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Pick this up....then give up your free time!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 86 / 101
Date: September 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

In case you haven't heard of Neverwinter Nights yet (and in case you're wondering, we landed on the moon too.) and are in the dark about this incredible series, here's your chance to redeem yourself! In any case, this 'platinum' pack includes the original Neverwinter nights and both expansion packs, Hordes of the Underdark and (though the less exciting, but still fun) Shadows of Undrentide. What you should know is that this is the 'it' game concerning playability, multiplayer fun, as well as expandability with the excellent tool sets included to craft your own D&D adventure. It is an RPG set in the Forgotten Realms world (but has been modded to all sorts of worlds-you can even find an upcoming Dragonlance mod soon to be released), and I would stand by it to say (along with the Baldur's gate series as well as the fairly new Knights of the Old Republic...All made by Bioware...Hmmmm pattern here?) it is one of the best games you will play in a very long time (Until a month from now when the next 'big' thing comes and levels all expectations...suffice to say that the way technology is growing so fast, it doesn't give us poor gamers a lot of time to appreciate those great games that come out!). With tremendous graphics that still hold up remarkably well (its not THAT old), stellar gameplay and 100's of hours worth of pure entertainment, quit reading this review and wasting your time! Play the game NOW!(and plan on dodging those pesky necessities 'showering' and 'eating'!)

One good set of rules, dozens of (free!) adventures to play

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 25 / 26
Date: April 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've played a lot of computer based role playing games and I think Neverwinter Nights is the best. I've played it for over a year now.

For one thing, the Platinum package offers an incredible amount of content that used to cost $100 in a very affordable package. Second, the game is based on Dungeons and Dragons rules, which have been tested and refined for decades. It takes a while to grasp the richness of the possibilities, but it's worth it. Third, some people complain about the graphics but I think they look great. I never get tired of pausing a battle and zooming the camera around in circles and in for a closeup. Fourth, the interface is so simple it's almost a work of art. You right click on any particular object and a menu of things you can do with it comes up.

Fifth, with NWN comes a toolset that lets you build your own adventures. The ones provided with NWN Platinum are pretty good -- with Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark being far better than the original campaign. So you can download, for free, literally hundreds of additional games that fans have spent hundreds or thousands of hours creating. And many of these are even better than the adventures that come with NWN Platinum. People have also built additional scenery, monsters, environments, and much more. So you learn one set of rules and you're set for dozens of adventures - some short and intense, some huge and sprawling (with up to 60-100 hours of playing time, so they say). I feel like I'm totally set to be entertained for the next 6-12 months, probably more if people keep building great adventures and putting them online. (See nwvault.ign.com for a glimpse of what's out there. And did I mention it's all free?)

Sixth, if you have a fast online connection (which I don't), you can play online with others in "persistent worlds" full of gamers, or in campaigns with your friends -- and a Dungeon Master can even run the show and provide the kind of interactivity and richness that pen & paper experiences used to provide. I can't speak to that whole aspect because I don't have DSL or cable, but many people love playing that way.

I think this is simply an unbeatable package. Diablo I&II were incredibly fun, they had atmosphere and gameplay for days, but in terms of role playing they lacked depth and freedom, and battles were basically a clickfest (click on that one! now click on that one! now click on that one!). Morrowind is unmatched as a sprawling, freeform adventure, but it's so open ended that you often feel lost and somewhat unmotivated after a couple of weeks, or months, of playing. Plus, to improve your lock picking skill, you had to pick hundreds of locks. To improve your jumping skill, you had to jump and jump and jump. That system just doesn't appeal to me.

I wish you good gaming. [PS: advice for new players: play a cleric. Great combination of fighter and spell caster. Lots of fun.]

One of the best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: January 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing computer role-playing games since Wizardry came out for the Apple II. (For those of you too young to remember, that was when a machine with 48K of RAM was considered super-fast.) Neverwinter Nights is, IMHO, one of the best ever in the genre. It combines ease of play and an interesting story effortlessly. Better yet, one doesn't have to be The Amazing Kreskin to figure out what you are supposed to do next. Too many other games substitute cryptic puzzles for good game play. Neverwinter Nights does it right.

A mix of the original Baldur's Gate series an the Dark Alliance Series

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: July 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Neverwinter Nights picks up where Baldur's Gate 2 left off with the engine of the game. It's much more fluid to control your character. While there's more story and character development here than in the DA series, it still pales in comparison to the orignial BG series. You'll find the NPC personalities to be rather dry, and the quests that go with them a little too straight forward. Most of the items you need to find to complete them aren't too far off the beaten path. The game is long and entertaining... if you like long dungeon crawls, you'll certainly get your money's worth out of it. A small tip: Rogue is very fun, but challenging. Paladin is much easier as you can cut through the battles.

The Best Game I've Played In My 12 Year Lifetime

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: November 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I could tell you about the amazing graphics, gameplay, sound, and fun in replaying, but I think that other reviews have done that already. I'll just talk about two things:
Custom content and modules.
Some of you may feel like custom content is mainly bug-filled hacks that may or may not harm your computer, but NWN Platinum includes an amazing toolset that alows for compilation of modules that can be as complex-or more complex-than the original games. There is an amazing amount of custom content, and I've already downloaded at least one gigabyte of custom content, and 0 bytes of it have harmed my computer, with only 50 megabytes of it not working as intended. All of it can be modified as necessary by the toolset or player-created tools.

Some of the best uses for this are, of course, player modules, but are also hundreds of persistent worlds out there that allow for 24-hour multiplayer gaming. Most of those require nothing to log on to them, allowing you to just click and play.

All that these things mean is that you can play for a virtually infinite amount of time, with each minute of it theoretically with different people and using different content and themes.

If read this far, you've been reading to long. Buy this game!

Not as good as Baldur's Gate

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: August 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I got this game thinking it was another, newer, better version of Bauldur's Gate, it ain't. It just doesn't have the interactivity that Baldur's Gate, not as many side quests, and just not as much fun. I like it, but prefer the Baldur's Gate style combat then the Diablo style. Plus I like being able to control the ENTIRE party, not just one character. I guess its made more for online play, but I'm just not into that. I still wish BioWare would come out with another better version of the original Baldur's Gate, I really think there would be a HUGE market for it.

Fun but annoying....

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: March 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

One of the reasons Dungoens&Dragons has a very hard time going from Pen and Paper to video game is becuase of the interactivity factor. Not to say the RPGs based on D&D rules aren't fun to play...I spent a good portion of my 22nd year of life playing and replaying Baldur's Gate. But now that NWN has come out, I think we might have peaked. The game looks great, its level of interaction is very enriching, and for the most part its fun to play. All this in its favor but still there is something missing. For anyone who's ever been a basement dwelling gamer dork like me can tell you, the video game still can never hold a candle to the Tabletop experience. In the video game..what the programmers want to happen will happen, nothing you can do about it, no matter how clever you are. In the Pen and Paper (tabletop) game, you're interacting with other people, a Dungeon Master who can think and adapt at will. Other living thinking players who can do the same. Players can bounce ideas off of each other, and come up with strategies that can be impossible to account for. This just doesn't happen in NWN or any other D&D based video RPG. That's what's missing. As for saying the game can be annoying...I think theway the programmers meant to compensate for what I just said was lacking...they give you way too much to do, and too close together quest wise. I'm no fool, and I'm pretty good at multitasking, but when I have a goal to acheive I don't want to click my way through a 5 minute talking to by an NPC only to have yet another quest stacked on top of what it is I'm already doing.

Typical rpg problems, disappointing toolset.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 13
Date: January 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

While the game itself is fairly entertaining, it still has those typical design flaws programmers just can't seem to see. Inspite of being told to stay put, characters with you magicly show up next to you as you pass through some doorways, often right into a scene best handled alone. More often, very imaginative strategies will gather fewer experience than rushing blindly into battle. "Scripted events" (where your character is magicly thrown into a new situation or plot line which he or she has the power to control, but can not) can make thinking gamers feel cheated.
The much hyped toolset is a disaster for imaginative Dungeon Masters as the vast majority of "monsters" are of the humanoid type. If as game creator, you don't mind using the same basic type of creaures over and over, the toolset will work for you. Anyone very creative however, will see that most of those fantastic creations from the Monster Manuals can not be included in their game. Professional graphic artists may (in a conciderable amount of time) be able to create unique creatures. Anyone else however, is out of luck. Even if one would be satisfied using the provided monsters, they will be bombarded with the program language "scripting" needed to make events happen within their world. The NWN series contained here had the potential to be great, but falls victim to typical computer RPG problems and unproductive tools for one's own imagination.

Versatile, replayable

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: October 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The best thing about this game is the replayability factor, thanks to player-made modules. I recommend getting the Platinum edition, as many of the modules available for download require one or both of the expansion packs.

Neverwinter Nights should be the new standard for PC RPG's

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I think Neverwinter Nights is so overlooked by the gaming world to have become almost a forgotten commodity. And this is indeed sad becauase NN is such an awesome game with so much to it and with hours upon hours of intense gameplay and wonderful story line that you wonder why so many people have gotten hooked on games like Everquest and have completely overlooked NN and what it has to offer to the gaming community. And this, after all, coming from an RPG community which owes much of its early beginnings to the very first truly graphic RPG's like Pool of Radiance and Baldurs Gate, both Dungeons and Dragons PC games just like NN.

NN has an addictive story line made all the broader with its many expansion packs and its hordes of player built modules that are available just about everywhere on the Internet. This game isn't just hack and slash, its so much more with its vast amount of puzzles and quests and the treasures one can compile and even build.

Perhaps NN will be looked upon one day as having become the new standard for RPG's. Though some may attempt to copy it, none can. Bioware has such a unique engine, thanks to the Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale games, that NN is just the new genesis of that engine adding to it and expanding it into the mighty game engine that it has become.

Bioware is a true innovator in the world of the RPG and I think they will continue to be innovative going forward. Neverwinter Nights and its NN2 sequel prove out that theory and I sincerely hope that the series continues to even greater heights.

If you love RPG's and you love D&D, buy Neverwinter Nights. You will enjoy a true adventure with nearly limitless possibilities of how you can reach the end of the game. Just buy it and have some fun but have the snacks and sodas ready because you are in for the long haul.

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