Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance brought the world of the Forgotten Realms and Dungeons & Dragons to GameCube in the form of a fast action hack-and-slash, quite different from the isometric computer RPGs to which the previous Baldur's Gate owed its name. The story of two mercenaries who get caught up in a conspiracy involving an ancient artifact in the port city of Baldur's Gate serves mainly as a framework for pushing through dark dungeons, sewers, and temples full of monsters, as the player gradually uncovers a web of intrigue reaching all the way to the city's powerful wizards.

At the start, the player chooses from several archetypes - a fighter, an archer, or a sorceress - each offering a different combat style and skill tree, and over the course of the game collects weapons, armor, and magic items that can be further upgraded at blacksmiths and alchemists. Combat is built on simple but satisfying chains of attacks and special abilities, supplemented by a two-player split-screen cooperative mode that was among the title's strongest features, allowing players to loot dungeons together. The loot system and constant character improvement drew on the tradition of action RPGs and foreshadowed the later major genre trend of hack-and-slash titles on consoles.

The atmosphere is underscored by a dark fantasy style, atmospheric music, and finely detailed environments that felt very convincing on the GameCube hardware of the time thanks to sharp textures and dynamic lighting. At the time of release, the title was valued above all for its entertaining co-op and its accessibility for players who had until then avoided computer RPGs, and it helped define the genre of console action RPGs at the start of the decade. Today the game works more as a nostalgic ride with simple but functional mechanics that titles like Diablo on consoles would perfect a few years later, and yet it retains its own pleasantly raw character.

Why play it: For players fond of simple but functional action RPG mechanics, this is a nostalgic cooperative ride with a dark fantasy style that helped define the genre of console hack-and-slash RPGs.