Review NWN2 review at Worthplaying

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Neverwinter Nights 2; Obsidian Entertainment

<a href=http://www.worthplaying.com>Worthplaying</a> has posted a <a href=http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=38314&mode=thread&order=0>review</a> of <a href=http://www.atari.com/nwn2/>NWN 2</a>, giving it 9/10 and the editor's choice award, while referring to the official campaign (aka the actual game) as a sample of what the toolkit can do and making mandatory Oblivion references.
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<blockquote>Combat is really about clicking the right place at the right time, which makes it a sometimes frantic and confusing brawl, where it's not always apparent what is going on, and why. That may stem from other problems in a completely different area, though, like the graphics.</blockquote>?
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<blockquote>Much has been made of NWN2's ambitious new graphic engine, with beautiful foliage, multi-layered sky, and "height-generated" buildings in the outside environments, whatever exactly that means. It also pointed out that system requirements would be rather lofty, with only the upper echelons of the gaming community even able to get near it. I do hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but I've logged hours here, and I simply don't see it. There is nothing here that's above and beyond places we've been before, even in games like KOTOR from two years ago, and if this is supposed to compete with Oblivion, then there will be much sadness in Mudville, for the mighty engine has scored at best a double on an wild throw to first.</blockquote>Where do they get these morons?
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[Volourn]

1. Combat plays pretty much exactly as NWN1, and that game was not about 'clicking wildly'. LOL What a maroon.

2. The graphics look gorgeous overall. However, forget comapring it to Oblivion. of recent releases, FF12 SQUASHES it, and its on the ancient PS2.

WOWSERS!

P.S. This game is a sequel to NWN1!

LONG LIVE NWN SERIES!!!!

 

[suibhne]

That passage doesn't sound so ridiculous to me, VD. The only thing I don't get about "Oblivion = graphics paragon" is that the game looks like ass out of the box on most (non-$3000) machines.

Anyway, I don't see the applicability of the first part if there's a pause button, and I thought there was a pause button...?

 

[Whipporowill]

<blockquote>Combat is really about clicking the right place at the right time, which makes it a sometimes frantic and confusing brawl, where it's not always apparent what is going on, and why. That may stem from other problems in a completely different area, though, like the graphics.</blockquote>?

So... he's too stupid to dig out the pause button, or has NWN2 done away with that? And I heard something about response time being an issue... before the patch at least? Maybe that's what he's inferring there. Actually a valid complaint in that case...

 

[Solaris]

Jeez, I wish these reviewers would stop with this Oblivion benchmarking crap.

Other than that it sounds promising. I'm sort of looking forward to grabbing my copy on friday. I still have doubts about the combat thing tho. Guess it'll be one of those things that you either love or hate....not too fussed tho, if the game has good depth in other areas.

 

[Voss]

Pause is there.

The only thing I've noticed with a response time is pathfinding is a touch slow. Combat really isn't much of an issue, except indoors with certain camera views.

Someone post a good screenshot or two from Oblivion. I think the NWN2 graphics are great, if you can run them high, and good even if you can't.
Its way above the original graphics wise, and several steps past kotor 1 or 2.

 

[VenomByte]

That passage doesn't sound so ridiculous to me, VD. The only thing I don't get about "Oblivion = graphics paragon" is that the game looks like ass out of the box on most (non-$3000) machines.

Anyway, I don't see the applicability of the first part if there's a pause button, and I thought there was a pause button...?

Oblivion isn't *that* amazing even on a $3000 machine...at least, not without a significant amount of .ini tweaks/texture mods...

I for one, would prefer games companies concentrate less on how shiny and detailed all their blades of grass are, and instead focus on having them actually draw at further than ten feet away without fear of the FPS dropping.

 

[Volourn]

"Its way above the original graphics wise,"

LOL better than a 4 year old game. Damning with faint praise. I think NWN2's graphics are solid. Not great; just solid. And, it having better graphics than either KOTOR is debateable...

 

[Whipporowill]

What matters most to me is the art direction they seem to have taken with NWN2. I just can't take the clown costumes, turbans and moustaches of NWN... horrible, horrible.

 

[Elwro]

Someone post a good screenshot or two from Oblivion.

Here you go:



Athlon 64 3600+, 1 GB RAM (DDR2), GeForce 6600GT 256 MBs. Runs quite nice.

 

[EEVIAC]

I don't know what he's talking about with "lofty system requirements" if Voss can run it on a $100 card that's over two years old.

 

[Voss]

Not bad. At the high end, I think they'd be pretty close.


Eeviac, to be fair I've got the graphics settings turned all the way down, and at that level they aren't as purty as those oblivion shots. So if you really want the graphics package, you need some serious shit in the graphics slot.

 

[Volourn]

Even all the way up, the graphics aren't 'top of the line'. They're good; but not award winning. That's reserved for FF12.

 

[JrK]

Who cares.

 

[Inziladun]

Even all the way up, the graphics aren't 'top of the line'. They're good; but not award winning. That's reserved for FF12.

Ok Volourn, ignoring the JPEG artifacts on both screenies, you're honestly saying This is better than this?

I'm not claiming NWN2 are top of the line graphics, they arn't, but they're sure as hell better than FFXII. FFXII may have a excellent art direction going it's way and it makes short work of all the PS2 games out there, but it suffers from the poor hardware the PS2 has to offer and it shows.

 

[Volourn]

Yes.. Have you played both games? It's no contest. FF12 wins hands down.

 

[Inziladun]

Yes.. Have you played both games? It's no contest. FF12 wins hands down.

Yes, I own both games. FFXII is much better in an artistic sense, but NWN2 beats it in pure graphical power. Not sure how I can explain this to you, other than saying all of FFXII's textures are low res. I am, though, quite impressed that Square managed to get so much out of the PS2.

If you got a machine to play NWN2 in all it's glory, just compare them yourself, side by side. Zoom in on FFXII and see how poorly it scales compared to NWN2.

 

[Twinfalls]

This is a most ridiculous discussion.

 

[Dmitron]

This is a most ridiculous discussion.

Any discussion featuring F(ist) F(uck) is.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Ok Volourn, ignoring the JPEG artifacts on both screenies, you're honestly saying This is better than this?

Well, I think that clearly settles it. Final Fantasy XXIIVMMCCDHJAXAWLOLZ wins. Any game that can put a smiley face icon above every character and get away with it must have awesome graphics.

 

[suibhne]

Elwro, go ahead and post a screenie of the view from the sewers right after you get out of prison, with no .ini tweaks or add-on textures and with a playable framerate (25+).

I eventually got Oblivion to look very nice on a rig with very similar specs to yours, relying on tips from ESF modders, and I'm quite happy with the results. But I said "out of box" above, and the default .ini and shipping landscape textures look really bad with any wide-open vista.

 

[Volourn]

"If you got a machine to play NWN2 in all it's glory, just compare them yourself, side by side."

I do, and I have.FF ismuchbetter.

 

[Elwro]

Elwro, go ahead and post a screenie of the view from the sewers right after you get out of prison, with no .ini tweaks or add-on textures and with a playable framerate (25+).

OK, I somehow missed the "out of the box" part. I took the screens yesterday, and about 2 months ago I've tweaked the INI file as much as I could. I also forgot that I used the high quality texture mod So yeah, sorry. But the game runs really decently after the tweaking.
Funny you mention the view after exiting the sewers. When I played it for the first time, I thought the game looked decent indoors with the default options. But when I exited the sewers... the game looked worse, and I mean it, than Morrowind. It turned out that Oblivion thought 320x200 with everything turned off was ideal for my PC.

And I didn't tell you that to make the forest screens I had to wait a few seconds for all the objects to pop in But it's really playable on such settings, I've played it for quite some time...

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

This is a most ridiculous discussion.

Any discussion featuring F(ist) F(uck) is.

Speaking of which though, Pinky Tuscadero's White Knuckle Assfuck is a great band.

 

[baelstren]

What matters most to me is the art direction they seem to have taken with NWN2. I just can't take the clown costumes, turbans and moustaches of NWN... horrible, horrible.

The lack of "wizard pajamas" is a good start. NWN2 looks decent compared to the overall presentation of recent games. NWN2's closeups are better than those in Oblivion (in which every NPC had some horrid kind of acne), and similarly, the draw distance doesn't degrade into N64 nostalgia.