Neverwinter Nights

The Good
I care nothing for "constructing" games or for multi-playing, so this review concentrates on the Single Player game only .. with all patches applies.

I knew that NWN was a long game before starting. So I waited to play it when I could give it my full attention. And, believe me, it takes that .. I have been engrossed for weeks now.

I hadn't played an AD&D game lately (my most recent was the original Icewind Dale, which I liked very much) and Neverwinter Nights has gotten some really good commercial reviews, so I figured this was a natural choice. The reviews here on Moby thus far are varied, but lean towards the "bad" side. Well, although I agree with some of the other reviewers, my opinion leans heavily toward "good".

Hands down, the story is the best part about NWN. Even though the game is a "medieval fantasy", the plot is believable, intriguing and interesting. The script writers must be geniuses! Conversations with each character are unique, and there's very little repetitive dialog.

Second to the story, I think, is the way the game is divided. Each of the Chapters feels like an entirely new game .. new places, new people and new quests. And yet, those parts are flawlessly meshed to bring all of them together towards the finale.

Next .. the "quests" are wonderfully diverse and challenging. There are plenty of dungeons, caves and caverns, plus buildings and landscapes to explore. You don't need to complete all of the quests to finish the game (but it helps build experience!).

The "henchman" idea is terrific! You play your character alone, or with a "side-kick" if you wish. In this game, you don't control their equipment at all so they're not just "pack rats". You give them commands (such as "attack nearest", "follow me", "guard me" or "stand your ground") and can talk to them (something lacking in other games). Your partner should compliment your abilities, so if you're a spellcaster, choose a fighter. The experience points they gain are yours also, so it doesn't seem to matter who kills what. Their level is always one behind yours, which is different too. (I understand the expansion packs add more features for the henchmen, including managing their inventory.)

Although at a glance the graphics don't look different than many other games, some things are better. Special effects are cool especially during spellcasting. You're able to "zoom" in and out for close-ups of everything. In that view even blades of grass become more realistic. Being able to rotate the angle of view also helps pinpoint a particular spot, even when everybody is crowded together (like the "remains" of a chest you just opened).

Playing around with the arrangement of inventory has always been fun, and it's good in NWN, but not perfect. Finding "bags" to group like items together is a plus and they've included different ones here to reduce weight of the items in those bags .. 20% all the way up to 100%. Since the henchmen can't carry any of your gear, this means even a weak cleric can tote loads of stuff around.

This is the first time I've played as a Druid and, as most people know, a druid must keep their alignment neutral. It's interesting to note that conversation choices and actions you take DO have an effect on alignment. Many times I've had to restore an earlier game because something I said or did swayed me towards "evil".

NWN includes other things that I've grown accustomed to .. full maps; being able to add notes to those maps; auto-save; a well-organized journal.

The Bad
The music is nice, but not nearly as beautiful as in other games I've played.

I agree with another reviewer who commented on the maps. Several of the areas dump fully to your screen when you first arrive, complete with annotated locations. So much for discovery! But, that's a little thing.

I wished that when a "like" item was picked up, it would automatically combine with others already stored in one of my inventory bags instead of separately. I also wished that more than 10 potions could be stacked in one slot. (Bolts, arrows & bullets do .. why not potions?)

When levelling up you are allowed to pick new "feats" and (as a druid at least) your new animal companion side-kick. That's okay, but you're not able to increase your core attributes (strength, wisdom, intelligence etc.) except in 5 special levels. If you've made a mistake during those selections, you may never attain high enough qualities to beat the end-game boss. (This is especially important for spellcasters, druids and clerics who need those high level spells.) I didn't like that part. I wished the properties would have automatically upgraded as I advanced.

The Bottom Line
There are several words that I think describe the single-player Neverwinter Nights game .. good, solid, big, engrossing, challenging, interesting .. fun!

I have not been bored or disappointed .. not for a minute.

Sure, as a role-player I'm not as experienced as many of the other reviewers of this game. But, hey, I know what I like .. and I like Neverwinter Nights. I like it so well that I may go for the expansion packs (something I've never done).

Worth playing? YOU BETCHA!

The Good
I liked Baldurs Gate 2. I thought that it was a marvelous game, a shining beacon of light in the darkness of average RPG-s, so of course I was very interested in Neverwinter Nights and hoped to find the same kind of quality in it. I was hoping it to be better than BG2... which sadly it wasn`t.

It seems that someone in Bioware came to a bright idea to do a Diablo-clone. Why Bioware? Why? What about the story, the content, the meaning of the game? It is missing in the endless randomness (I was like level 3 and happily walking around in the city of Neverwinter and looking into barrels and stuff, and then I found an ancient über-cool armor of the Sun God of Mulhorhand in a barrel... kinda breaks the immersion and believability of the world, doesn`t it? EDIT: I understand that this was a bug because what you find in barrel depends on your level; this means that I was supposed to find that armor in that barrel when I would have been near level 20) and boring hack and slash quests. You showed the world that RPG-s can be more than "I kill the mighty dragon with sword of elemental evil of destruction which is doomed +8.... and save the princess of course" and the next thing you create is Diablo.

I liked what you did with shadows, and the clothes were nice and there was something that resembled a story... but I never thought that you could mess up a story which would be a perfect dramatic tale of loss of innocence in a cruel uncaring world, where people only care about their selfish fleshly needs and the innocent ones die tragically by trying to save the world, or by just trying to live according to their hearts. How can possibly anyone mess that up? What happened?

The Bad
Really...what happened? Remember Jeremy Soule - the musical genius behind Icewind Dale. Remember how beautiful the music was in that game, how inspiring and romantic. His music in Neverwinter Nights is boring, awful, uninspiring and unromantic( His Kotor work wasn`t much better in my opinion).

Remember the party members in BG 2, how interesting they were, how they interacted with the world and other party members? Well forget it about here in Neverwinter. You only can get one henchman, and they just kill everything that is red. Although some of them have nicely written backgrounds. But talking to them leads only to quests which are like "find-the-most-rare-and-sacred-flower-of-fallen-angels-in-a-barrel-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-please".

And they only give you information about them when you have gained enough levels. "Hey, Tomi. I am now almost level 10. Can I now hear your story?" "Hmm...nope." "Why? I just killed 10 000 orcs. I deserve to know your story." "You have still 3 expierence points missing to hear my story!" "Aaarrrghhh...please. I just want to believe that this game is more than hack and slash...that there is beauty to it....please talk to me...have mercy on me...be interactive." "Nope, can`t do." *In frustration the player kills himself.

Remember how interesting the Forgotten Realms world was in BG. In Neverwinter Nights I found out that FR is a patchwork of genres, it tries to be a little bit of everything.... and it does it horribly (another dimensions, heaven and hell, polytheistic religions, western, fantasy, pulp fiction, over thousand secret organizations all trying to conquer the world, etc). It goes way over the board. In BG Bioware used the most interesting parts of FR and fitted it in nicely and logically. In Nights they dont try to achieve realism. There is an ancient alien-like race, who are called Creators, and they try to bring back the glorious days of their old empire; then there sacred barbarians, demons, evil brotherhood of mages, politics,... it just is too much... it doesnt have the one single feeling which the game needs to have a sense of believability.

They have lots of sidequests in Nights, but they all contain bad dialogue and hack and slash solutions. But you learn more about FR, unfortunately too much. Speaking of dialogue.... it is quite horrible, especially for Bioware. And the voice acting... lets not better go there. In BG 2 there was a nice balance between the personal story and the sidequests story. I myself don`t care about sidequests, I like it when my games are personal, linear and dramatic. The more personal, the more it affects me emotionally.

NN consists only of sidequests... and there isn`t actually any freedom of choice in them (I only tolerated Fallout because there you could make choices). Either the " I-love-people-they-are-very-nice-and-I-like-flowers-because-they-are-pretty" way or the "I-am-so-selfish-and-evil-I-want-lots-of-money-I-luv-money-I-love-killing-people-for-money-I-love-me-with-money" way. Talk about deep moral choices.

And now, Aribeth. She was the character I fell in love. The only character in the game that seemed like character... atleast when she wasn`t giving you quests. Basically Aribeth was another try of Bioware to do their Moral Crusader who-is-to-brutal-in-enforcing his/her-views-on-the-world (like Anomen in BG 2) kind of character. Now Aribeth was the innocence which I mentioned earlier. She was the only noble and pure character. Everyone else in the game were selfish, low, full of hate, etc. And what does Bioware do? Bioware enforces the player to believe that the people in the city of Neverwinter are good (they raped,killed and tortured each other...and not some evil maniacs, but common people) and that Aribeth was evil; she tried to help the people in Neverwinter and they hanged her lover.... of course she goes mad and wants to kill them all... and Neverwinter deserved such punishment.

Unfortunately you can`t choose sides. You have to kill Aribeth for the good of Neverwinter because the noble Lord Nasher demands it (noble lord who hangs innocent people because the mob demands it). The twisted one-sided moralism in this game sickened me. There was no love in this game, no mercy. Only hatred, violence and money.

Edit: Other minor things. Because of tile-set design, new locations did not feel new (all the villages, caves, forests looked same). It kind of intensified the feeling of been there, done that. And I swear those barrels were everywhere.

The Bottom Line
Bioware trying to be Blizzard. No love, no redemption. Only killing... and killing... and hatred.

The Good
Compared to Bioware's earlier D&D Games, (Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate etc.) this offering is, I suppose, graphically superior.

The ability to view the Forgotten Realms word from many angles, to zoom in out, to assign a unique hairstyle to your character - are all welcome additions. As are the graphical effects when dealing with shiny surfaces, e.g. water and metal armor. Magical spell effects are quite astounding too.

A very useful addition to NWN is the Toolset, relatively simple to use (especially if you know anything about C+). Creating modules can become very complex though.

The Bad
There are several reasons why NWN just doesn't quite come up to what I normally expect from AD&D games.

Firstly, let me explain the "Tardis" effect, named in honour of Dr. Who's H.Q. What happens is: you see a small temple; you go inside said temple; you view main area... then, you realise that there is no way in the Nine Hells that the room you are standing in should fit into the building you just entered. C'mon here, someone fire the continuity people.

Then there is the musical score. Don't get me wrong, it's nice and all, but compare it to Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale and there is a stark contrast. The previous games' music was inspiring, unlike the insipid and unremarkable drone which buzzes through most NWN areas.

The final point is the something to do with the toolset. I'm sure everyone agrees that AD&D games REALLY need atmosphere. I love the feeling of watching an area loading screen with the anticipation in my mind, "What will this area look like? " or "How have the Game Artists captured the Cloakwood using their fine painterly skills?" Instead, in NWN, there are things called "tile-sets". Instead of artists creating a unique image, someone has re-hashed one of about 6 tile-sets (called things like "Forest" or "Cavern" for instance) by moving around furniture or doors. There are no glaciers or volcanos in NWN. YAWN.

The Bottom Line
I could pick far more holes in this game (like all the unfulfilled promises of riding horses and jumping and swimming). But instead I'll say it's mediocre, the infinity engine is still the best. Play IWDII if you really want a good AD&D adventure.