The Ravings of Demented Rabbits

Even the Box Is Beautiful

With a nod to this MT strip.

As Sarah was telling me Friday, with a nod to this old MT strip, it's funny how they were talking about NWN1, and here we are on NWN2. Not to mention the about 6 year progression between a BG2 which hadn't come out when that strip was made, and NWN2, which is 6 years and 2 engines more advanced.

I'm sure that had a point somewhere.

Anyway, let's talk about NWN2. Actually, first, let's talk about NWN1, with a nod to my old Alsherok review of it. I find it deeply amusing that as it was in 2002, here we are in 2006 with both an Elder Scrolls game and a Neverwinter Nights game. I don't really want to compare Oblivion to NWN2, however, except a few incidentals. This is because, unlike NWN1, NWN2 is actually a good game. And let's just say that again right up front:

NWN2 is the game that NWN1 should have been, in pretty much all possible ways. Let's run through a few.

Thar be SPOILERS in them thar hills. In case it wasn't obvious.

Graphics: It's not Oblivion, to be sure, but neither is anything else, so that's to be forgiven. This is more like what I wanted NWN1 to look like, though I imagine the graphics just weren't there in '02. You do want to put textures up on High, however. I did, and it's like playing an entirely different game.

And let's just say that adding heightmaps and getting out of the tile-based system makes NWN2 twice the game NWN1 was all by itself. Also helping is a return to something vaguely resembling reality for architectural models. Overly fantastic city walls from NWN1, I'm looking at you, here. Thanks, medieval-looking NWN2 models, for being cool.

There are also a fair number of fairly awesome cutscenes, which I'm not going to talk about because they'd be huge spoilers. Let's just say that the one involving a crystal thingy is way cool. Not quite the Oblivion endgame, but close.

Interface: Actually, last I played NWN1 was the Diamond edition, 3-4 years of patches and expansions later, and I've come to appreciate the radial menu.

NWN2 has some issues, though. First and foremost, the camera STILL sucks the good suck. I'm not sure how they managed, because it worked ok in KOTOR, and we've somehow stepped back from that. It's not quite NWN1 levels of awful, but it tries hard sometimes. Top down mode fixes a lot, but not all.

What I really miss, though, is Baldur's Gate-style autopausing. It's needed. Unlike NWN1 or even KOTOR, NWN2 is very much a return to the detailed tactical combat days of yore, what with you and up to 4 other NPCs driving around at the same time. Combats can be VERY confusing.

The other thing I'll mention here is that the AI needs some more work. They sometime go some very nonsensical routes to get places, and in a couple areas they didn't even move at all without a lot of coaxing. On the other hand, the new AI is mostly quite good, though I had a few flashes of missing the old package system used in the BGs and KOTOR. I will say that NWN2 is the first game where I've felt ok with leaving the spellcaster AI on.

NPCs: And here's the fun part. Our friends at Bioware learned a lot of lessons from NWN1, one of which was that the partially-controllable, unequippable NPCs that came with NWN1 out of the box were a really stupid idea. Fortunately, somewhere in NWN1 they reversed that design and went back to fully-controllable, fully-equippable BG-style NPCs, which also carried the day in the KOTORs and made it into NWN2. This is good.

Another BG-style trend is the sheer number of NPCs you can have join in NWN2. I believe the number is around 12. I've lost count. All of them are at least moderately interesting, though I think only Khelgar approached the level of greatness that you'd expect from, say, Jahiera, or Carth, or HK-47, or Deekin, to name a few of the more memorable ones.

Some other good things:

1. The dialogue is GREAT. Many, many one-liners, no really George Lucas-esque cringe-worthy stuff. This is something Bioware/Obsidian has always been excellent at, and it's at top form in NWN2.

2. The influence system from the KOTORs is back, though not quite to the same degree. At least Khelgar can get a class change ala the KOTOR2 Jedi changes, and there's (I'm told) at least two romances, though Casavir and Elanee wouldn't have been my first choices.

3. And on both those notes, the interparty banter. Wow. Though there is a point where it gets VERY catty (to quote Khelgar during a memorable Neeshka/Elanee/Qara display, "Rrroowr!"), but it's all very good. All of it. All the time. I can see myself replaying a ton just to hear different people go off at each other.

A few bad things:

1. The voice acting varies between "OMG teh win!" (Khelgar, Sand) and "Random people off the street" (many lesser characters and voiceovers), which can be highly annoying. Guys, if you're going to have voice acting, do it well. Otherwise it breaks your game. Seriously.

2. Guys, this whole female rogue thing. Seriously. While we must agree on the awesomeness of Imoen, Nalia was generally annoying, Mission Vao was actually unplayable she was so annoying, and we'll kind of lump Mira in there too. And don't try to pretend that Neeshka isn't Mission's horned older sister, because you can't. I actually got to like Neeshka, but we really need a new idea, here. Atton Rand was awesome. Clone him.

While we're there, you haven't had a cool Paladin-type since Keldorn. Casavir reminds me of Anomen, and that's NOT a good thing. Trust me on this one. Also, Elanee as the token druid. You got it right with Jahiera and Faldorn. Stay there. Don't go all Cernd on me, please.

On the other hand, I wholeheartedly endorse the inclusion of belligerant dwarves. Khelgar is awesome. Keep doing this. It doesn't get old.

I'd also like to acknowledge Qara and Bishop as being wildly awesome, interesting, and unique.

3. On the negative side, though, when I only have four NPC slots to fill, I'd appreciate it if every other quest you weren't taking up one of those slots with some random NPC I never want to use otherwise. It gets very expensive on the gear, you understand, and I abhor having gnomes in my party. In fact, Grobnar's the first, and I hated every minute of it. And for gods' sakes, if you give me a choice between two NPCs to go do something, and I pick one, don't have the other one leap in and replace the one I picked. It sucks.

World and Plot:

In a word, damn cool. I STILL don't like Neverwinter as a setting (and never have - can we go to Westgate or something next?), but this game had a cool plot, full of double-crosses, intrigue, and twists. Act I dragged on a bit too long (very much like Chapter 2 of BG2, this is where ALL the side quests are), but Acts II and III were just about right. I felt like there were plenty of quests to do, and plenty to explore, which is directly the opposite of NWN1. It's not quite BG2 or Oblivion, but it's more than either KOTOR.

There's a stronghold. I don't want to talk about it much, except to say it's got so much awesome factor I could hardly restrain myself each and every moment I was there.

The mass combat fight scenes, in general, are fantastic, and there are a lot of them. It's very very cool in a way that I wanted, say, the Bruma one in Oblivion to be and it wasn't. There's a point in Act III where I had to stop myself from shouting in glee at 2am and waking up the house. Every game with mass combat for the last ten years I've been saying "Wow will this be better when they figure out how to put reasonable numbers of guys on screen at once." This has happened. Rejoice.

Unlike NWN1, I felt pretty good about the loot progression (if you read my review, it was one of things I felt VERY at issue about). It was even a bit Monty Haulish at times, but better too much than too little, I think. It's supplemented by a crafting system heavily based on what's in the D&D 3.5e DMG, which is very nice, if a tad overpowered (my ranger had a Holy Acidic Scimitar +5 and a Shocking Handaxe +5 of Disruption towards the end of the game, and let's not talk about what the dwarf had).

The fights, in general, were not so hard, though I was playing on Normal and had Qara in my party, which meant you could fling fireballs without issue. It wasn't quite a KOTOR2 level of ease, but it was noticable. I hear this is much improved on either Hardcore rules or without Qara blowing enormous holes in everything. YMMV, though the last battle STILL kicked my ass about 5 times.

Multiplayer

I'll talk briefly, because I've only played a little bit. Get a headset, because you won't be talking much otherwise. The game freezes every time you're in a conversation with an NPC, so good luck chatting during that. Also, every time somebody goes into a house or something, everyone in the party goes with, which is definitely not how it was in either BG, and I believe in NWN1, and is kind of annoying. Other than that? Playing the first bit of the SP campaign was pretty fun.

Other Stuff:

1. Unlike NWN1 pre-Hordes of the Underdark, NWN2 ships with more or less all the feats, classes, and presteige classes present in the core 3.5e rulebooks, with a few exceptions, but plus a few things. About the only thing I'm missing is my beloved Mystic Theurge class. This is one of the things that made me blindingly angry about NWN1, and I'm glad they learned that lesson.

2. Khelgar's still cool. He really is.

3. Deekin cameo! Yay Deekin!

4. On the downsides list, NWN2 sure is a resource hog, and I'm not sure why, exactly. Oblivion sure doesn't blow my system to hell like this. Not sure what the deal is, but it's noticable on area loads. Very noticable, even on a good system.

5. The manual's pretty hideous. It needs to be about twice as thick, and needs to explain a few of the finer points of the interface (want to quick slot a special ability? Do it from the character sheet, not the shift-right click dropdown menu. That took a while to learn). You guys had it right with the BG2 and both KOTORs. Why did you go wrong here?

6. One thing I am happy to see is good patch support a week and a half post-release. There have been two thus far, and I'm happy to see some sort of effort on the devs' part to fix some bugs. Most other companies, even Bethesda as much as I love them, don't seem to have this kind of ethic. And let's not even talk about Civ 3 here.

7. Khelgar, Destroyer of Worlds.

8. Oh, yes. While the voice acting is hit or miss, the soundtrack is generally great. I still haven't had anything replace Serpent Isle's soundtrack in my affections, but NWN2's is good.

9. I'd like to tell you about editing, but I can't yet.

Final Score: 7.5/10 aliens and the Most Improved Sequel award.

Posted by Dwip at November 12, 2006 2:12 PM