Neverwinter Nights 2
by Atari
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Video Game Reviews of Neverwinter Nights 2
Customer Review: The RPG that changed my mind
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been playing pen-and-paper RPG's since 1979, and since I moved to a new area I haven't been able to do that. I have tried computer RPG's many times, and always been disappointed because they lacked the flexibility and immersive feel of face-to-face gaming. The first Neverwinter Nights game impressed me by finally reproducing the game mechanics and feel of pen-and-paper RPG's, with a rich storyline. Neverwinter Nights 2 has retained all the good points of the first game with much better graphics and more options. I frequently found myself fully immersed in the game.
Computer RPG's still have a way to go before they match pen-and-paper; because there is no Game Master, there is no way to accomodate creative solutions, and while there are different paths to follow, they often all lead to the same result because of the limitations of a pre-programmed adventure. In Neverwinter Nights 2, the ending of the game in particular was a slight disappointment because of that effect. However, this is still by far the best computer RPG I have seen. Now if only someone would take the next step and allow for real-time control of the game world by a Game Master, combined with multiplayer effects!
Customer Review: NWN 2 vs NWN 1
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm not a die hard Black Isle / Baldur's Gate Fan. I'm not even a die hard gamer. I have however played many years of D&D (from 2nd edition to now) and all the original Neverwinter Nights Official Modules an a kit n kabootle of others. The main difference I found in NWN2 are:
Visual: The graphics are amazing.. compared to the blocky NWN1 models that always hurt the eyes, the environment rivals many of the other highly graphical games out there (blows EQ2 away par example).
Game play: However on the flip side this means that it's bloated and slow and I have an over adequate borderline over compensating machine.
The camera and key mapping I found to extremely clumsy without anyway to change binds to Mouse1-2-etal without going into the hex.
Story line: Very linear, a little boring, melodramatic and predictable. NWN1 felt like a more involved, free will oriented game. In 2, with the new video sequences the characters are overdone, predictable and sometimes just downright obnoxious. But not in the makes you role play better way.
Conclusion: So, having loved all of the amazing creativity that went into 1, I'm sad to say that I was let down by the much longed for sequel. While being set in Faerun and offering more playable character races, more beautiful models (still extremely limited if you're used to EQ, EQ2, Fate even Asheron's Call).
Still worth playing if you have a power machine dedicated to gaming and can manage to not lag with all the graphics settings on max. And for god sakes, don't play a bard.
Customer Review: Could have been special, but....
Summary: 3 Stars
I waited a year before picking up this game and the expansion, Mask of the Betrayer. Since the initial release in 2006 had technical issues and other problems, I decided to get this game only after the expansion came out and received good reviews (and supposedly fixed bugs and optimization problems). Unfortunately, not all is well with this game, even a year after release and the new expansion pack. It has a better single-player campaign than the first Neverwinter Nights, but is still just a cut above mediocre. If you are looking for the next Baldur's Gate-style epic, definitely don't look here. However, with some luck, some good player-made modules might be produced with the toolset that comes with the game.
Gameplay: Story-wise, this is a run-of-the-mill roleplaying game (RPG). Your character rises from rags to riches in search of his/her life's meaning and in search of the bad guy that needs to be vanquished. The game is based on the 3.5 Dungeon & Dragons rules and offers a lot of customization options for race, class, skills, feats, etc. There is an awful lot of loot to be found, bought, and custom-made. Unlike the first game, you actually have a party to control, which is both good and bad. The good part is that your party members have personalities and make the adventuring a bit more colorful. The bad, well, where should I start: pathfinding issues, not-too-efficient use of spells, suddenly vanishing party members, some suicidal behavior, and so on. You can let the AI control the party, but this works well only early on. Toward the end of the game, you'll need to micromanage each spell and sword swing. It's not as tedious as it sounds if you ever played classic games like Baldur's Gate. But none of the possible 10 or so party members that you can have around come close to the hilarity of a Boo & Minsc or the seductive intrigue of a Viconia from Baldur's Gate 2.
Generally, the pieces come together fairly well in this game. The inventory system and journal are decent, as is the interface. The camera can be annoying largely because it never seems to face in the right direction when you enter a new area. That is, sometimes north will be toward the right side of the screen or toward the left, forcing you to swing the camera around to match the direction of the map. You'll get used to it, but you shouldn't have to. A few things I really liked were the number of scripted events, the save system (none of that checkpoint stuff; you can save anywhere), and the death system (no one in your party actually dies unless everyone goes down in a fight). But the things that I really didn't like were prominent as well, mostly involving the campaign which was about twice as long as it should have been. There are a lot of busy-work quests in the game that add absolutely nothing to the story. Chapter 1 (there are 3 in all) is the worst in this regard, but monotonous chores and a somewhat nonsensical narrative plague the game throughout. There is about 60-80 hours of gameplay here if you try to do everything. A tighter, more compelling story could have been told in half that time.
Graphics: The game looks good, but certainly not great. With the patches and the expansion installed, I didn't notice any framerate problems on my mid-range computer, although the game sometimes did not load all of the textures in each area. Character models, monsters, and terrain are all convincing, and spell effects look particularly good. There are night & day cycles that make the game a bit immersive, though it is hard to get too immersed in a game that is best played from a high overhead perspective and that requires constant monkeying with the camera.
Sound: The music was great. I wouldn't mine actually owning a few of the tracks. The voice acting ranged from decent to good, but it was the usual RPG fare of Scottish-accented dwarves, English-accented elves, deep-throated demons, and the occasionally whiny acolyte magician (always with an American accent). Sound effects for spells and other things were appropriate.
Technical Issue/Documentation: The game comes with a rather lengthy manual, which is quite helpful. It also has a clever tutorial at the beginning. Whether you get it alone or with the expansion, prepare for up to a 30-minute install which includes downloading some big patches. The game was rock-solid stable for about the first 30 hours of gameplay. Then the crashes started. According to posts at the official website, people are still having a variety of problems with this game, even after all the patches. My issues involved the game refusing to load new areas and crashing during transitions. The first time this occurred (while leaving Ammon Jerro's haven), I was able to find a workaround solution on the internet. The second time (at Crossroad Keep in chapter 3) there was just nothing that could be found to get me around this. I never got to finish the game. This was very frustrating and more than likely will keep me from buying another game by this developer. In fact, I was so disgusted by this problem that I sold both the game and the expansion on eBay. I had really had enough of the main quest after 50+ hours.
Value/Recommendation: If you like D&D-style roleplaying games, this might be worth your while at the current price ($20). However, be sure to patch it and be willing to deal with the game's remaining technical issues. This is really not a good value unless you are going to play player-made modules and/or play online. As with the first game, the single-player campaign, while long and with a few high points, is largely unremarkable (and buggy) and there are better RPGs available.
Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
Customer Review: A must have for fans of traditional RPG's
Summary: 4 Stars
DISCLAIMER: I bought both NWN2 and the expansion pack, Mask of the Betrayer, at the same time and installed them both, so my review reflects changes that were implemented with the expansion pack but still available in the original campaign.
I'm probably in the minority of gamers in that I never really liked the original NeverWinter Nights. I loved the concept of a game that allowed you to create your own campaigns and play online, but I got really turned off by the single character with henchmen aspect. NWN2 has fixed this with a more traditional 4 character party system.
I am running it on the following system:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 1 GB Ram (Single Channel), GeoForce 7600 GS 256MB DDR3. So my system is nice, but by no means state of the art! I am able to run at almost all of the highest settings for graphics and action.
Pros:
The game play is great, very similar in style to the older Infinity based games.
The graphics are beautifully rendered, a significant upgrade from NWN
The storyline is engaging (haven't finished it yet, about 1/3 through)
There is enough flexibility in how you control your party to allow various styles of play.
Cons:
I've tweaked the mouse control as best I can and it still gets a little jumpy when I try to pan around.
The load times between areas can be a bit long at times.
The world (so far) is not fully built out. For instance in several of the villages I have encountered so far, there are only one or two buildings you can enter. While I understand how time consuming world building can be, one thing I always enjoyed about the Baldur's Gate and Ultima series was that you could go almost anywhere you wanted. If you are playing a thief, this seriously inhibits your ability to role play.
Neutral:
There are so many feats, skills and other abilities, that it's hard to keep track of them all and know which ones to use.
Each of the party members always have the same level of experience points. This makes it easier for balancing the party of course, but it seems a bit strange that when a new member joins, he is at the same level of the other characters. I always enjoyed managing the characters to make sure each got enough XP.
So far the story has been very linear. I prefer a more open gameplay (like Ultima and BG).
Cut scenes are well done, but can be a bit long at times.
Synopsis:
For those that love the party based CRPG genre, this is a must have, despite some of the flaws of the game. I have only found one CRPG since the release of Baldur's Gate II that I really enjoyed, and that was a user mod of Dungeon Siege (Ultima V: Lazarus). Icewind Dale II just didn't hold my interest (the story seemed to convoluted, especially given how linear it was), Temple of Elemental Evil just seemed unplayable, and NWN lost me with the single player/henchmen concept.
Additionally, given the large community that made campaign modules for NWN, there should be plenty of modules coming out that don't have the same story issues as the original campaign.
UPDATE: I did have some performance issues once I got to Neverwinter and had to turn down the settings some to avoid low frame rates during combat, but it still plays very good.
Customer Review: awesome
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm surprised by the really bad reviews. This game played fine on my computer with almost all the setting turned up completely. The graphics were awesome, the spells were awesome, the story had a lot of things going on in it making it awesome, companion development was awesome, and the toolset is awesome.
The bad things about this game is that the toolset when it autosaves gets completely messed up, so i'll have to look into that. The companion AI is horrific, which is pretty universal for all reviews, and the patch at the beginning is somewhat ridiculus. There was like 10 of them! It didn't take my computer very long to do them all, but it was kinda sad to think a game with that many patches still had companion AI problems. Oh well.
The finer points of the game that I thought was awesome was the new prestige classes were pretty sick, the crafting was fun, and the new feats were pretty awesome.
The finer points that i thought sucked was the fact that they took the shifter prestige class out, and they lowered the max lvl to 20! Man that pissed me off. When you beat the game its fun to go through and cheat, but only going to lvl 20 isn't as exciting as lvl 40 and owning everyone with the power from your pinky... anyway...
Well still awesome game, I have hours of fun on it and I can't wait for the expansion. And what the heck is up with the expansion costing more than the game! I've never seen that before... Anyway, Neverwinter nights has one of the most epic, creative, interesting, and enjoyable stories ever in my opinion. Great buy if you want a great game, but you probably need a great computer or you'll get the problems listed in other peoples reviews.