G4TV

For many pen and paper RPGers, computer-based RPGs just don’t cut it. The constricting and plot-driven games fail to offer the same sense of immersion and flexibility that classics like AD&D can offer. And, honestly, it’s hard for any graphics card to compete with a good imagination. However, the first Neverwinter Nights won more than a few would-be tabletop gamers over to the world of Computer RPGs on its way to becoming a hit thanks largely to its expandable nature. However, it also had a lot of appeal for the non-hardcore RPG gamer. Its successor, Neverwinter Nights 2, offers much of the same appeal for the hardcore group, but won’t do much for most casual gamers.

Roots

Neverwinter Nights 2 (when was the last time we saw an RPG sequel without a subtitle!?) is based within the extremely popular world of Forgotten Realms, one of the many similar realms that live through books, games, and cartoons all tied to Dungeons and Dragons, that most timeless and popular of RPG rule sets. As you’d expect given the game’s heritage this game is very faithful to the lore and the framework that spawned it. Occasionally, though, it’s a little too faithful.

Like in the pen and paper D&D games, every time you do anything here your fate is determined by a roll of one or more dice. Additionally, when you pick up a new sword that delivers bonus damage it’ll be called something boring like “Broadsword+1.” D&D fans know that means a bonus added to each damage roll, but in a game played on the computer, a device that saves us having to deal with the sometimes painfully slow process of rolling handfuls of dice all the time, it seems odd for the whole thing to be so outwardly dice-based. Hardcore fans may appreciate seeing the results of every rolled die displayed on screen, but Joe Gamer shouldn’t have to read the manual to find out what 3d6 means or why they should be any more excited about finding a sword with a “+1” on the end.

While the constant reliance on dice is a drag, one place where this game’s D&D ties really shine is in its expandability. When played with pen and paper, a Dungeons and Dragons campaign is created by a dungeon master who is free to make up any scenario he likes. Neverwinter Nights 2 offers much the same abilities through a very simple and seamless creation tool. Through it anyone can piece together a campaign and then distribute it, either hosting games online for people to join or just letting others download it on their own. Already the user-created content available online is much more plentiful than the stuff that ships with the game.

On the Campaign Trail

Despite the copious amounts of user-created content online most gamers who pick this up will dive right in to the offline single player campaign, creating a character and investigating the root cause of a seemingly unprovoked attack against your small home town. Running through the story will take an average gamer a good while and, though it isn’t exactly full of optional side quests, you will be inundated with choices on how to develop your character, most of which affect how he is perceived by others in the game.

It all starts with character creation. Appearance choices are honestly a little limited when compared to other games in the genre, but when it comes to picking abilities and attributes (the important bits) you’ll be swimming in options. There are more than 20 variations of race to peruse and a huge number of classes too, ranging from barbarians to shadow dancers, each class offering a plethora of special skills to match.

Creating your in-game character can take upwards of 10 minutes if you’re serious about it, and you should be, because these early choices will have a big impact on who your character becomes later in the game. Additionally, the character that you create for the offline campaign can be exported and used for online games, meaning you could ultimately spend quite a bit of time with this character.

The Party Life

RPGs are all about parties, and this one is no different. Playing through the single-player mode you’ll rarely be without some companion or another. This enables you to focus your character more narrowly on a certain class, be it necromancer or berserker, relying on your party mates to make up for your deficiencies. In Neverwinter Nights 2 you have the choice of just controlling your main character and letting the others follow along, or of taking manual control of everyone in the party.

Sadly, neither approach really works. The first approach is problematic because, even when instructed to stay close to the main character, your party mates will often wander off or lag behind, meaning your tank of a warrior may not enter an area packed with enemies until long after your wimpy mage has been pummeled to death. Additionally, their pathfinding abilities are terrible, so if a doorway is blocked while someone enters a room the rest of your party is liable to go running down the hallway to find an alternate route instead of just waiting a moment.

The other option, that of bossing around every character manually, doesn’t work either because there’s usually too much going on. You can, if you like, pause the game at any time, select orders for every person, then unpause and let them do their thing. This works, but it takes forever, and trying to frantically click around to every person without pausing gets tiring. This is all complicated by a camera that doesn’t cooperate, either changing perspective dizzyingly as you click between characters or hiding itself behind a wall or a roof, leaving you with a lovely view of…nothing. 

Working Hard, Hardly Working

Neverwinter Nights 2 offers a selection of acceptable but not exactly impressive graphics. Characters tend to be simplistic in appearance and lack a lot of detail. The same can be said for the environments with their bland textures and colors. However, the game does feature visual niceties like normal mapping and some solid lighting, those combined with simple but generally good looking magic effects mean it’s ultimately a perfectly decent looking title.

The problem is it’s a complete system hog. It places far more demands on a given system than many other far more visually impressive games, leaving one to wonder just what all that juice is being used for. (Surely those die rolls can’t be that hard to simulate?) Voice acting ranges from mediocre to very bad, though sound effects are on the whole much more passable.

Extremely Faithful

Some RPGs can captivate wide audiences, games like Knights of the Old Republic and Oblivion, whose gameplay is intuitive enough and storylines involving enough that typical gamers will have a good ‘ol time. This game, unfortunately, tries too hard to play true to its D&D roots to be able to offer much appeal to casual gamers. It’s not that dice are hard to figure out; most gamers will just find them boring and lame. So, if you know who Drizzt Do’Urden is and have a bag of d6’s somewhere within reach this is absolutely your game. Otherwise, you’d be well advised to roll on to something a little different.

Article by: Tim Stevens
Video produced by: Michael Leffler