is so incredibly well written and presented that the gamer feels that they have been transported to another plane of existence and are actually present among the characters, seeing what they see, feeling what they feel, sensing what they sense. Moreover, the game does a great job of presenting the distinct cultures and civilizations of the inhabitants/peoples of Fearun, and Icewind Dale in particular. This has, without a doubt, been achieved as a result of a great deal of research that has gone into learning and understanding the numerous and often complex characteristics of the Forgotten Realms world.
Don't forget to download Tales of the Luremaster and be transported to a desert (!) setting for a few more encounters (puzzles and hacking and slashing) and some pretty nice treasure!
Strongly recommended along with the Baldur's Gate series and Planescape: Torment.
 Amused me somewhat June 10, 2003
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
I'm not going to talk about the gameplay, linear plot, etc., we all know about that... But here are some aspects of the game I found amusing: The artwork on the new character profiles was excellent and fit very well with the theme of the game-- Very moody with watercolor-like graphics! You get to choose new voices for your characters, and one of the female voices sounds very seductive...some of what she says has double-meanings. Quite naughty! This voice works perfectly with the blonde cleric. It's listed as "HOW-female3",(or is it 2?) Also there's some male voices that actually don't sound dorky. The addition of limited 3rd-edition rules with the expansion is especially cool. With the proper cheat code, you can now create that elven Fighter-Mage-Thief that you always wanted to- with the Sneak Attack ability. Just use the cheat code to give him XP "supplements" so it doesn't take you a year to level up... I've found that with prudent use of the cheat codes and use of certain magic items, you can emulate many 3rd-edition prestige classes. For $$- it's certainly worth the risk. But don't try to play the sountrack during a romantic evening with your significant other-- that's NOT worth the risk!
Not bad at all... October 19, 2002
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Icewind Dale is a fun game, and I like the expansion quite a bit. True, it is a hack & slash game without a lot of opportunity for roleplaying, and I would not put it on the same level as any of the Baldur's Gate games, but the storyline is interesting, the items that you can acquire are neat, and just because a game is not real complex doesn't mean it is no good. If you find a good price on this game (probably under 25 dollars), by all means check it out.
Really enhances Icewind Dale! Well worth picking up! May 23, 2002
AMM (New England, United States)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Most expansion sets only give you new characters and some new maps, but Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter actually IMPROVES the gameplay system and interface of Icewind Dale!How so? Inventory screens are now streamlined and allow you to carry more stuff by giving you scroll and gem bags to keep non-essential items out of your main inventory. The interface is great in that you can maximize your viewing screen by using BGII-style hot keys to drop away unnecessary status panels. More areas have been added as well as some tweaking of the AD&D rules and some more spells! If you want to max out your party's experience, you can configure the mode that allows you to score max experience at the expense of dealing with some really tough enemy AI. What's cool is numerous ways you can start a game in the Heart of Winter universe. Installing the add on, you can enhance your current in-progress Icewind Dale game that you're still playing and immediately jump to HOW at the conclusion. Doing this gives you the benefits of the HOW enhancements while still playing the first game. You can opt to import your previous party ifyou've already beaten IWD and start right at the HOW story, or you can use your existing game and access HOW through the locked door in Kuldehar. Pretty cool, but in any event you'll need the first IWD game to use this! Not a standalone product! Great game and well worth picking up. I happen to think IWD was the better of the BG series of games thanks to the heavy combat and minimal exploration. HOW will keep you busy until IWD II comes out very soon!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
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