Australian Gamer Review :: Neverwinter Nights 2

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Neverwinter Nights 2

Reviewed on: PC
Available on: PC

You know that feeling of knowing exactly what you want, how you want it and all you know is that you want it now? Yes, NOW, dammit. But first there�s the matter of collecting enough coins to upgrade your armour ... Welcome to Neverwinter Nights 2.

Players: 1 Player
Genre:
Release: TBA

Developer: BioWare
Distributor: Atari

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You know that feeling of knowing exactly what you want, how you want it and all you know is that you want it now? Yes, NOW, dammit. But first there�s the matter of collecting enough coins to upgrade your armour...

Welcome to Neverwinter Nights 2.

For those completely unaware of the history of this game, it comes from a long line of RPGs that begun the transition of pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons to the much less-onerous games we�ve come to know and love, including Planescape: Torment and the Baldur�s Gate series. It also follows the hugely successful original Neverwinter Nights that still has one of the largest active modding communities I know of. Long story short, this game had some high expectations to deal with. Mine included.

It�s all quite familiar for those who have played NWN before. Character creation has a few surprises in it, including a few nicer models and sub-races such as the plane-touched tiefling and aasimar. Overall, character creation has a number of improvements, from character backgrounds to the increased flexibility in changing the physical appearance of your character. Although there are improvements, at this point, that�s all it seems with the set up still managing to evoke memories of NWN1.

You�ll begin with your character in the tutorial phase in the small, isolated village of West Harbor, stuck in the middle of a swamp with a fair in the making. The Harvest Fair serves as a way of giving you an introduction to different skills you�ll need later on, like bashing people, managing spells and picking pockets. The kind of things you�ll find essential to know as you progress through the game. It�s a tutorial without feeling overly like one and gives you plenty of room to work things out yourself.

The story itself is not of your normal fare, with enough twists and complicated developments to keep you on your toes and interested. Instead of getting bored with the story and guessing at the endings, this game keeps you playing just to find out what�s around the next corner. Fortunately, the plot pervades through even the side quests so you don�t forget what you�re doing. In the case that you feel like you should have a short break from the main quest (approximately 40 or more hours of gameplay), there are just enough opportunities for side quests to keep you distracted for a while. While there could be more in my opinion, they�ve kept enough to keep me satisfied the game isn�t too overtly linear. The actual plot involves a gathering shadow that is threatening the land� well, average fare you may think but it gets better...

As you move through the story you�ll come across a number of NPCs that will join your party. Usually you can pick and choose at points who you want in your party, but it�s annoying when you�re stuck with an annoying farmhand or some such for the completion of specific quests. But these things you suffer when the fate of the world is in your hands. You meet up with a psycho dwarf that can�t let a good fight go and a tiefling that won�t stop looking through your pockets at the beginning, but you later end up with a good dozen or so companions to choose from in later journeys. For each gender there is the option of one romance, while you may get the feeling that someone else is interested, designers have labelled these as �false� trails and not worth bending over backwards for. The NPCs add a lot to the story, and with a good scope of alignments, provide a number of different opinions on situations and an opportunity for increasing the replayability of the game.

One of the greatest improvements plot-wise that they�ve made with the game, is the KOTOR-esque cut scenes that play with lip-synched dialogue. Okay, so it�s not as smooth as the lip-synched stuff you may get in TES IV: Oblivion, but it has been added to make the game play almost as a cinematic experience and not as a bonus extra you can go �Ooooh pretty!� at. (No, I�m not bitter. I like my RPGs with a bit of role-playing involved, that�s all. And non generic conversations�). The voices, while at first seem a little forced, with the introduction of new characters, warms the heart a little. They�ve done well with the writing, and by having some great voice talent, they�ve packed in some actual laugh-out-loud moments. That�s quite an achievement for any game, in my opinion. Another challenge they�ve overcome is that of travel, where they�ve opted for a more Baldur�s Gate-style World Map with points of interest marked for direct travel so you won�t get lost.

Ah. The gripes. Here they come. While NWN2 does wonders for plot and character and all the other fantastic things you get to focus on in an RPG, it does fall into the trap of needing just that little bit more. For example, even if you follow through with a particular romance, all you can talk about is Old Owl Well even though you dealt with that particular problem in the last Act. Very frustrating, let me tell you. There�s also the problem that when certain opportunities arise in the game, the option of not taking them is there, yet the game doesn�t allow for the option very well. Often, you may find yourself having to scour a few forums to work out exactly what you�ve missed in order to continue playing the game. If you miss out on something in one Act, it may not be there in the next when you need it. With that, I give you the best advice any gamer should heed to, but almost never does � save early, save often. You will never need these sage words of advice more than in Neverwinter Nights 2, if only because this game includes such long-reaching decision that you may find yourself, three hours on, wishing you�d gone with another option, yet because you�ve saved over the particular slot you need, you�d have to go back and replay about eight hours.

You may have noticed a little pre-occupation with the plot and characters of the game� we all know that�s not all there is to this little gem of an RPG � let�s get to the hack �n� slash of it, then, shall we?

It takes a long time to fully get the hang of the finer points of the UI in this game. Especially the fact that you may need to hold your right mouse button a little longer than you might expect to. I was into the second Act before I discovered this accidentally. Suddenly, all those unlocked chests haunted me with a vengeance � if only I could have right clicked and bashed them open! Bashing things open does come with a bit of a bit of a setback, however, you�ll end up with a randomly broken item, which while fair, is still irritating for those of us that like to power slash our way through each and every dungeon. They�ve also decided to make over the inventory into single slots for each item, which, in my opinion, was quite silly as it makes it hard to distinguish between a belt and a helmet or a note and a spell.

The animations for attacks are very nice, and most of the die rolling happens behind the screen, allowing you to concentrate on your power attacks. There�s also a nice array of opponents for you to bash up, so killing things doesn�t get monotonous. For those who aren�t so violent, however, it�s interesting to note that a number of battles are actually able to be avoided with Diplomacy or other conversation checks. With that, a lot of rogues have been satisfied and a greater depth of gameplay allowed for. Then again, taking the non-violent approach or violent approach will always have an affect on your companions. Yes, influence checks have been bundled with this and although you might wonder why for the most part, by the end, you can appreciate them and see how they�ve worked into the game. What�s interesting with combat in NWN2 is the idea that no one really dies, companions are �knocked out� at 0 hp and get up moments after the battle ends with 1 hp, as long as someone�s still up at the end of it, you won�t need to reload. The Resting option makes this game a lot easier with very few restrictions on where you can use it and none on how often making dungeons not so much of a problem. Boss battles are well spaced and brilliantly put together in terms of challenge and actual relevance to the plot.

Magic is pretty much the same as NWN1, with the only difference found in the rule change from 3.0 to 3.5 � but since I�m not a pen-and-paper aficionado, I�ll leave the explaining of that to the experts. A lot of spells are actually useful and the ability to cast a few comes in handy when you�re playing as something other than a sorcerer/wizard. The Stealth system has had some major overhauls, making it a lot easier to take the path of a rogue through Neverwinter Nights 2 then it was in the original.

In all honesty, the world that Neverwinter Nights 2 creates is one that is completely immersive and holds enough substance to really draw the player in. The different angles placed on it simply by your alignment and the companions you choose to pay the most attention to have been delicately handled by the design team so that once you�ve finished, you could go straight back to the start and play again without being bored immediately. Despite being dogged by bugs, the game played smoothly and while I had a few issues with it, I highly enjoyed it.

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Final Verdict

Highly enjoyable RPG that provides a little more solid 'role play' experience than other of its ilk. While with several bugs that still need to be ironed out, within a few months it will have a place alongside NWN1 as not just a good RPG, as it is now, but a great one.

Pros
Great characters in the game, involving plotline, smooth mechanics, 40hr+ main quest, community content is only a matter of time�
Cons
UI has too-sharp a learning curve, lots of bugs still to be ironed out, annoying inventory, clunky camera, poor graphics for such high specs, silly AI at times.