Neverwinter Nights 2
Nov 1, 2006
Play Obsidian Entertainment's latest role-playing game, and if you can look past the distinctly up-to-the-minute graphics, you might be forgiven for thinking the golden age of computer fantasy role-playing games like Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment had returned. Neverwinter Nights 2 bears far more resemblance to these greats of the genre than it does to its predecessor, and that's entirely to its credit.
Neverwinter Nights 2 is based closely on the Dungeons & Dragons v3.5 ruleset. Yes, that might conjure up pictures of crowds of nerds sitting around someone's mother's dining-room table rolling 20-sided dice for hours. But one of Neverwinter Nights' great successes is the way it insulates you from much of the complexity of the underlying system. Assuming that's the way you want it, of course.
You start the game by creating a character, and here, if you're used to lesser RPGs, you'll probably be stuck for a while. The list of races and classes is exhaustive, each with its own pros and cons, and when you consider that most characters will be able to pick up to three more classes as they gain experience, the possibilities are overwhelming at first. New players -- and doubtless some more experienced ones -- will appreciate the handy "Recommended" button that makes sensible picks for you.
During the game you'll typically be joined by three other characters, each with their own persona and sense of morality. No, there's nothing on Planescape: Torment's level of character development, but on the other hand NWN2's inhabitants are a considerable step forward over the disposable "henchmen" of the first Neverwinter game. Each has stories to tell, and comes with plenty of dialogue that's both solidly written and convincingly acted. Although your group is perhaps a little small by traditional genre standards, this is still definitely a party-based RPG - you almost always have complete control over the actions and character development of your pals.
Mind you, the plot doesn't exactly get off to an auspicious start. You begin the game competing in a village fair with three of your buddies, in a sequence that serves as an extended tutorial. No sooner are you done with the competition when, shock, horror, it's attacked by hordes of demonspawn, wiping out most of your buddies. Oh well, better retrieve some random, mysterious artifact and head for the bright lights of Neverwinter for some answers. But wait! The part of the town you really needed to reach has been blocked off by the city watch! How's that for bad luck?
Such criticisms aren't entirely fair. At least Neverwinter Nights 2 shows some flair in how it implements these admittedly cliched plot twists. You're cast as a mainstay of the town's defense in a huge battle and given creative options to resolve the blockade. It improves considerably as you go further. Before you finish up you'll have your pick of the best for your companions, and a hulking castle (complete with its own army) to call your own.
So how does it look? If this year's RPG smash Oblivion wasn't enough to convince you, NWN2 will leave you in no doubt: the days of staid-looking role-playing games are deader than flared armor with pockets in the knees. Neverwinter Nights 2 is every bit as good looking as Oblivion, although certainly not in the same outdoorsy, free-roaming kind of way. You can't run anywhere near as far without hitting a wall or a loading point, for one thing. Neverwinter's streets, swamps, and catacombs more than make up for it in variety, however, and the character animations are far better.
You can more or less configure the camera to suit you, whether you prefer an RTS-style rotatable view, an old-school top-down perspective, or an action game-like over-the-shoulder angle. Once you do get down to ground level, you'll see all kinds of details - and yes, unlike the first Neverwinter game, the rooms do have ceilings now. It has much more of the feel of the old-school Infinity Engine and that's surely a good thing.
Spell effects positively leap off the screen, giving your back-row posse all the "shazam" of a medieval David Blaine. No, wait - that should be "a great deal more shazam" than a medieval David Blaine. All the cutscenes are in-engine and look fantastic, thanks to the absolutely first-rate character models. Make sure your PC's in good shape, though, because the system requirements are steep.
Excellently voiced though the game's characters are, they're lacking some of the more advanced AI options we're used to seeing from this type of game. Left to themselves, quite frankly, they're not too bright. Target prioritization is a particular problem: often your characters will run from one end of a fight to the other with no apparent reason in mind, and splurge all their spells on an unthreatening lizardman without a care.
Still, that's easily fixed by just taking control of them all yourself, switching off the teammate AI altogether, and that's something power D&D players will want to do straight away. Keep one hand on the pause key, and the chaos of controlling four characters at once is minimized.
But for all that, it's not actually a very tough game. For one thing, nobody really dies -- they just sort of keel over, and remain grounded until any nearby enemies are killed or retreat. Then they'll be back on their feet and ready to be healed. Only if your whole party is felled do you get to see the big, bad Game Over screen.
Yes, this system is indeed vulnerable to cheesy running-away-and-healing tactics, but then the game's also open to cheesy quicksave-every-step tactics, and it's always up to you whether you take advantage of them or not. It neatly sidesteps the need to mess around with temples or raise dead spells, and that's certainly a good thing.
Get tired of all that fighting, and you might want to check out the game's other conflict resolution options. Sink your skill points into the right areas, and you'll be able to talk your way around some fights with diplomacy, threats or bluffs - Knights of the Old Republic players will know the drill. Bored of that? Try the crafting system, which lets you combine rare ingredients with recipes and spells to create powerful items.
But one of the best things about the game is its sheer replayability. Once the humungous campaign finally rolls up, too, we challenge you not to jump straight back in, choosing a totally different class; maybe a mace-wielding half-demon Tiefling berserker. Or a bard. Or a warlock. Or one of the umpteen high-powered Prestige classes. Oh, and this time you just have to choose all the evil dialog options, kill as many innocents as possible, and generally be the bad guy, assuming you didn't do that on your first play through, of course. This, like all the best computer RPGs, is not the kind of game you only play through once.
Or, necessarily, on your own. Fans of the genre will not be shocked to hear that you can play through the entire campaign with up to three friends. Sure, a pick-up-and-play online buddy isn't going to stick with you for the weeks it'll take, but if you have a regular group of gaming buddies it'll be just the ticket. But you're sure to get bored of the same campaign eventually, even with all that variety, right?
Wrong. Well, perhaps not, but the point is that it doesn't matter. The game ships with a built-in, easy to use toolkit with awesomely powerful functionality -- in short, it's everything you need to create your own adventures, using the same engine and gameplay system as the regular campaign. They can be just as complex as the supplied story, or more so if you have the talent. Single-player or multiplayer adventures are both possible, and so are player-versus-player arenas. In short, the possibilities are only limited by your ideas.
Neverwinter Nights 1 spawned a colossal number of superb add-ons, community-developed and official, that expanded its lifespan many, many times beyond the content that came in the retail box. There's no reason to think this one will be worse off - quite the opposite, if anything. The only thing that's missing is a "dungeon master" interface for players to control and manage the play experience of others, but that's coming.
If the focus of the first Neverwinter Nights left you cold, or if the recent dearth of classic-style role-playing games is getting you down, NWN2 is the cure. It's no Baldur's Gate II, nor is it a Planescape: Torment, but the way things are going it's the closest we're likely to get this century. As to what the vast Neverwinter Nights community will find to do with the toolkit, and how the multiplayer takes off, time will tell, but even if your interest is just in vanilla RPG epics you'll be well served by NWN2. In other words, just buy it already.