Yeah, yeah, I know this is like the tenth question I've asked, but I am stuck. I want to buy one of these games that I've never played, but with Diablo III I'll only have time for one of these! What do you guys recommend?

About my tastes to help for recommendations: I love top down RPGs, especially games such as Diablo II. I love D&D dungeon crawling action, but if a game has a compelling story to go with it, I don't mind. I don't need story though.

Thanks for the input!

I have no idea, but I laughed way to hard at your avatar. :P

For story I'd pick Planescape Torment (It truly is amazing.) and for pure combat Icewind Dale.

I've barely played Baldur's Gate so I can't speak for that.

Much as I love PST, I would say BG2 is the best of the lot.

What about the original Baldur's gate? I was looking at that a bit more, but I've heard good stuff about BG2 though. :)

The Baldur's Gate series is very much a middle-ground between the "story and choices is everything, and what little combat there is is mostly just annoying" Planescape and the "story? what story? go smash everything!" Icewind Dale series.

Hmmm... Now you say that, ive come to a bit of an odd decision. Now I can't decide between Planescape Torment and Icewind Dale. I did some more research though, and the fact that you start with six players in Icewind Dale pulls me towards it...

If you're not used to AD&D, it might be worth doing Baldur's Gate 1 first, due to it being a lot more restrictive with the number of skills and options it throws at you (partially due to it only going from level 1 through 8 or so, while Baldur's Gate 2 starts where the first game ends, both in levels and story). Some people have a very hard time with the very beginning of BG1 though, especially if you don't play a fighter-type character (a level 1 mage, or even thief, doesn't allow for being hit a lot). Note that there's nothing stopping you from trying to run through the game with a single character :-) You don't have to create a full party.

I would say that Icewind Dale is much more forgiving to modern players and newcomers to the Infinity Engine games, where Planescape might feel much too slow.

I made it a bit vague, I meant that I was pulled to Icewind Dale because of that. Now I'm going towards Planescape Torment...

Top down AND D&D dungeon crawling is more prevalent in Icewind Dale.

Icewind Dale. I actually just finished another run through it (including expansion) last night. Great top-down AD&D dungeon crawler.

Sacred looks decent, but I don't wanna play that when DIablo III is out. :) Now I'm going back to Icewind Dale... I'm still stuck. Damn it!

Yeah, I was just clarifying. Another misconception is that you can't create a full party in Baldur's Gate and its sequel - you can, if you start a multiplayer game (you don't have to play with someone else just because it's called "multiplayer"), but if you create a full party and don't replace them with NPC's you meet, you lose a bit of the story and much interesting banter.

Planescape is the only one where you don't create any characters at all, but since the game is very story-heavy, it would just mess everything up, and you're not forced to a specific playstyle anyway, the main character can switch classes (I'm not saying more to not spoil too much).

There's a mod for Icewind Dale that ads a prerolled party with banter and backstory to the characters. It's not the best party you can have by far but the added banter and story brings the game to life.