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 | Neverwinter Nights 2 |
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Product Description
Everything you do has a meaningProduct InformationNeverwinter Nights 2 is the sequel to one of the best-selling and genre-definingrole-playing games ever set in the popular Dungeons & Dragons ForgottenRealms universe created by Wizards of the Coast.Bards sing tales of heroes from ages past but never have the Forgotten Realmsso desperately needed a champion. Years have passed since the war between Luskanand Neverwinter almost enough time for the wounds of war to heal. But the briefpeace the Realms have known may be at an end. Tension growing between the mightycity-states means the Sword Coast again teeters on the edge of open war.Unnoticed a greater danger stalks the City of Skilled Hands. Unbeknownst to thedenizens of the North deep in the Mere of Dead Men dark forces from across theRealms have been rallied under the banner of a legendary evil. If leftunchallenged all of the North is doomed to fall under its power.Even in this darkest hour hope remains. A mysterious relic is borne toNeverwinter in the hands of a lone hero so that its secrets may be unlocked -secrets that carry the fate of all the North. So begins an epic tale ofshattered alliances noble acts and dark deeds to be told across the Realms forgenerations to come.Product Features Use the completely rewritten powerful Obsidian Neverwinter Nights 2 Toolset to create your own adventures share them with friends or run them through your adventure directly as the Dungeon Master; Play online with other gamers and enjoy limitless adventure; Explore the Forgotten Realms in greater graphical splendor than ever before with a completely new cutting-edge graphics system and an overland map; Employ new spells feats and advanced prestige classes based on the exciting Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Edition rules; Engage new subraces including Tiefling and Aasimar Recruit up to three companions to assist in your adventures. Improved party control alloProduct Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #2711 in Video Games
- Brand: Atari
- Model: 26503
- Released on: 2006-10-31
- ESRB Rating: Teen
- Platform: Windows XP
- Format: DVD-ROM
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.50" h x 5.50" w x 7.75" l, .50 pounds
Features
- Build a character that suits your style of play - good or evil, chaotic or lawful, with any number of skills, feats and professions available at the click of a button
- Create your own modules, campaigns, and adventures for your friends - move buildings, terrain, script encounters, write dialogues, create quests and items
Customer Reviews
A fun game, if you can tolerate the performance issues...
NWN is a fun, exciting story
that is unfortunately swallowed alive by its own technical limitations. I
won't say much about the game quality other than to say that long time
fans of Black Isle games will recognize the fun and depth built into
NWN2, and the story is everything you would expect from the successor to
Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights 1. Sadly, the fun
of playing through the story is quickly swallowed up by the frustration
of fighting the game's significant technical flaws.
The user
interface, and particularly the camera control, is horrendous. Any time
you enter one of the game's many tight, swirvy dungeons, count on
stopping to adjust the camera angle every few minutes as it gets hung up
on seemingly every wall, plant, or chunk of rock within throwing
distance. You may miss much of the game's more impressive eye candy as
the camera points uselessly off at nothing or grants you an extreme
closeup of a patch of dirt on the wall.
Sadly, the technical
issues with NWN2 don't stop with the UI. Independent reviews at Gamespot
confirm what countless users on Atari and Black Isle support forums are
reporting: achieving a playable framerate (> 30 FPS) in this game
requires significantly better hardware than that which is "recommended"
by the box.
Users logging onto the Atari & Black Isle support
forums are consistently reporting single digit framerates in almost all
areas of the game. My own impression, based on many hours scouring the
forums, and on my own in-game experiences, is that if you have the
absolute best hardware available on the market, and you turn *all* of
the graphics options down to "mid grade" or lower, you can expect to see
about 25 - 30 FPS. If you have the hardware "recommended" by the box,
and you turn all of the graphics options all the way down (disabling any
optional eye candy), you can expect 5 - 15 FPS, complemented by a
constant 100% utilization of both CPU & GPU (is it a bad sign when
CPU utilization remains at 100% just looking at the game's main menu?).
Unfortunately,
Atari and Black Isle support have left their userbase without a
solution to these issues, reporting that they have been unable to
reproduce any of the performance problems reported on their support
forums. Personally I find it hard to believe they are unable to
reproduce what is a seemingly ubiquitous set of problems, but either way
they have yet to release a patch or troubleshooting step that has
provided a resolution to the many users experiencing significant
performance issues with NWN2.
Given the many technical issues
this game suffers, I cannot recommend it to any but the most die-hard
fans, and even then I cannot recommend it to anyone who's hardware is
less than the best the market has to offer.
A must have for fans of traditional RPG's
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.
An improvement over the original in some ways, but
in others a step backwards
I want to get this out of the
way - it's taken me a very long time to get from start to finish of
Neverwinter Nights 2, and for good reason. When the game shipped in 2006
it was all but unplayable for many people because performance was just
atrocious. For this reason, I couldn't get passed the first hour or so
of the game; it was just too distracting. But the state of the game now
is not the state of the game as it was at release. Numerous patches and
an expansion pack have made me pick up the game again to give it another
try, and I was pleasantly surprised with the game's improvement.
Character
Creation (not scored)
When you first start the game, you'll be taken
to the Character Creation screen. There are many, many, options for you
when you start character creation, and I'm not just referring to what
color hair your character has. So much so that it's overwhelming. In
fact, I almost didn't get into the game at all because I didn't know
what to do. There isn't really a tutorial or anything to help you figure
it all out; instead, the game just gives you paragraphs of information
on the right side of the screen detailing complicated, esoteric Dungeons
and Dragons jargon. I will revisit this problem later when I talk about
game-play, for it is a problem that permeates the game - in order to
get the most out of the game you really need to have a pre-requisite
knowledge of the way D&D works. It wasn't anywhere near as
overwhelming in the original game or Baldur's Gate or other D&D
based games - the game worked with or without your own personal
experience with the game's systems. So when the game describes dice
rolls, and stat offsets without explaining what they mean, it alienates
the less hardcore consumer who hasn't spent half their life in a dank
basement rolling for initiative. In the end, I just chose one of the
pre-set character customization options or else I never would have
gotten started. I will say, though, for the aforementioned D&D
fanatic, the options and classes are very deep and varied; just don't
expect for the game to cut you any slack, at first at least.
Story
8/10
This is one of the game's biggest strengths. Within the main
campaign, you will easily find 50+ hours worth of playtime. The game
takes place in the Forgotten Realms, more specifically the Sword Coast.
You play a guy/girl/creature from a small southern swamp town, with an
unknown destiny. There is an attack on your town at the beginning of the
game, leading you to discover said destiny and set off on an epic
journey to the city of Neverwinter and beyond. The set-up is very
familiar, but the execution is top-notch. There is political betrayal
and intrigue, racial tension and other problems to contend with that
help make the world feel alive and vibrant.
The game also employs
use of a good/evil alignment system that attempts to make character
interaction more interesting, but it doesn't have any effect on the
story at large - you'll still end up battling the same final boss, and
you'll either win or lose. Which brings me to the main problem with the
campaign: its linearity. The world is large, but you'll discover it in a
very linear manner. There are side quests, but for the most part, they
are just optional objectives to fulfill along the main story arc, rather
than allowing you to explore other parts of the Sword Coast.
Game-play
8/10
Game-play is exactly what you would expect of a D&D game.
The difference between the original and the sequel, though, is that you
control an entire party of four people rather than just one. You have
complete control over your henchmen, rather than having the game
automate all of their actions. The AI does control them when you want
them to, but you have the option of micro-managing every action and
level up.
Battle consists of giving orders to your characters,
watch them act out those orders, hitting the space bar to pause the
game, giving more orders and doing it all over again. It isn't really
any different that it has been in games like Baldur's Gate, but why fix
what isn't broken? It's fun, engaging, and the reason to play the game.
If you didn't like it before, you won't like it here, but it's dungeon
crawling at its finest.
The game gives you a rather slow-moving,
basic tutorial at the beginning of the game to orient you with the way
combat works. It sort of does its job, but once again, the game doesn't
really teach you the way D&D works. So you either learn it elsewhere
or ignore the underlying mechanisms, but it will make you feel like you
don't understand what's really going on if you do just ignore it. The
idea behind having a computer version of a D&D game is to automate
it for you, but I felt alienated by being kept in the dark, and I often
didn't know how to play different classes.
Also, it is FAR easier
to play as a melee-oriented class than a caster. Because you need to
rest constantly to recharge spells, you won't always have your basic
spells to use on your foes. When your casters have leveled enough, this
will cease to be a problem, but if you start out as a mage, expect to
rest after every encounter for the first 8 or 9 hours of the game. Also,
you won't be able to manage any kind of aggro, so be prepared to need a
fighter or warrior to get through most battles. This is part of the
challenge of the game and the nature of D&D, but playing a fighter
really is a breeze, while playing a sorcerer can be an exercise in
frustration. Also, the AI is okay, but you'll notice sorcerers using
their most powerful spells on rats when just a magic missile will do. As
such, you'll probably want to order around all of your characters
rather than trusting the AI. Inventory management can be clunky, too,
but you generally have plenty of space for everything you want to pick
up and sell.
All of these issues are often minor, though, and
playing the game is a blast most of the time. After a few hours you'll
get a handle on how everything works, and it'll start to feel more
natural. Later in the game you gain control of a fortress, which is
yours to reinforce and work on, hire soldiers for, etc., which is also
really engaging.
Performance 6/10
And here we reach the
biggest issue with the game. The game just wasn't programmed to perform
well on most systems. Especially considering the level of graphical
detail inherent in the game design, performance is downright awful.
Framerates rarely exceeded 15fps for me, and I have a gigabyte of video
memory and two gigs of ram. The game has a particularly difficult time
dealing with SLi or multi-core processors, which may have resulted from
the game's lengthy development period. The patches and updates have made
a big difference, but since then huge game-breaking bugs have reared
their ugly heads.
By far the biggest bug is one where the game
actually deletes party members from your roster. It wouldn't be such a
huge issue if certain campaign events didn't require you to have
specific characters in your party at the time. See, the game stores
character information every time you change scenery. However, when you
have a familiar summoned, it will overwrite your useful tiefling thief
or dwarf fighter, or what have you, with that familiar, effectively
losing said character. It requires clunky file manipulation or a game
restart, to fix which almost made me give up the game after 35 hours of
playing. It is inexcusable to have such an enormous bug in the game a
year and a half after release still in its code. Also, in order sidestep
said bug, you have to unsummon all creatures every time you leave a
scene, which is just irritating. Patch documentation state that this has
been addressed, but this is a flat-out lie; I started a new game after
all the latest updates had been installed.
Graphics 7/10
Even
with the game's poor performance, the game looks okay. It kind of gets
away with it much of the time because it doesn't require twitch action
from the player. The backgrounds are pretty, with certain districts of
Neverwinter being almost beautiful. The spell effects are the highlight
of the game, with firebolts, mage missiles, and ice balls being flung
all over the place during combat. It's very pleasant to look at while
fighting, and satisfying when a meteor storm obliterates a boss
character.
However the characters look like they fell out of a
time warp circa 2001. They often look awful, and the hair is
particularly bad. I would expect character models of this caliber on the
PSP, not on PCs. Also, the graphics engine is buggy, with random
flickering happening quite frequently. Again, this all depends on your
setup, but it is the norm, rather than the exception, if forum dwellers
are to be believed. Loading times are very high, framerates are low, and
bugs abound. The camera is particularly suspect - it's kind of
isometric, kind of over the shoulder, but you there is no automation
whatsoever, so plan on constantly manually moving it to get a better
view of the action. Even more frustrating is the fact that it doesn't
save where you were last looking with it when you transition to a new
area, so you end up with an awful view every time you gain control of
your characters. I don't know what was wrong with the way the original
camera worked, but it detracts from the game experience.
Sound
9/10
I don't really have any criticism here. The voice acting is of
high-quality across the board, the orchestral music is compelling and
fitting, and the sound effects are satisfying. This is easily the most
consistent part of the game.
Summary
All of the issues can
really creep up on you while you play, and it's unfortunate that there
are so many of them because there truly is a lot of fun to be had here
for the persistent. All of this isn't really new to PC gamers, who are
used to doing all kinds of tweaking to get games to work, but a history
of this doesn't exclude Obsidian from the responsibility of releasing
such an unpolished an inconsistent piece of software. That having been
said, once I got the game working at a stable rate, I had a great time
discovering and becoming part of its world and the tale it has to tell.
The bottom line is that it's fun, engaging, and deep. Keep in mind the
bugs and problems you may encounter before making a purchase, but it has
my recommendation.
Pros:
-Engaging story
-Great sound
-Fun,
deep gameplay
-Lengthy campaign
Cons:
-Extremely
inconsistent performance
-Mediocre graphics
-Difficult to get
started
-Complicated game systems
-Lack of in-game explanation of
those systems
Overall Score - 8/10
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