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Neverwinter Nights 2 Review
Neverwinter Nights was like an arrow of Zonk-slaying aimed directly at my gamer heart. I've been a table-top player since grade school, and a CRPG version of Dungeons and Dragons with the (at the time) new 3.0 rule set was tremendously exciting. Some four years later, and the sequel had me equally excited. Neverwinter Nights 2 was developed by Obsidian (of Planescape: Torment fame), using a fairly faithful version of the newer 3.5 rules. The result is a game that oozes D&D from every pore. You've got tons of spells, prestige classes, quirky-weird races (tieflings? anybody?), and a polished, functional story that gets you from point A to point B with a minimum of pain. A recipe for a nerdgasm if there ever was one. The game itself, regrettably, suffers from a fairly big problem: they rolled a 1 on their Craft(Videogame) roll. Read on to find out why they should have taken 10 in my impressions of Neverwinter Nights 2.
NWN 2's story sees you beginning life as a 'Harborman', a person adopted by a local luminary in a small village along the Sword Coast. This is the same region of the Forgotten Realms that played host to every other D&D CRPGs you've played, so you're likely to see some familiar names in both locations and characters. There's a big evil, of course, and within the first hour of play it has interrupted your village's quaint little carnival in order to kill and maim. Once the battle's done, you're tasked by your adoptive parent to head north to the city of Neverwinter, to figure out exactly what's wrong and set things right. Along the way, you meet a cast of crazy characters who aide you on your journey. Though they mostly play into the usual D&D stereotypes (grumpy dwarf, annoying druid), there's some originality here as well. I particularly liked the aforementioned tiefling (a union between a human and a demon). She's a rogue (and thus very handy to have around), and punctuates her annoyances by exclaiming "Hells, Hells, Hells". It isn't Shakespeare, but it isn't grade-school D&D either. The story itself develops from these humble beginnings with the usual dramatic scaling that table-top gaming requires. Before long, you're fighting horrific monsters and doing a bit of world saving on the side. What could have been a hackneyed snore was actually fairly enjoyable thanks to the sheer amount of polish the designers gave the story. It's obvious they have a passion for this material, and it comes out in every witty NPC or unexpected plot-twist.
Who *you* are within this story is, of course, completely up to you. NWN 2 offers the same overly-flexible character creation system as the original. Since 3.0, D&D has gotten a lot more complicated, and this is reflected by the sometimes-overwhelming array of options you'll have when choosing your class, feats, skills, and magic spells. Every one of these, though, can be circumvented by using the 'recommend' option the game offers. While I tweaked my characters the way I wanted them, I checked in on the recommend option each time and can honestly say it would not steer you wrong. If you have no interest in choosing a 6th level feat for your dwarven Fighter, you can click right through the level-up process and not feel as though you've been cheated. At higher levels you can choose from prestige classes which offer unique gameplay styles. Some are holdovers from the original NWN, but there have been some new additions as well. It's hard to argue with the degree of customization you can achieve with the character creation system. They even have a fairly robust avatar-maker. Here, at least, there is little to complain about.
Let's go back to talking about that cute tiefling, though. She leaves something to be desired in the brains department, unfortunately. There's an option to manually tell your cohorts what to do, and in dungeons it is a requirement that you turn it on. While traveling, giving your NPCs a little free reign is fine; they'll engage the enemy and there is an option to ensure they cast the appropriate spells. In dungeons their enthusiasm will send them dashing right through traps, past big evils, and into the waiting jaws of death. What I'd really like to have seen was the option for the game to auto-pause after every 'round' of combat. Given that the game's AI is not up to the task of dungeon crawling, I would have preferred to use good-old turn-based combat to ensure maximum party survivability.
Another (much discussed) frustration is the in-game camera. To say that it is curiously designed would be to give a great deal of credit to the game's developers. I'm usually fairly sympathetic to UI problems; making something that everyone will agree is useable is very challenging. A camera, though ... this is 2006 folks. 2+1/2D games have had a useable camera for almost half a decade now. Why Obsidian felt the need to re-invent the wheel is beyond me. Thankfully, you can select yourself and your teammates via use of the F1-F4 keys; a requirement since it's quite challenging to pin them down with the mouse. If we, as gamers, can't complete the 'looking at fun stuff' part of gaming, where does that leave us? This was an inexcusable oversight, and makes you wonder how much QA Obsidian had the chance to do before the game shipped.
Graphically, Neverwinter Nights 2 is visibly better-looking than its predecessor ... if you're playing on an extremely high-end system. On my own system, I found that the game was playably smooth with almost every option turned down and a screen resolution I would have found useable in 1997. With the graphical elements turned up higher than that, my (not terrible) system began to grind and sputter. Slowdowns weren't even solely during combat. Somehow, moving from place to place also caused molasses-like framerates as well. I will say, in the games defense, that the high end XPS laptop I'm currently reviewing from Dell played the game with absolutely no hiccups. This is a laptop I could never afford to purchase for myself, but it played NWN 2 at a very high resolution with no problems whatsoever. Somehow, that's not much of a consolation.
Aurally, the game is fairly forgettable. I always looking forward to a D&D CRPG's musical accompaniment; if it's any good it's likely that it would go well with a table-top session too. The generic fight music is the highlight of the game, more's the pity. This, too, felt like a game element they just didn't have time to give full attention to. Thankfully, the voice actors that bring the NPCs to life are fairly animated. Aside from the tiefling and the dwarf, you'll find a host of unique fantasy-types awaiting your canned questions and plot-related annoyances. The voice acting is one of the strongest parts of the game, and it's a shame that the rest of the title couldn't rise to that quality level.
In fact, it's telling that the components of the campaign (the story, the voice acting, the characters) are the most polished elements here. Neverwinter Nights 2, it was hoped, would offer RPG fans another solid platform on which to make their creations come to life. In quality, the mods created with the original NWN toolset easily match he FPS offerings created in the Quake or Unreal engines. Instead, Obsidian here seems to have produced a more singular game experience. They've focused on offering a single tale ... perhaps ultimately to the detriment of all future tales that could be told with the toolset. There's already been a patch for the game, and it has improved things somewhat. Only 20/20 hindsight will be able to tell us if NWN 2 is up to the task of being the next platform for RPG modding. For now, as a singular game, Neverwinter's technical problems outweigh the story and quality of character acting that might have made this a favorite of 2006. Table-top RPG fans will still find a lot to like here, but the game is going to make you work for your fun. That's nothing new for Dungeons and Dragons players, but those with a lower tolerance for this sort of thing should probably wait for the first expansion. One would hope that by that point these issues will have been corrected, and everyone can enjoy another trip to the not-so-Forgotten Realms.
- Title: Neverwinter Nights 2
- Publisher: Atari
- Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
- System: PC
NWN 2's story sees you beginning life as a 'Harborman', a person adopted by a local luminary in a small village along the Sword Coast. This is the same region of the Forgotten Realms that played host to every other D&D CRPGs you've played, so you're likely to see some familiar names in both locations and characters. There's a big evil, of course, and within the first hour of play it has interrupted your village's quaint little carnival in order to kill and maim. Once the battle's done, you're tasked by your adoptive parent to head north to the city of Neverwinter, to figure out exactly what's wrong and set things right. Along the way, you meet a cast of crazy characters who aide you on your journey. Though they mostly play into the usual D&D stereotypes (grumpy dwarf, annoying druid), there's some originality here as well. I particularly liked the aforementioned tiefling (a union between a human and a demon). She's a rogue (and thus very handy to have around), and punctuates her annoyances by exclaiming "Hells, Hells, Hells". It isn't Shakespeare, but it isn't grade-school D&D either. The story itself develops from these humble beginnings with the usual dramatic scaling that table-top gaming requires. Before long, you're fighting horrific monsters and doing a bit of world saving on the side. What could have been a hackneyed snore was actually fairly enjoyable thanks to the sheer amount of polish the designers gave the story. It's obvious they have a passion for this material, and it comes out in every witty NPC or unexpected plot-twist.
Who *you* are within this story is, of course, completely up to you. NWN 2 offers the same overly-flexible character creation system as the original. Since 3.0, D&D has gotten a lot more complicated, and this is reflected by the sometimes-overwhelming array of options you'll have when choosing your class, feats, skills, and magic spells. Every one of these, though, can be circumvented by using the 'recommend' option the game offers. While I tweaked my characters the way I wanted them, I checked in on the recommend option each time and can honestly say it would not steer you wrong. If you have no interest in choosing a 6th level feat for your dwarven Fighter, you can click right through the level-up process and not feel as though you've been cheated. At higher levels you can choose from prestige classes which offer unique gameplay styles. Some are holdovers from the original NWN, but there have been some new additions as well. It's hard to argue with the degree of customization you can achieve with the character creation system. They even have a fairly robust avatar-maker. Here, at least, there is little to complain about.
Let's go back to talking about that cute tiefling, though. She leaves something to be desired in the brains department, unfortunately. There's an option to manually tell your cohorts what to do, and in dungeons it is a requirement that you turn it on. While traveling, giving your NPCs a little free reign is fine; they'll engage the enemy and there is an option to ensure they cast the appropriate spells. In dungeons their enthusiasm will send them dashing right through traps, past big evils, and into the waiting jaws of death. What I'd really like to have seen was the option for the game to auto-pause after every 'round' of combat. Given that the game's AI is not up to the task of dungeon crawling, I would have preferred to use good-old turn-based combat to ensure maximum party survivability.
Another (much discussed) frustration is the in-game camera. To say that it is curiously designed would be to give a great deal of credit to the game's developers. I'm usually fairly sympathetic to UI problems; making something that everyone will agree is useable is very challenging. A camera, though ... this is 2006 folks. 2+1/2D games have had a useable camera for almost half a decade now. Why Obsidian felt the need to re-invent the wheel is beyond me. Thankfully, you can select yourself and your teammates via use of the F1-F4 keys; a requirement since it's quite challenging to pin them down with the mouse. If we, as gamers, can't complete the 'looking at fun stuff' part of gaming, where does that leave us? This was an inexcusable oversight, and makes you wonder how much QA Obsidian had the chance to do before the game shipped.
Graphically, Neverwinter Nights 2 is visibly better-looking than its predecessor ... if you're playing on an extremely high-end system. On my own system, I found that the game was playably smooth with almost every option turned down and a screen resolution I would have found useable in 1997. With the graphical elements turned up higher than that, my (not terrible) system began to grind and sputter. Slowdowns weren't even solely during combat. Somehow, moving from place to place also caused molasses-like framerates as well. I will say, in the games defense, that the high end XPS laptop I'm currently reviewing from Dell played the game with absolutely no hiccups. This is a laptop I could never afford to purchase for myself, but it played NWN 2 at a very high resolution with no problems whatsoever. Somehow, that's not much of a consolation.
Aurally, the game is fairly forgettable. I always looking forward to a D&D CRPG's musical accompaniment; if it's any good it's likely that it would go well with a table-top session too. The generic fight music is the highlight of the game, more's the pity. This, too, felt like a game element they just didn't have time to give full attention to. Thankfully, the voice actors that bring the NPCs to life are fairly animated. Aside from the tiefling and the dwarf, you'll find a host of unique fantasy-types awaiting your canned questions and plot-related annoyances. The voice acting is one of the strongest parts of the game, and it's a shame that the rest of the title couldn't rise to that quality level.
In fact, it's telling that the components of the campaign (the story, the voice acting, the characters) are the most polished elements here. Neverwinter Nights 2, it was hoped, would offer RPG fans another solid platform on which to make their creations come to life. In quality, the mods created with the original NWN toolset easily match he FPS offerings created in the Quake or Unreal engines. Instead, Obsidian here seems to have produced a more singular game experience. They've focused on offering a single tale ... perhaps ultimately to the detriment of all future tales that could be told with the toolset. There's already been a patch for the game, and it has improved things somewhat. Only 20/20 hindsight will be able to tell us if NWN 2 is up to the task of being the next platform for RPG modding. For now, as a singular game, Neverwinter's technical problems outweigh the story and quality of character acting that might have made this a favorite of 2006. Table-top RPG fans will still find a lot to like here, but the game is going to make you work for your fun. That's nothing new for Dungeons and Dragons players, but those with a lower tolerance for this sort of thing should probably wait for the first expansion. One would hope that by that point these issues will have been corrected, and everyone can enjoy another trip to the not-so-Forgotten Realms.
I loved the big parties (which was axed in NWN1 and brought back to a whopping 4 in NWN2). I also loved the plethora of side quests, I am just in the beginnings of NWN2 and it seems a bit linear so far, just got into the Blacklake district. With BGII you could spend days playing and never see the main quest. This is one place I think Oblivion got it right. Is there a reason they pulled away from that gameplay?
Of course I could be biased as BG was one of my first D&D experiences, and as most of my friends are FPS type people so my exposure is limited.
But clean up the graphics to BGII, apply the new ruleset, give me a new storyline and I am happy. Zelda has been using the same playing style since the first game.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Mmm, well, okay, you can compare them, if you talk strictly about the single-player built-in campaigns, in which case NWN is a mediocre wanna-be at best.
The thing that makes NWN head-and-shoulders superior to Baldur's Gate is the toolset and, more importantly, the Dungeon Master Client.
NWN is special because it gives you the ability to re-live the table top experience as best as possible by having an actual human being in control of the game world. NPCs can be directly role-played by the DM, just like they would be if you were sitting around a card table instead of spread out across the Net. If the players want to exhibit some burst of ingenuity, they can and the DM can make things proceed in a reasonable fashion.
Baldur's Gate is great, and so are many other computer RPGS, but they are all fundamentally limited by what the programmers allowed you to do. NWN is different -- with a DM, you can do things the makers of the game or module never imagined you doing, and the DM can tell you what the result is. Although this was also limited by the tools, which was the most obvious place for the game to be improved.
Which is why this review is basically useless to me. All it tells me is that played as a single-player CRPG like Oblivion, it's a neat implementation of 3.5 D&D rules, but basically "meh" both in content and in presentation. Okay, but so what? NWN 1 was a pretty bad single-player RPG, the original campaign was terrible, but it was on the basis of the tools and the DM client that the game became an awesome, unique experience in gaming. Since the toolset is barely touched upon and the DM client mentioned not at all, this review doesn't cover the things I actually care about in determining whether or not this is a good game.
Oh well. I don't think it runs on Linux either, so no skin off my back regardless.
The enemies of Democracy are
but i'm a solid FPS'er, so don't take my word for it! ;)
I did quite a bit of work with NWN 1 and ran a server for awhile. The module a friend of mine and I created is available for download at http://www.thain.org./ That said, I've heard little good about NWN II, with complaints running the gamut from performance issues to camera issues to menu issues (no more right-click->bash for objects), and really dislike the fact that Linux support has been dropped. After hearing all I've heard about NWNII from associates I trust in the area, my work with games is done.
Okay, well, anything Atari has a hand in anyways.
I have a bad feeling about Obsidian's future. This is the second game they've released with severe playability issues for many people (and a seeming lack of strong QA KOTOR2 also had tons of bugs. I couldn't even finish the PC version because of a CTD, even on a clean Windows and driver install.). Whether this has been because of publishers rushing them (which was the big rumor over KOTOR2), Obsidian still runs the risk of struggling as a company if they continue to down this path (whether its their fault or not, sadly.)
.exe!). The help I received on the forums (From Obsidian people) was "Try reinstalling."
I've spent multiple hundreds upgrading my PC this year and can run Quake 4, FEAR, Company of Heroes, etc wonderfully. But I've uninstalled NWN2 because it ran for crap and more recently I was running into an inability to patch to current (FFS release a standalone
Try releasing useable software.
No sig for you!!
NWNII reeks of big corporate popular name cash cow milking, the 14 hour game play turnaround for maximum repeat $60 a pop MBA, sucker wallet fishing. It's the same marketing hype, tastes great, less filling, mile wide and inch deep, fool you out of your money grift game so prevalent these days. In my opinion, NWNII lives fast and will leave a beautiful corpse after its owners run laughing to the bank at your expense.
I recommend waiting a year for the modders to fix it and the price to drop to $19.99.
Agreed: horrible. I loved NWN but I couldn't even stand playing NWN2 long enough to get my party to Neverwinter. I've certainly learned my lesson about preordering games based on their reputation.
I have a high-end dual-core PC with GF7900. With all the graphical effects turned up to the max the game looks barely passable for 2006 (except maybe for the terrible textures and icons), but runs like a slideshow, and the cursor lags so it's impossible to click on anything.
With all effects turned off the frame rate is tolerable, but the game looks even worse than the original NWN did -- maybe about as good as Baldur's Gate 2.
And the inventory icons -- how the hell did they manage to screw that up? They are all identically colored and shaped 16-by-16 pixel blobs on a huge ugly grid. I'm just a programmer but even I know that humans recognize icons by their shape and color. How is it possible that their art director wasn't aware of this? (See World of Warcraft for icon-based inventory done right, or just give up and use a list-based system like Oblivion's, which was perfectly acceptable.)
I've never understood this line of thinking. Nobody reviewed Half-Life 2 by saying "the singleplayer campaign sucks, but Valve Hammer Editor is awesome, so I'm giving this 10/10." NWN's editing tools are absolutely no different from the editing tools of other games, yet they're always granted a special status for some reason.
Well, since you missed the entirety of what my post was about, the reason NWN's tools are different is because they not only let you create your own "maps" just like every other toolset, you are then able to direct those maps in real-time for the people playing them. That's a huge difference that very few games -- certainly none of the ones mentioned in this review or your post -- allow.
Other toolsets let you make a map that others can play in the same way they play the built-in maps, as set-in-stone creations that can only do what the map-maker originally allowed.
NWN's tools lets you be a Dungeon Master who can create your own campaigns, manage them in real time, and modify them to suit unexpected player behavior allowing for true creativity and role-playing -- not the computer version of "RP" meaning "kill stuff for exp to gain levels", but actual taking-on-a-persona role-playing. Just like a real table-top Dungeon Master with a home-made adventure module.
Does Half-Life's tools let you do that? I thought not.
Putting the toolset on a pedestal makes even less sense for NWN2 because it was strongly hyped for its supposedly awesome singleplayer campaign.
Yeah, because the single-player campaign of the original was cited as a major weak point. That doesn't mean I give a fuck any more now than I did then. NWN is not special as a single player game, and neither is NWN2 as this review makes amply clear. However as a game which allows a table-top-like experience it is absolutely unique and completely ignoring that which makes the game unique in a review is what doesn't make any sense.
The enemies of Democracy are