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Review: Baldur's Gate expansion: Tales of the Sword CoastReviewed By: Bill Stiteler Review Date: August 3, 2001
I have several good reasons for the lateness of this review. First, I'm on vacation, and my only connection to the online world is my wife's iBook, which is great for a lot of things, but Baldur's Gate it is not. Second, Tales of the Sword Coast is flippin' hard, resulting in it taking a long review period to get a handle on the quality of the gameplay. Finally, American McGee had me arrested for publishing a paper detailing the structural weakness of some of the edges in Alice. But two weeks and a public apology (from me) later, that's all water under the Digital Millenium bridge.
TSC takes place before the end of Baldur's Gate. If you've defeated Sarevok, and therefore finished BG, your characters are instantly transported to the city of Ulgoth's Beard, off to the east of the titular city. If you haven't completed the main story arc, you'll have to find your own way there, along with the entryways into the other new areas, some of which are easier to find than others.
Also included is the multiplayer option we were all waiting for. If you don't have a local group to D&D with, then it's kind of a blast, but really just the same game as before. Compared to online console games like, say, Phantasy Star Online, TSC is more of a substitute for the pencil and paper game than a breakthrough in online entertainment. I'm not knocking it, you understand, it's just that I've seen what can be done, and the bar has been set higher.
But it will not become as famous as American McGee's Alice, a game so great that I urge, nay, demand that the Library of Congress destroy all copies of the inferior Lewis Carroll work, which seem to exist only to mock genius, edgy gameplay, and oddly-angled doorways. Oh yeah, it's also truer than the Disney version. Mustn't forget that.
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Tales of the Sword Coast (TSC) truly is an expansion to 
Here's what you get for your money: a boost to the experience point limit, which will warm the heart of gaming twinks everywhere. Mages get some new spells, just about everyone gets some new items (druids in particular get the scimitar, which makes a nice upgrade from the "big hunk o' wood"), and thieves, well, thieves get screwed. Two new restrictions have been placed on the shadowly lads; first, they must be behind a target to attempt a backstab. Fair enough, since that's where armor is usually weakest and you can get at all the fun, sloshy bits of a body. The second restriction is that a thief must be in a darkened area to use hide in shadows. Now, granted, it is a bit ridiculous to think that a thief could simply vanish in the middle of a well-lit room, but I posit that there are several circumstances where a thief could move unnoticed (through crowds, for example, which never seem to number over five, even in Baldur's Gate itself), or find ways to distract guards (the old "Did you hear something? Let's check it out" routine) that you simply can't simulate in a limited-action sim. I could be just be bitter, of course, as I dropped a huge chunk of GP to buy Armor of Shadows for my main character, a half-elf thief. I want a refund!
Petty quibbles aside, you're going to be needing those XP levels and equipment because most, if not all of the new locations will cheerfully hand you your head on a silver platter with a comment card and a crème de mint. If you're not being hassled by the mages of the lost island blowing you to kingdom come before you can wreck their casting, then your thief is going to wear out her wire snippers disarming all the traps in Durlath's Tower-a dungeon crawl with a difference. A cross between Prince of Persia and Smash-TV, the Tower will have you watching your toes for trip wires as enemies try to slice your head off. What I'm trying to say is that it's hard. And once you finish all the new quests, you get to go back and fight Sarevok again! Whoops! Forgot about the continuity? However, after the beatings you take in the new territories of TSC, you'll be happy to fight a guy who can kill you with one blow. You'll thank him for it, just because it's a stand-up fight.
If you loved Baldur's Gate (and you should have), then Tales of the Sword Coast gives you more Baldur's Gate with some funky new areas you'll not forget. That's reason enough to buy it. TSC is a wonderfully maddening expansion, one that'll have your characters dying and you more determined that ever to find your way through. Durlath's Tower may itself become (in)famous as one of the more difficult locations in the gaming lexicon.