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not bad when its running

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

i have had problems with this game from the very start.
3.2GHz Intel pentium 4 with hyperthreading
ATI Radeon x800xl 256MB
Creative Audigy 2 ZS
all of my hardware/bios/windows is all updated, drivers are all updated, everything is updated. from day one i couldn't even install this game, was getting CRC errors, but i managed to get it to install in SAFE mode after about a week of looking for a way to install this game. THEN i can't patch it. the patches always fail. so i went ahead and started playing the game and it did ok till about 1/4 of the way in, i found out the hard way that there are issues with cut-scenes not triggering and if u don't have a savegame before u are near the cutscene, u have to start all over again. so i started over again, didn't like my character, started over AGAIN. this time i got up to act 3 (having experienced more cut-scene errors but saved my games early enough to work around it). in the beginning of act 3, i could not travel anywhere without the game crashing. none of my savegames helped. game still won't patch. uninstalling the game NUMEROUS times didn't help. setting some of the sound options resets my system to a 2.1 speaker setup when it's supposed to be 5.1. u have to go in and manually change some .ini files. there are tons of other issues where u have to modify game files just to make this thing playable. its rediculous. buying a new DVD-ROM didn't help, formatting my harddrive and reinstalling WINDOWS didn't help either. i'm at a total loss and have put the game on the shelf unfinished and a TOTAL waste of time. there are so many other players who have experienced all of this and have ranted/raved at atari but hardly any of these issues have been addressed. oh well...i would NOT recommend this game b/c its a hit or miss situation. some folks have no issues, and some have tons of issues.

Not a complete waste of time

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

For the most part I like this game... a lot. And I have apparently overlooked a good number of it's problems because it was a fun game. Now I am getting to the point that the problems are harder to overlook and the fun-factor isn't really there anymore.

The quests can be really annoying. I have left a bunch of them to finish later and the links on the world map to the locations have dissapperared, so I guess they'll never get done.

The game has gotten lost so many time during quests. I believe I have completed the task, but perhaps not in the way the game expected so the next step, or movie is not triggered and my party and I just stand around looking at each other going "wtf?!?", but the game prohibits forward progress. This requires playing over and over until the right sequence is performed and the next step is triggered.

Most of the game is easy to progress through, but every once and a while bosses come along that are damn near impossible. Not really that fun to play over and over and over hoping for different die rolls or for Ammon to actually succeed at reading that stupid scroll of real names. Almost done with the game and I don't think I'll finish it because once again it's impossible.

I like playing the same sort of character in most games (usually a ranger), but in this game in order to succeed, you have to play all characters well. I never really cared to play a spellcaster effectively because it's usually not of interest. You have to play every member of you party well or the game is pointless. If you like this idea, you will be very happy. If you like me, focus mainly on one mode of fighting and ignore the rest, you will struggle with this game.

Oblivion was much more fun. Dungeon Siege was much more fun. This has been fun, but also really aggravating.

A fun game if your system can handle it

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game has fairly steep system requirements, but if your system can handle it, the game is a lot of fun. I am enjoying the story a lot, and there seem to be a lot more dialogue options in this game than in NWN I.

On the downside, you spend A LOT of time controlling the camera, especially on indoor dungeons. So many games have gotten camera control right, it's a shame this one didn't.

The biggest plus over NWN I is that you can finally have a full party again. That's what made games like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale so much fun, and that fun is now back again. If your system meets the requirements for this game, you'll have a lot of fun. If not, you can still find Baldur's Gate, one of the BEST D&D games ever made, for under $10.

Doesn't live up to the original

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The Good: New classes and subraces (though some of the subraces are at a distinct disadvantage in the campaign and would be better in a multiplayer mod). Better interface and menu system. Upgraded graphics.

The Bad: Buggy as heck; it took me nearly an hour just to install it because it kept crashing. At least my hardware is supported... Character models and faces are very generic without much to choose from; The gnomes in particular don't look much like a gnome. They used the same voices from NWN. Mod creation and hosting are not mature enough to be really usable at this point and have some big stumbling blocks. The beauty of the original NWN wasn't in the campaign, but in the huge modding and hosting community that it inspired. At least right now, it looks like Obsidian bungled this pretty badly. For the game to run without lag you need to turn graphics way down and at that point it isn't much of an improvement over NWN.

Overall: The bells and whistles are nice, but they sacrificed the core part of the game that made NWN so great; mod creation and hosting. The huge community of perpetual world and PvP servers gave NWN the best replayability of any game I've ever owned. NWN2 doesn't have that right now and unless some major patching or plugins are released, it won't have it anytime soon. The bottom line is that this is a good game when compared to other RPG games, but it's a poor chapter in NWN. I'm just hoping Atari/WotC see the writing on the wall and insist if there is a NWN3 that Bioware take it back.

Returning to NWN1

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am going back to NWN1.
I love the persistent worlds and user-build, multi-player mods in NWN1. The NWN1 toolset is MUCH easier to use than the NWN2 toolset, and the underlying structure of NWN1 is much more conducive to making, large complex worlds!

The eye candy in NWN2 (for players 4GB RAM and 1GB Video RAM) is great: I always smile as the beautifully swaying branches of what is clearly identifiable as live oaks, red oaks, maples, white birches, weeping willows and many others. I also enjoy the smoothly rolling terrain rather then the cliffs and ramps in NWN1. Clearly, much effort was put into this. However, the coast for this candy is that a module with very few areas takes up a huge amount of computer resources. Thus, in a given module, content must be sacrificed for candy.

I like the new races, subraces and classes in NWN2.

I also like some of the scripting enhancements. For example, it is very nice that in NWN2, parameters can be passed form conversations to scripts.

In conclusion, it would have been better to continue releasing expansions such as Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark that added classes, voices, tilesets, portraits, creatures, items and other cool stuff. I loved both of those expansions. A greater frequency of expansions would have kept the game fresh and would have freed many of the multi-player sites from jumping into mod-specific downloads which deter new players and make it difficult to switch back and forth between worlds.

Could have been special, but....

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I waited a year before picking up this game and the expansion, Mask of the Betrayer. Since the initial release in 2006 had technical issues and other problems, I decided to get this game only after the expansion came out and received good reviews (and supposedly fixed bugs and optimization problems). Unfortunately, not all is well with this game, even a year after release and the new expansion pack. It has a better single-player campaign than the first Neverwinter Nights, but is still just a cut above mediocre. If you are looking for the next Baldur's Gate-style epic, definitely don't look here. However, with some luck, some good player-made modules might be produced with the toolset that comes with the game.

Gameplay: Story-wise, this is a run-of-the-mill roleplaying game (RPG). Your character rises from rags to riches in search of his/her life's meaning and in search of the bad guy that needs to be vanquished. The game is based on the 3.5 Dungeon & Dragons rules and offers a lot of customization options for race, class, skills, feats, etc. There is an awful lot of loot to be found, bought, and custom-made. Unlike the first game, you actually have a party to control, which is both good and bad. The good part is that your party members have personalities and make the adventuring a bit more colorful. The bad, well, where should I start: pathfinding issues, not-too-efficient use of spells, suddenly vanishing party members, some suicidal behavior, and so on. You can let the AI control the party, but this works well only early on. Toward the end of the game, you'll need to micromanage each spell and sword swing. It's not as tedious as it sounds if you ever played classic games like Baldur's Gate. But none of the possible 10 or so party members that you can have around come close to the hilarity of a Boo & Minsc or the seductive intrigue of a Viconia from Baldur's Gate 2.

Generally, the pieces come together fairly well in this game. The inventory system and journal are decent, as is the interface. The camera can be annoying largely because it never seems to face in the right direction when you enter a new area. That is, sometimes north will be toward the right side of the screen or toward the left, forcing you to swing the camera around to match the direction of the map. You'll get used to it, but you shouldn't have to. A few things I really liked were the number of scripted events, the save system (none of that checkpoint stuff; you can save anywhere), and the death system (no one in your party actually dies unless everyone goes down in a fight). But the things that I really didn't like were prominent as well, mostly involving the campaign which was about twice as long as it should have been. There are a lot of busy-work quests in the game that add absolutely nothing to the story. Chapter 1 (there are 3 in all) is the worst in this regard, but monotonous chores and a somewhat nonsensical narrative plague the game throughout. There is about 60-80 hours of gameplay here if you try to do everything. A tighter, more compelling story could have been told in half that time.

Graphics: The game looks good, but certainly not great. With the patches and the expansion installed, I didn't notice any framerate problems on my mid-range computer, although the game sometimes did not load all of the textures in each area. Character models, monsters, and terrain are all convincing, and spell effects look particularly good. There are night & day cycles that make the game a bit immersive, though it is hard to get too immersed in a game that is best played from a high overhead perspective and that requires constant monkeying with the camera.

Sound: The music was great. I wouldn't mine actually owning a few of the tracks. The voice acting ranged from decent to good, but it was the usual RPG fare of Scottish-accented dwarves, English-accented elves, deep-throated demons, and the occasionally whiny acolyte magician (always with an American accent). Sound effects for spells and other things were appropriate.

Technical Issue/Documentation: The game comes with a rather lengthy manual, which is quite helpful. It also has a clever tutorial at the beginning. Whether you get it alone or with the expansion, prepare for up to a 30-minute install which includes downloading some big patches. The game was rock-solid stable for about the first 30 hours of gameplay. Then the crashes started. According to posts at the official website, people are still having a variety of problems with this game, even after all the patches. My issues involved the game refusing to load new areas and crashing during transitions. The first time this occurred (while leaving Ammon Jerro's haven), I was able to find a workaround solution on the internet. The second time (at Crossroad Keep in chapter 3) there was just nothing that could be found to get me around this. I never got to finish the game. This was very frustrating and more than likely will keep me from buying another game by this developer. In fact, I was so disgusted by this problem that I sold both the game and the expansion on eBay. I had really had enough of the main quest after 50+ hours.

Value/Recommendation: If you like D&D-style roleplaying games, this might be worth your while at the current price ($20). However, be sure to patch it and be willing to deal with the game's remaining technical issues. This is really not a good value unless you are going to play player-made modules and/or play online. As with the first game, the single-player campaign, while long and with a few high points, is largely unremarkable (and buggy) and there are better RPGs available.

Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

So much potential- so little delivery

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: November 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The graphics aren't bad, although if you're a fan of actually doing anything in your game, I'd recommend turning most of the graphics options off for performance reasons. Obsidian threw in the obligatory major "overhaul" of the user interface (read: "Change for change sake") so even if you're a NWN junkie like me, it's good to run through the tutorial. Especially since if you don't, a bug in the game won't let you save.

And speaking of not being able to save, devote a lot of time to playing. Every time I quit, my save games and settings disappear.

This is what happens when the pros don't work on the sequal to a best seller. NWN wasn't perfect, but Bioware didn't release something this bad.

An excellent sequel

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: December 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Neverwinter Nights 2, in my opinion, is an excellent addition to this game series with a lot of potential for expansions. I'll first give a moderately long overview of the game, followed by pros and cons. Firstly, it's worth mentioning that this game HAS BEEN PATCHED. If you get it, be SURE you click the 'Update' button to download the game updates. They fix a lot of things. No game should be reviewed until it has been patched. Also note that something with XFire has been causing drastic stuttering in the game; the developer is talking to the company in charge of XFire about the issue.

Graphics and Sound: The graphics here are a step or three above Neverwinter Nights. One thing needs to be realized; this game is more or less intended to be played from a zoomed-out view, with decent detail seen if you zoom in. This will not look as good technically as, say, Oblivion; but the graphics are not blocky, and they still look really good in my opinion, even zoomed in up close. It is supposed to sort of 'replicate' a table top experience in this manner (at least, that's always been my impression). Framerates are smooth on my somewhat modest PC. The sound is good as well, with a good portion of it coming from the first Neverwinter Nights.

Gameplay follows the 3.5 D&D ruleset, and I think it translates well to PC from tabletop game. So far, I consider it fun. The dialogue has been -vastly- improved from the first game; there are now more options to choose from that will effect your in-game alignment, and more options that use the Diplomacy, Intimidate, Bluff, and Lore skills when determining their success. It has been said that doing things in combat takes too much time; however, the people saying these things probably do not realize that by pressing the spacebar you can pause the game to decide what you want to do.

The story is your typical RPG save-the-day story (though I have not quite finished it yet)...but really, that's just the beginning of the game itself. Remember that NWN 2, like it's predecessor, is built with the ability to download and play player-made adventures either alone or with friends. This extends the life of the game almost infinitely...so, keep an eye on the file sites [...]. Most should have a 'hall of fame' type list to choose the best from...be aware that anyone who wants to can make an adventure (referred to as a 'module'), and as such you must be wary of the junk ones.

Also remember you can export characters for use in any other module...though you may find characters played in the main campaign to be quite powerful depending on the intended level range of a downloaded adventure.

Pros:
-Good game mechanics
-Solid story and roleplayability, albeit a bit conflicting for evil characters in the long run (dialog allows for evil characters, but I'm not sure how 'evil' an ending you can get in the story)
-Enjoyable, and sometimes humorous companion interaction
-Excellent dialog choices...many big fights can be avoided with proper diplomacy
-Improved graphics engine
-Open ended, nigh-limitless replayability through player-made modules
-Stylish, good looking graphical design.
-Many optional side quests.

Cons:
-Not a good choice for people expecting detailed, up-close Oblivion quality graphics.
-Focus on story and interaction with NPCs may not appeal to hack-and-slash gamers.
-Story is somewhat cliche.
-Game mechanics may be slightly confusing to those not familiar with them. The game does help and guide you some in this respect if you want, but some manual reading will be necessary if you really want to understand what number means what.

The game runs great on my PC with almost all options on. My specs:
-P4 2.66 ghz CPU
-1 gig of RAM
-nVidia eVGA GeForce 7800GT video card

Not for the average gamer

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: March 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I consider myself something of a gamer, but this game did not work on my system at all. If you haven't invested $500 within the last year on video cards, RAM and processor speed, don't bother trying to purchase this game. I'm out the $40 for a game that doesn't work, even though I meet the listed computer requirements for the game. If your computer isn't top of the line and the latest, don't bother because you won't get higher than 5 frames per second.

Game of the past requiring future hardware

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: April 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Many of the games found today either have great graphics or new features, however, this game does not have either one. I have the video settings at it's max with my 2 ghz duo processor (almost like 4 ghz not a combine of 1 ghz processors), 2 gb ram 2 gb nvidia 7900 video card, and I still saw some chopping and clipping.
The graphics weren't even as good as oblivion or fable. And Fable is even older than this game. But yet those two games required less power than this. Also, the game play is pretty much the same as before, with hardly any new changes.
The only good thing I can say about this game is the character generation which was not original at all.

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