Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition release date announced

Baldur's Gate (1998), a computer role-playing game based on Dungeons & Dragons (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The big to-do right now in D&D RPG land is the return of Baldur's Gate, specifically Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition.  BGEE is a project by BeamDog, and directed by Trent Oster of the NWN development team, that is essentially taking the old BG code, cleaning it up, adjusting it so that it can work on modern computers (and iPads...), and re-releasing it on September 18.  It will cost $20, and the pre-orders cost $2 less.

I'm pretty torn about this.  On one hand, I'm excited to see this happen, because Baldur's Gate was one of those games that defined me as an rpg-oriented gamer.  I remember well the hours spent exploring the countryside of the Sword Coast, and the thrill of finding new areas for adventure in the countryside.  I played BG as a D&D novice, so I'm interested to see what would happen if I took the game on now.

On the other hand, I also remember it being a preposterously long game.  I have pretty limited time to play games and am finally getting back into Neverwinter Nights 1/2 after a long time away.  I have TONS of modules to play that use wonderful 3D engines, 3/3.5 rules, and have tight, directed stories that can be completed in 5-20 hours.  I'm not that excited--at least on the surface--about returning to the days of THAC0, sprites, fog of war, etc.  I had something of a love/hate relationship with the Infinity Engine, and I wonder if going back to it would be nostalgic fun...or an exercise in frustration.

On top of all that, I still have my BG1 and BG2 CD's.  I don't know if it would work on this computer, but I could give it a try.  And the NWN2 remake of Baldur's Gate, by drechner and company, is due out at around a similar time to BGEE.  

My hunch is that I will go ahead and grab this.  It would be a fun mobile game to have on the laptop (laptop can't run NWN, and definitely not NWN2) or iPad, and will be great for nostalgia.  But I'll probably wait to see how the release goes.  If Trent Oster's twitter feed is any indication, they are still pushing through bugs and user interface issues.