Neverwinter Nights 2 Review 282
Neverwinter Nights was like an arrow of Zonk-slaying aimed directly at my gamer heart. I've been a table-top player since grade school, and a CRPG version of Dungeons and Dragons with the (at the time) new 3.0 rule set was tremendously exciting. Some four years later, and the sequel had me equally excited. Neverwinter Nights 2 was developed by Obsidian (of Planescape: Torment fame), using a fairly faithful version of the newer 3.5 rules. The result is a game that oozes D&D from every pore. You've got tons of spells, prestige classes, quirky-weird races (tieflings? anybody?), and a polished, functional story that gets you from point A to point B with a minimum of pain. A recipe for a nerdgasm if there ever was one. The game itself, regrettably, suffers from a fairly big problem: they rolled a 1 on their Craft(Videogame) roll. Read on to find out why they should have taken 10 in my impressions of Neverwinter Nights 2.
- Title: Neverwinter Nights 2
- Publisher: Atari
- Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
- System: PC
NWN 2's story sees you beginning life as a 'Harborman', a person adopted by a local luminary in a small village along the Sword Coast. This is the same region of the Forgotten Realms that played host to every other D&D CRPGs you've played, so you're likely to see some familiar names in both locations and characters. There's a big evil, of course, and within the first hour of play it has interrupted your village's quaint little carnival in order to kill and maim. Once the battle's done, you're tasked by your adoptive parent to head north to the city of Neverwinter, to figure out exactly what's wrong and set things right. Along the way, you meet a cast of crazy characters who aide you on your journey. Though they mostly play into the usual D&D stereotypes (grumpy dwarf, annoying druid), there's some originality here as well. I particularly liked the aforementioned tiefling (a union between a human and a demon). She's a rogue (and thus very handy to have around), and punctuates her annoyances by exclaiming "Hells, Hells, Hells". It isn't Shakespeare, but it isn't grade-school D&D either. The story itself develops from these humble beginnings with the usual dramatic scaling that table-top gaming requires. Before long, you're fighting horrific monsters and doing a bit of world saving on the side. What could have been a hackneyed snore was actually fairly enjoyable thanks to the sheer amount of polish the designers gave the story. It's obvious they have a passion for this material, and it comes out in every witty NPC or unexpected plot-twist.
Who *you* are within this story is, of course, completely up to you. NWN 2 offers the same overly-flexible character creation system as the original. Since 3.0, D&D has gotten a lot more complicated, and this is reflected by the sometimes-overwhelming array of options you'll have when choosing your class, feats, skills, and magic spells. Every one of these, though, can be circumvented by using the 'recommend' option the game offers. While I tweaked my characters the way I wanted them, I checked in on the recommend option each time and can honestly say it would not steer you wrong. If you have no interest in choosing a 6th level feat for your dwarven Fighter, you can click right through the level-up process and not feel as though you've been cheated. At higher levels you can choose from prestige classes which offer unique gameplay styles. Some are holdovers from the original NWN, but there have been some new additions as well. It's hard to argue with the degree of customization you can achieve with the character creation system. They even have a fairly robust avatar-maker. Here, at least, there is little to complain about.
Let's go back to talking about that cute tiefling, though. She leaves something to be desired in the brains department, unfortunately. There's an option to manually tell your cohorts what to do, and in dungeons it is a requirement that you turn it on. While traveling, giving your NPCs a little free reign is fine; they'll engage the enemy and there is an option to ensure they cast the appropriate spells. In dungeons their enthusiasm will send them dashing right through traps, past big evils, and into the waiting jaws of death. What I'd really like to have seen was the option for the game to auto-pause after every 'round' of combat. Given that the game's AI is not up to the task of dungeon crawling, I would have preferred to use good-old turn-based combat to ensure maximum party survivability.
Another (much discussed) frustration is the in-game camera. To say that it is curiously designed would be to give a great deal of credit to the game's developers. I'm usually fairly sympathetic to UI problems; making something that everyone will agree is useable is very challenging. A camera, though ... this is 2006 folks. 2+1/2D games have had a useable camera for almost half a decade now. Why Obsidian felt the need to re-invent the wheel is beyond me. Thankfully, you can select yourself and your teammates via use of the F1-F4 keys; a requirement since it's quite challenging to pin them down with the mouse. If we, as gamers, can't complete the 'looking at fun stuff' part of gaming, where does that leave us? This was an inexcusable oversight, and makes you wonder how much QA Obsidian had the chance to do before the game shipped.
Graphically, Neverwinter Nights 2 is visibly better-looking than its predecessor ... if you're playing on an extremely high-end system. On my own system, I found that the game was playably smooth with almost every option turned down and a screen resolution I would have found useable in 1997. With the graphical elements turned up higher than that, my (not terrible) system began to grind and sputter. Slowdowns weren't even solely during combat. Somehow, moving from place to place also caused molasses-like framerates as well. I will say, in the games defense, that the high end XPS laptop I'm currently reviewing from Dell played the game with absolutely no hiccups. This is a laptop I could never afford to purchase for myself, but it played NWN 2 at a very high resolution with no problems whatsoever. Somehow, that's not much of a consolation.
Aurally, the game is fairly forgettable. I always looking forward to a D&D CRPG's musical accompaniment; if it's any good it's likely that it would go well with a table-top session too. The generic fight music is the highlight of the game, more's the pity. This, too, felt like a game element they just didn't have time to give full attention to. Thankfully, the voice actors that bring the NPCs to life are fairly animated. Aside from the tiefling and the dwarf, you'll find a host of unique fantasy-types awaiting your canned questions and plot-related annoyances. The voice acting is one of the strongest parts of the game, and it's a shame that the rest of the title couldn't rise to that quality level.
In fact, it's telling that the components of the campaign (the story, the voice acting, the characters) are the most polished elements here. Neverwinter Nights 2, it was hoped, would offer RPG fans another solid platform on which to make their creations come to life. In quality, the mods created with the original NWN toolset easily match he FPS offerings created in the Quake or Unreal engines. Instead, Obsidian here seems to have produced a more singular game experience. They've focused on offering a single tale ... perhaps ultimately to the detriment of all future tales that could be told with the toolset. There's already been a patch for the game, and it has improved things somewhat. Only 20/20 hindsight will be able to tell us if NWN 2 is up to the task of being the next platform for RPG modding. For now, as a singular game, Neverwinter's technical problems outweigh the story and quality of character acting that might have made this a favorite of 2006. Table-top RPG fans will still find a lot to like here, but the game is going to make you work for your fun. That's nothing new for Dungeons and Dragons players, but those with a lower tolerance for this sort of thing should probably wait for the first expansion. One would hope that by that point these issues will have been corrected, and everyone can enjoy another trip to the not-so-Forgotten Realms.
NWN2 fails (Score:2, Informative)
The required memory to host a PW-sized module is in the 4GB range, and modules over 2GB cause the server to crash.
Obsidian claimed they'd have PW support as a priority, but it seems to be just lip service.
Atari released this game before it was ready, and it has nowhere near the polish NWN1 had when it was released.
Sad, sad sad. I pre-ordered it based on years of enjoyment building a PW with NWN1. I'm having to tell my players NWN2 is going to be impossible to work with.
Let's hope Bioware's new project, Dragon Age, is better.
Re:Bioware (Score:5, Informative)
I hope you like stomping bugs (Score:5, Informative)
Another thing they haven't gotten down yet is the spell scaling. I need to manually grab control of my casters every round and tell them what to do (Qara: You have other spells besides Fireball. Elanee: I gave you Natural Spell and Combat Casting for a reason). There's also the issue with modes: If you don't remember activate Combat Casting right away, it will wait until after you've cast your next three spells before arbitrarily deciding to activate it (assuming you're even alive by then).
It's still a fun game, but I'll be even more impressed in a couple of years when Atari and Obsideon finally get the bugs worked out.
AI patch (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the lowdown on it [bioware.com]
Unfortunatly, there's not much review for the online creation stuff because online play is still quite buggy (even with the enormous patch that came out a few days ago). If they work the bugs out though, it should be quite a good game.
Re:Boycott (Score:5, Informative)
Eliminated ? The engine was rewritten from scratch, with some game logic kept from the original. They didn't eliminate the support because it wasn't there in the first place. As for the fact that Mac+Linux gamer kept it alive, any sources ? I'd argue that there was still more people playing it on Windows near the end of the lifecycle than there was on OSX/Linux.
The company that manufactured NWN2 CAN support these platforms with MONO + TAO but refuses to (or doesn't realize it can).
Where does Mono come in ? People are confused by the fact that the installer bundles
Severely disappointed (Score:2, Informative)
Also, the frame rates and overall speed were terrible. It's rendering much less than Oblivion and doing it much slower. This is on an Athlon X2 4600 with a 7600GT.
A real bummer, because I had a blast playing NWN coop with a buddy. We were looking forward to this, but as it stands I can't recommend it. Anybody got suggestions for good coop-able RPGs? I am not asking about MMOs, I can't afford that much time, and anyway I can't compete with 12 year olds at games anymore.
Re:Oh God the Camera (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I found it more enjoyable than this review (Score:5, Informative)
Just exactly WHY they chose to go with this system is a matter of much debate. The optimist in me hopes that they didn't forsee the problems and hoped it would be a convenient solution. However, the realist in me, noticing that there is no official manual patcher or workaround despite many users with unpatchable games, believes it's the other option: their patcher is designed to only patch official versions of the game, and just occasionally misidentifies legitimate copies and quietly refuses to work. That's right, folks: the goddamn PATCH SYSTEM is crippled by anti-piracy measures.
It's a good thing the game sucks balls, or this whole mess would be a real shame.
Re:Boycott (Score:2, Informative)
My own thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
If I was reviewing this today, I'd probably rate it at an 8.5/10, or even a 9/10. Had I reviewed it a week or so ago, before the 1.03 patch, I'd have rated it a 6/10 at best. I cannot emphasise enough how much the latest patch has improved the game. The camera is usable now, the worst of the plot-breaking bugs have been fixed and the addition of anti-aliasing has improved the graphics significantly. I'm not saying that all of the issues have been addressed - not by a long stretch - but this now resembles a playable game (a late-beta, maybe) as opposed to the hideous pre-alpha mess that it is out of box.
The system requirements for this game are *harsh*. I've actually had 2 systems to run this on, as I upgraded my PC shortly after buying the game. Before going any further, I should emphasise that I believe "acceptable performance" for an RPG such as this to mean "40 fps or higher". This is, by many standards, a rather forgiving measure.
The first system I ran NWN2 on was a P4 3.4, with 1 gig of RAM and a Radeon x800 Pro. Not exactly a cutting edge system, but certainly a solid enough machine. Performance in 1024x768 full-detail was appalling. Below 10 fps, even in small areas. Only by reducing the detail and view-distance to well below the mid-point could I get acceptable performance.
My new PC is a Core 2 Duo E6700 2.66 ghz, with 2 gigs of RAM and a Gefore 7950 GX2. This manages acceptable performance in 1280x968 full detail the vast majority of the time, but does dip below 40 fps in some of the larger areas when there's a lot going on. In other words, this game is actually *heavier* on the system than Company of Heroes.
However, what you have to bear in mind is that Company of Heroes looks truly spectacular, while NWN2 looks... well... not all that much better than NWN1. If you look closely, you can see where the slowdown is coming from. Some of the models have a ridiculous number of polys. Unfortunately, little has been done from the actual visual design perspective to make them look particularly good, with the effect that they still look angular and stilted, with little realism in their movements.
In terms of environments, things vary dramatically. Some of the outdoor areas do look pretty good, particularly in the game's final chapter. However, all areas, particularly indoor areas, suffer from the same problem as areas in NWN1; as they're all crafted using generic tilesets from the toolset, they're all essentially just the same few graphics repeated over and over. This isn't always obvious outdoors, but it's a bit disappointing when the game's final few dungeons are exactly the same as the first dungeon, just with different lighting. Many of the tilesets aren't even especially pretty. Spell effects are ok and have moved on a bit from NWN1, but they're nothing to write home about. After seeing the explosion effects in Company of Heroes and... well... pretty much anything in Gears of War, this is all a bit flat.
Fortunately, the sound is much better. While the sound effects are largely recycled from NWN1, they are more or less adequate. They're supported by a really great sound-track and voice-acting that ranges from the inoffensive to the truly stellar.
Now, the gameplay...
This is where things start getting a bit more positive. The initial release was crippled by numerous UI frustrations and a near-unusable camera. However, the 1.03 patch massively improves things here, allowing the player to focus on the actual game.
Character generation is excellent, with a huge range of customisation options. More classes and races are available than in any previous installment and your choices at this point will have major consequences later. It would have been nice to have more control over how your other party members develop as they level up, for example in giving them prestige classes, but this is a fairly minor gripe.
The return to
Just like NWN... (Score:2, Informative)
Oh yeah, the DM client also crashes the server upon entry. Way to go.
How about a link??? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:NWN cannot be compared to Baldur's Gate (Score:4, Informative)
There was a command you could enter in the game's console to free up the camera so you weren't restricted to a minimum 45 degree angle. It didn't take too long (but longer than you would think, given how obvious it is) that they made this the default behavior with a patch. It's funny because the game actually has a pretty long view distance that allows for some nice scenic views, you just couldn't tell with the stupid original camera behavior.
The expansion packs, which were released after the patch that fixed the camera, made pretty good use of this fact as well. It was designed assuming you could look, you know, straight ahead to see dangers coming up.
If NWN2 lost this behavior, I just have to say they are morons.
Re:New Coke (Score:3, Informative)
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=modules.Deta
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=modules.Deta
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=modules.Deta
Re:Oh God the Camera (Score:3, Informative)
Re:New Coke (Score:5, Informative)
That's actually remarkably easy to fix:
Interested in a Linux port ? (Score:3, Informative)
Then get going, create an account on the Atari forum and voice your dissatisfaction [ataricommunity.com]. Quite frankly, the probability that we get a Linux port is paper-thin, but it does'nt hurt to get counted.
Re:I found it more enjoyable than this review (Score:2, Informative)
The patcher requires lots of free space to run - practically as much as the game install takes up (~7GB) - as it creates the patched versions of all the data while preserving the old versions until it finishes the patching successfully.