Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter

Heart Of Winter is an expansion pack lor Black Isle's Dungeons and Dragons-based RPG romp, Icewind Dale, and it takes over where the latter left off, giving your by-now well-experienced Icewind Dale characters a whole new adventure to complete.

If you haven't completed IWD, you can still install the add-on and start the Heart Of Winter quest at any point during the main game, although it is designed for characters that are at least ninth level. You can also start the quest from scratch as a standalone game using imported characters or new ones.

HOW doesn't really blend in with the original, but it does offer more magic spells and items, more threatening monsters, new items and six new areas to explore, starting with the town of Lonelywood. The HOW expansion pack also upgrades the original game's graphics to support ' 800x600 resolution - even higher if your graphics card is good enough - and the same OpenGL support and texture rendering introduced in Baldur's Gate II.

You can also clear away menus and there is an added hotkey to highlight items on the ground. New lands include a barbarian encampment and a burial ground protected by some horrific undead such as drowned dead, barrow wights, ghost shamans and wailing virgins. Among the 60 new spells are the cleric's highly effective combat spell, Blade Barrier, and the mage's protection spell, known as Seven Eyes. Powerful new weapons are also added, including a surprisingly meaty +5 club, powerful swords and new armour and shields.

NOWis no BGII upgrade though - it doesn't have alternate character-class kits like the berserker and kensai variants, and it doesn't allow your character to use two weapons at once. However, druids and bards have been strengthened and there are one or two useful additions. $20 might be a lot to fork out for a few days of added play, but fans of the original will undoubtedly want it.