User Reviews (1 - 11 of 49)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Do NOT buy this defective expansion pack !!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 35
Date: December 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game starts out great .. just like the original Neverwinter Nights and the first expansion pack ... Shadows of Undrentide.
However, about halfway through the game, the NWMain.exe file starts
corrupting and the game freezes and you can NOT go any further in the game. Check out Bioware's technical support website about this game ... thousands of player complaints. Bioware/Atari are aware of these bugs and are doing NOTHING about fixing them. Buy this game only if you want to be VERY disappointed halfwat through the game!

Keeps crashing! Very fun but completely unstable.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: March 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I'm about half way through this game and it honestly feels like a 4.5 star game, except it won't stop crashing! I played the original NWN without a problem (skipped SoU) as well as dozens of other games, all with my existing hardware, software and configuration. I'm running all mainstream stuff:

Win2k, Service Pack 4 with all relevant hotfixes (so...5,000).
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro - great card.
AMD 2200+ on an Abit mobo, 512 ram.
Patch 1.62, installed on March 12th 2004.

So basically what happens is the game either locks up during a save and after about 30 seconds crashes to desktop corrupting that save file in the process, or the system reboots. Neither scenario gives any warning and if I play for 3-4 hours then I'm about guarunteed to have at least one of each crash.

So the game is great. Graphics are nice, sound is fine, nothing special. The battles are a lot of fun and I really enjoy watching my dwarven fighter charge a drow cleric amid fire and ice storms. The power given to you is awesome as your guy gets around level 20, and since the game starts off with you generating a character and leveling it up to level 15 you can customize the bejeezus out of it. The game bogs down a little sometimes, which annoys me since I greatly exceed the recommended specs, but that doesn't happen enough for it to be a problem.

Summary:
Buy this game if you liked NWN, it is tons of fun. But either research your PC setup online to see if others are having problems or at least wait until patch 1.62 is no longer the latest. I'm going to think really hard before buying Atari again.

UPDATE: I updated my graphics driver to the latest catalyst driver from ATI (version 4.3 at this time) and the machine reboots seem to have stopped. However the game still locks up about 1 time in 10-20 while saving. I hit ctrl+alt+delete and kill the process after it freezes and I've caught the game using 210MB of memory! The log files it says it is generating are useless, they just describe event within the game itself before it crashes.

Maybe Atari is one of those things to avoid now so as to keep our fond childhood memories....

more like 2 and a half

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 11 / 17
Date: December 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Bioware seems to be learning from previous mistakes and then simply making new ones. While one could go into the fact that the original (and required) basis for this expansion pack - Neverwinter Nights - and the first expansion - Shadows of Undrentide - are still quite buggy and in need of further patching with the release of yet a second expansion, there are more pressing concerns about Hordes of the underdark.

First, the good stuff:

- The campaign that ships with Hordes is simply stellar when comapred to the campaign that came with the original NWN. Some would fret that that isn;t saying much considering how abyssmal the original was. But, rest assured, hordes delivers a good single player experience.
- Your henchmen are smarter, participative and worth having around. You get 2 now, and you can tell them when to cast spells and when to stop blowing all of their offensive power on weak little minions that present no real challenge and save the fireworks for the big dogs.
- The new tilesets are well done and the presentation of the whole campaign shows care and attention to detail - it is beautiful.
- The musical score is top notch - one of the best i have heard in a CRPG.

Now, the bad:

- Your epic wizard types are severely hamstrung here. Your character barely advances in any measureable way as a spell caster past 20th level. Instead you get to spend your feat(bonus bailities you get as you advance) on a selection of epic spells (there are only 6 to pick from). You can only take each spell once and it is usable only once per day. So, not only do you get no spells or increas ein spell power past 20th level, but you only get 6 spells from level 21-40.
- The class imbalance only gets worse. It has never been a huge secret that some classes - Druids, Bards and Rogues for example - are pretty much left behind in the class balance area. With new epic levels, they are totally left behind. Very little is added to these classes to make them worthwhile vs say a cleric or fighter.
- The new prestige classes are basically for clerics and fighter only. The new wizard prestige classes add no spell casting ability, and the shifter class for the Druid adds little to bring them up to par with everyone else. Monks get nothing.
- The new spells are nothing special. New spells for all classes are not game breakers, and the new epic spells are so easily resisted by 20+ level character that they are barely worthwhile - keep in mind your spell caster abilities stopped at level 20. Vs a 40th level opponent you are still casting as a 20th level mage.
- The system requirements jumped from a p3 450 to a p3 800 without warning. A small thing, but certainly something to take notice of if you have a minimum spec machine for NWN you cannot use Hordes.

all in all this expansion is worth buying, but bear in mind it suffers from the same problems as the rest of the series - hasty implementation with little playtesting for balance coupled with the fact that it is based on a ruleset that isn't exactly perfect to begin with.

it would be nice to see what Bioware does in the future with it upcoming original material that won;t be tied to the flawed dungeons and dragons rule system, but the NWN series is basically a good game hampered by a poor foundation of rules.

Not quite the same game.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 14
Date: January 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I bought Shadows of Undrentide primarily because it had added many new prestige classes. This sounded cool, along with the new creatures you could summon. There are a few problems, though, that I could not overlook. I enjoyed making items for my characters through DM mode. But now, you immediately are robbed, making this taxing. Even if you create stuff outside of the room, it winds up dissapearing.

Another problem is it's interface. It just feels like a player created mod. It lacks the depth of play that the other games had. Drogan sends you on these boring "Find me this" missions, that just get old soon.

The amount of experience you get from killing creatures also makes it feel like it is not worth it. It levels you up to 15, and then gives you 30 EXP drow elves for you to slaughter. My Level 13 sorcerer/2 arcane archer annihilates the competition with one spell.

To summarize, this is a good game, and continues out the story (while not to the best of NWN's ability), and gets the job done as a D&D sim.

Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark adds more of everything. The new Prestige Classes are generally more interesting and useful than those in the previous expansion pack (Shadows of Underntide). The new feats, like the Prestige Classes, are also much more interesting and useful than the previous expansion. The list of epic spells, improved henchman, max level, and tile sets are all improvements for the game.

Hordes of Underdark also adds a new set of official modules with the expansion. The plotline, dungeon layout, puzzles, and feel of the modules are far superior to that of previous official modules (and even better than most player/fan-base modules). A major problem is that it was designed for single-player only. Technically, you could play the game multiplayer, but the player hosting the game would have to be well versed in using the DM Client commands from the Player Client interface to combat these "issues."

Hordes of the Underdark has also released more glitches and bugs than even the original unpatched game. Even after Hordes being patched, most users experience occasional freezes and crashes. This is not such a big deal when you have the auto-save feature turned on, but still detracts from the excitement of playing the game.

One problem that I have witnessed in Neverwinter Nights from the beginning is that there has never been a large player/fan-base Mods for high levels (level 20). With the new cap of level 40 in Hordes, I have still not witnessed many high quality Mods for characters level 20-40. Lastly, those Mods that have been designed well for the higher levels frequently have a bias for more warrior based characters.

For players whose main focus in NWN is the single-player mode and enjoyed the expansion of freedoms in Shadows of Underntide (classes, feats, etc), those who enjoy "maxing" out a character or designing super templates, enjoy designing their own Mods or like to be able to keep up with playing the most current Mods, then Hordes of Underdark is an excellent expansion. For players whose computer's limits were being pushed by the previous expansion (Hordes doubles the "recommended" RAM requirement), who play primary/solely multiplayer mode, or for those who get their kicks by challenging high-level content, then Hordes doesn't deliver as much as it seems to contain.

The weakest Neverwinter title yet

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: February 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I had far more technical problems with this expansion than with the original or the previous expansion pack (yes, I installed the latest patches). The game locked up several times, my character turned green from enemies and stayed that way, I unintentionally lost my (out of control killing machine) henchmen, my inventory would open to a blank screen about half of the time. While I am a big fan of the original Neverwinter nights, and I really liked the first add on, the technical problems brought on by this expansion were too severe to allow me to characterize it as anything other than uncooked. Perhaps this game was squarly aimed at powergamers that care less for story than I do, but the NPCs seemed far more bland and two dimensional than in the original or previous game (with the notable exception of your henchmen, who don't seem to be able to shut up), the game universe seemed less expansive and more limited than with the previous modules. The game felt like it was rushed to market too fast and that the story was jotted down on the back of a napkin, or made up as they went along (the story felt crafted in the previous games).

Earn your wings and show them off to your friends! NOT!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 10
Date: December 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

If you're going to play this in the single player game then you have nothing to worry about. It's really fun if you like playing by yourself. :)

If you were planning on playing online with your friends and taking the Red Dragon Disciple (a new class that allows the player to become 1/2 dragon and grow a set of wings) then be ready for some heartache. Once you've downloaded the most recent patch, version 1.61, and spent your time (how much is *your* time worth?) building your character up to wing status you'll discover that you can't login because this class is broken! Keep that in mind, before buying this expansion pack for little Jonnie or Janie (or yourself ;) ) if you play online and wanted to "wow" everyone with your wings.

Everytime a bell rings, someone finds a bug in NWN:HotU!

Good, but run it on a high end machine

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: February 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

HOTU is a good add-on but on my system (a 1.4G Dell, .75 G mem, 32MB Geforce) it would come to a near standstill in scenes with many NPCs. Try waiting 15 seconds in between responses for conservations, ouch!

This was frustrating because, otherwise, the game was quite good.

It was very exciting and enjoyable while it worked.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: September 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I had a blast with this expansion. Until i got to the last chapter, and one of the key quest characters won't spawn. I did everything i could think of to fix it including re-installing, checking my vidcard, newest patch, etc. Still no go.

So as of right now, I have this beefed up veteran character who's stuck 2/3 into the game. There goes a week of my time. Until i figure out the problem, that "3" is staying.

NWN Expansion

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a good expansion to the story of NWN. It definitely has some problems with pathing, but so did the first game. I did enjoy some of the newer features involving more control of henchmen and their equipment.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 Next 

Actions