Neverwinter Nights

"Well, it has a pretty box."

It’s been said once, and I’ll say it again. This game was a disappointment to all of those who were waiting for the follow-up to BG2. Mad props go to the marketing guys who raised the hype up about this game, they deserve a 10 of 10 for that one. Honestly, I could have been stranded in a place where I didn’t speak the language and totally missed playing NWN, and I really wouldn’t have missed much.

· Gameplay – (4/10) – This irritated me the most about the game. I missed the party system that most RPGs have, and the single Henchman didn’t make up for it. From what I understand, this was due to the fact that the game was supposed to mirror the DnD Third Edition rules. Well, as a 3E player, I can say that the conversion didn’t work well. Certain skills were added in to “enrich” the play experience, but when a first level fighter can parry every attack that a 5th level fighter makes on him (Improved Parry, Skill Focus: Parry), that crosses a line. Also, when a mage’s familiar can kill it’s owner in one hit (Panther Familiar Sneak Attack), it becomes less of a familiar and more an everyday summoned creature.

· Story – (6/10) – Decent, but not great. Seems to me that it was someone’s ADND quest put on the computer screen. While it may have worked well for the pen-and-paper version, I found that the characters always seemed really distant when talking to me up until the very end of the game, and by then I almost didn’t care. The whole “go to (place x)/kill person or steal item/return to (place y)” thing really didn’t suit me either, after a couple of those sidequests I decided to go right for the main plot.

· Audio/Video – (7/10) Graphics could have been better. I did sorta enjoy the “overhead slash then right slash then lunge” thing in the animation, but the characters looked really bad and it took a lot of messing with the armor to fix that. Sound was pretty much the same as in most games that I play for more than an hour at a time: I kill the background music. Some good voice acting though.

· Replayability – (3/10) Very little. After the good character game and the evil character game, you pretty much exhaust the gameplay. Multiplay doesn’t add much to the main campaign, although with a REALLY good DM you can get a little decent play time in.

· To buy or to rent? – Since you can’t rent PC games,
I won’t tell you that it would be the better choice. Wait until it goes down to $5 like Daikatana did, then buy it. That way, you only blow about what you can make in an hour at a minimum wage job. Otherwise, borrow it from someone else who’s already gotten bored with it.

Overall – 3 of 10 – Save yourself the money and skip it, or, if you have to have this game, either wait for the price to go down $40 or borrow it from someone else.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 09/13/02, Updated 09/13/02