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Oh Yeah!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

What can I say? It's NWN... only bigger and better. My only complaint is the linear world... you can't romp off somewhere you want to go and explore... you have to follow the path set out for you. Other than that, this game is featured proudly among my dozens of favorites.

A step backward

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

NWN2 was released...what, in 2006? Plenty of games through the 90s and early 2000s were achieving things that made it seem that the ultimate RPG was right around the corner. That made it all the more disappointing when this game, with all its hype, failed to deliver. In fact, NWN2 seems to be outdated compared to games we were all playing BEFORE it shipped.

Long load times between zones? Hmmm. Sure was nice when I was playing Dungeonsiege in 2003 with NO load time between zones...in fact...no visible zone boundaries. That was three years before NWN2.

Strong-arm plot tactics where the characters have no options? Where you can't even turn down a henchman? Can't attack friendlies? Can't decide whether you receive a stronghold or not? The developers would have you believe that such strong-arm tactics are the only way to keep the plot on track. Funny...I could SWEAR Baldur's Gate had a plot. It let you do all the above things. How long ago was that? I believe it was last century, right?

Blocky character models with hair clipping the heads? Come ON! I don't even know which old game I should cite for examples of better character models. Maybe all of them. Seriously, this one was unforgivable.

A "moddable" game where adding new content requires hacking data tables? How quaint. Years before NWN2 came out, I was adding new content (new spells, weapons, races, etc.) to other games by whipping up a template, tossing it in a mod folder, and firing up the game. If you are expecting to add new content to NWN2, don't expect it to be as easy as dropping a file in a folder. That was only possible five or six years ago, apparently.

And is there really NO WAY to have anyone except the main PC take the lead in conversations? With all of modern technology at our beck and call, is it really, totally, absolutely, unavoidably, necessary to send the soft, squishy rogue or mage PC to the forefront of every conversation to take the full brunt of the attack when it inevitably turns hostile? Do the laws of physics and computational science really mandate this?

Alas, other games have long since done infinitely better on these counts and many more. The company that finally takes all the good bits from the games of recent years and puts them together - and gives us the game we've been waiting for - will own the world. I have a feeling that, when it happens, it will sadly not have the D&D franchise name associated with it.

Oh I almost forgot - the story line. I see some people liked it, but seriously...a foster child with a mysterious background who turns out to be the chosen one...this doesn't seem a little...familiar?

Waited for patches--Runs very well

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 23, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Instead of buying games when they first come out, my gaming group and I wait (sometimes several years) to buy new games to play together. With NWW2, this strategy seems to have paid off well for us. After patching (an hour investment at least), we have played this game co-op over a LAN with little problems. The one time we did struggle to play was due to a conflicting setting that was easy to diagnose and change.

Graphics are beautiful. My computer was built in the winter of 2006, and I play on maxed out settings. I recently went back and played NWN1. The older game is difficult to play now because I am used to being able to adjust my camera in NWN2. If you don't like monkeying with camera angles, then this game probably isn't for you. But if you like a good story, great characters, and interesting dungeon crawls, I highly recommend NWN2.

Some things not touched on.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: May 22, 2008
Author: Amazon User

PRO'S: Hands down, it has to be the fact your character comes to posses an entire keep. Not only that, but you can spent vasts amount of money to improve upon it. I almost kinda wish they had put more special missions for your troops. Perhaps, in a future game, they can bring back treasure from the bandits/monsters/etc. There were some glitches I encountered, but nothing that can't be fixed in future updates.
The second would have to be the improvements to a characters animal companions. There is nothing worse than having a multiclassed character, and have an animal companion that is roughly half your level. At this point, they become nothing but cannon fodder. NWN2 fixed this by giving you a skill to rectify the problem. Now your pet/friend can keep traveling with you as a help, and not a hindrence.
The above paragraph also applies to spell levels with multiclassed characters. While I never saw it as much of a hindrence, NWN2 fixes this issue as well, adding a similar skill for spell levels.
Lastly, some of these fights are truly hard. Gone are the days of NWN, when you could Powerlevel through everything relatively unscathed. Three things pounded my hindquarters in NWN2: The red dragon (which I never defeated), the two black dragons, and the final fight.

CONS: I want to start off by saying that I have played through the game. I have a 9800 NVidia graphics card, and 6MB of RAM...and it still runs slow. I have to place most of my settings to low so massive fights run smoothly. I also agree with what most say about the camera angles. In a word? Dismal. Up close or far away, it slides through walls and NPC's, giving you a nice polygonic view of the inside of someones face. Also, if walls are high, you might as well set the camera directly above you. This posed the biggest problem in the final fight.
Next I wish to address the cutscenes. With as much graphic power this game seems to be pumping out, you'd think the programers could have done better than cardboard cutout scenes. It's the computer equivalant of a silent movie cuecard. NWN definitely has NWN2 beat on this one.
Also, I'm sad to see character portraits disappear. While it does appear that you can rectify this somehow (I assume through downloadable content), this shouldn't have to be the case. While the color/hair/face pallatte can produce an array of combinations, I miss the up close and personal touch.
Lastly, at least one of the new classes seems incredibly weak. Now perhaps I played my character wrong, but I found the Warlock to be disappointing and a one trick pony. I quickly became bored with the same abilities. This wouldn't be so bad if they made up for it with perhaps some fighting skills, but, alas, the Warlock is no better than than any other arcane caster in hand-to-hand. It was near impossible keeping her alive in the final battle.

Story: I have to say that the story really isn't all that much more impressive than the original NWN. As to be expected, you face characters that turn on you at a later date. Somehow, it just doesn't seem as devestating as when the paladin turns on you in NWN.

Good until the end

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: April 22, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Well, I had a decent amount of fun exploring and building up all the different characters, although trying to control all of them at the end was to say the last, a major pain. Graphics were quite good and the overall storyline was very good as well. BUT, in all the years and games of the genre I have played, after spending hours upon hours getting to the end and finally killing the head dude, I was, well how do I put this, VERY %&(*&#$ ticked off at the stupid lame ending, unless you're evil, but still you spend all the effort to get finish and after a climactic battle you get wiped out by a stupid (*&@(#$ cave in. I mean please how freakin likely is that???? I'm sorry but all of your lvl 20 characters are so helpless they cant get out of a frickin falling building. How (*#@(*&#$@$ lame. Oh, and why the heck is their only ONE female character you can possibly have any romantic involvement with...shesh. In NWN 1 you can manage to snag 2 at once at the end. So up until the end I'd give the game a 7 out of 10....but the end stinks. It's like the developers got drunk or stoned when finishing the game and thought "hmm how can we really make the game suck now that we're done". Maybe the expansion pack will be better. The evil character ending is better though, but still...what a let down.

Not bad, could have been better...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: April 21, 2008
Author: Amazon User

(Note this may contain spoilers)

I never played the first NWN game but my husband said it was good and I decided to give this one a shot. The character selection screen isn't all that great. Don't get me wrong there is a wide selection of character races and classes to choose from but choosing what your character should look like is rather poor. Hardly much to choose from and not enough to make your character the way you want them to look.

From there it goes into the game. As you travel through the realm you meet different characters who join your party, which can be rather amusing. However if you pay close attention you will run across dialogue they speak doesn't match up with what is typed out on the screen.

Furthermore some of your party members you learn a great deal about who they are but others you are left with cryptic messages about their past and only to find out later it was removed from the game due to time constraints, which is a huge disappointment.

The other problem with this game is the fact there are not too many side quests and it seems you are more forced to do the main storyline then to actually explorer the world. If you take a look at the map you see so many areas that could have been added in the game. For example one such area later on is called "Leeves" a gnome village, but you are not able to travel there, such a shame.

Even more so the enemies' in this game are rather poor, there is a huge range of enemies in the Dungeons and Dragons world, yet you are only able to combat not even close to a third of them. Most of the time the game time is spent; fighting thugs, Watch guards (if you go evil), animals, and standard demons such as Succubus and imps, undead, shadows, Ogres, Orcs, Bugbears. Goblins you won't see until Act II and common enemies' like vampires don't appear until Act III. The only giants that are in this game are Fire Giants and you only encounter a few dragons.

The main storyline isn't too bad filled with holes that leave you scratching your head. The ending of the game was terrible. They should have allowed you to continue on playing the game. For example if you go evil and join the main villain you should be allowed to do missions for them or if you choose to be good continue onwards doing good deeds.

Romance in this game was another issue they were very sloppy on. I liked the fact my female character was involved with the paladin, Cassivir, but again, cryptic messages from him and you only were able to choose to be involved with him at the end of the game. Would have been nice to have this happen earlier in the game allowing it evolve over the game's time span. If your going to add romance in the game, either go all out with it like in the game Fable, or just don't add it in at all.

The game isn't horrible but it could have been much better. I just felt this game was put poorly together without too much thought put in it but with only thought of we have to get this out on the market. I think creators should take a look at Oblivion and see how a real fantasy game should be.

Fun but not perfect.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: April 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I wanted this game to be perfect. I really did. Rarely does an RPG keep interested enough to finish, and this one has, which is saying alot. Let's get one thing straight, the bugs are gone ok. You can disregard low scores given by people who hated the early bugs. The game is much better then when it was first released, so in those terms you can buy this game in confidence. So how is it right? Great but not perfect. The story is very well done and is not cliched like so many other RPG stories. The Gameplay is top notch. The battle system is great for strategy lovers. The customization of your main character is very addictive. You may find yourself wanting to start the game over again after completing or even before, so you can try out a well thought out plan for the development of your character. Character customization is where the good replay value fits in.

So what are the problems? The game looks decent but is quite lacking and it takes a good comp to run the graphics on the highest settings, which is confusing since the graphics aren't amazing. The game forces you to play with characters you have not developed and therefore they will have mediocre or no equipment. You also don't have full freedom when developing your other characters. You have to stick with the same class they begin with except for one(but his class change is part of the story). I hate not being able to stick with the characters I love. Fortunately the game makes it to where everyone's exp gained is the same. If you haven't played with a charcter for a while, when they pop in the party, whalah they have the same amount exp as everyone else. If the game wasn't good I would have quit because of being forced to play with certain characters. That is really annoying bioware! Hopefully they will remove this in any furture D&D games. Ok i think I am done. Is it worth it? Yes. If you liked the first NWN you should like this one. Just do not expect it to blow you away.

Waiting patiently for NWN 2 Gold Edition DVD

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: March 22, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have not bought this yet as I am waiting until May when the Gold edition is likely to be released.

I've waited since I've listened carefully to all of you, you've told me about the camera troubles and the performances issues and how the patches may or may not help. I've read into why the engine acts like it does (want instant improvements: turn down shadows) and what I need to do to get it running like I expect.

I've also waited so I can enjoy not only the fixes but the best of the user content, which seem to be as interesting as the main story.

It's due to you magnificent modding [...] that I'm not going to pirate I will buy retail when it's ready, you have to support the business model even if they took a while to get it right. Otherwise they have no incentive to patch and fix and non-early adopters like me lose out on this great work of gaming art and YOU get a forever buggy half-game.

I've played nearly every PC RPG made, including Progress Quest and the NWN series handles D&D rules pretty well, so I'm confident I'll dig this when it's ready!

Late to the party is a-ok with me if you brought all the favors!

Not a bad game at all, very smooth with Vista

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: March 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

First I would like to give the bad stuff. There are numerous cut scenes and the camera control was a little hard to get used to, but it is tolerable, the saving grace of the cut scenes is that you can pause them ie. if you need to be away from the computer for a min. I personally have to do the "hit and run" gaming, I am too busy to devote an hour or two to un-interupted play.
I am running a Dell Inspiron 520 with the quad 2 processor and 3 gig of ram. I also have the Nvidia 256Mb video card. My system is decent, but it is a long way from top of the line. I had no problem installing the game (and I am running Vista) I loaded all the patches as soon as I installed the game, and it runs perfectly. (the patches took nearly 45 min. to load)

Every gamer is different, I like a plot that is at least somewhat linear. The plot line on this so far is linear enough that I don't get lost in the game, but I have some choices and can do certain things in a different order, or chose not to do something at all. The story line is okay, it could be better, but to me the mechanics and some of the situations or battles are more important. I like the extra classes and prestiege classes that they have added, and the new character races are good too. The only thing that I would really want to change about this game is I would like to be able to build my NPCs the way that I build my main Character. I would recomend this game to anyone that has a decent machine, but I would also recomend running the patch even though it takes forever to down load. (V1.12 was the latest that was out when I updated)

I have read some reviews that claim that it won't run well with Vista, but I have not had that problem, there may be more patches out now that have fixed that issue.

A bit of a let down

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: February 10, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have no idea why this game has the system requirements that it does. The graphic and special effects, while well put together, and not cutting edge. This game looks like an expansion to the original Neverwinter Nights more than a entirely new game. Personally if I pay a new game price I expect a new game in the box, or an extremely polished and improved continuous of the original. Looking at this game and the original side by side you would be hard pressed to explain why this needs the extra muscle it does.

Like many of the other reviewers I found the story for the campaign in NWN2 to be quite boring. So boring it was hard to even play through. The voice acting is okay as are the cut scenes but the story is very boring and cliche. Like the original the one thing NVW2 has going for it is the ability to download and play adventures created by other users. This is where this game shines, there is a wealth of custom content and adventures available on the internet for NWN2, and if you have invested in the game this is the best way to put it to use.

Out of the box NWN2 is an okay game, but there are better. With the wealth of custom mods on the internet for it though it is as good as the original to me and maybe a bit better. There is a good amount of potential in this game and luckily there are those devoting time and attention to bring it out. This keeps replay high and the game relatively fresh.

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