There is not much to say. Neverwinter Nights is fun, a lot of fun. It is also bland. Despite its figurative colorlessness, it has an addictive quality to it. I started down the Path to Gaming Enlightenment and Achievement of the One True Electronic Nirvana the arcades of the 1980s, when platform was my thing. "Just one more level—gimme another quarter, willya?" Perhaps that is why Neverwinter Nights worked for me. Gameplay has a certain sameness throughout; locations are all made from the same limited set of tiles; freedom of in-game choice is illusory—you see it but you don't feel it; after a very few times bashing open chests, I lost that little buzz of excitement on learning what lay within. The story is nothing special, yet another product of the Acme Fantastical Defy-the-Odds-and-Save-the-World Factory. I'm thinking it was the ongoing quest for more strength, better weapons, longer life that propelled me forward, much like the points and levels of Centipede or Crystal Castles of days gone by. And there are some dragons. Dragons are cool.

As for the plot, I very recently played Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, another game by the same developer. Same shit, different day—the stories are that similar (although the settings are wildly different). Even several of the puzzles are repeated. I really loved KOTOR, and I am well aware that it came after NWN. I am glad I played it first, though, because otherwise I would've felt at least some of the same disappointment with it, by far the better of the two games, that I now feel with Neverwinter Nights. It's as if these developers only have so many good ideas and they pack them all into every game they make. Which is okay, seeing as how it's balanced out by the fact that there are not very many bad ideas 'tall. Some, though.​