Review NWN2 review at Bit-Tech

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Neverwinter Nights 2; Obsidian Entertainment

<a href=http://www.bit-tech.net>Bit Tech</a> has posted a detailed NWN2 <a href=http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2007/01/02/neverwinter_nights_2/1.html>review</a>. The verdict is "Is NWN2 a bad game? Absolutely not. Is it a good game? Not really, at least in its current form", the score is 8.
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<blockquote>The game's premise is good, its framework is excellent, and its execution is mediocre. If you're looking for the splendid storytelling of Baldur's Gate 2 with better graphics, this misses - but not because of the story. The basic ingredients are all there - a well-done battle system, a party system that feels comfortable, even well-written dialogue between party members. Voice acting can be very good in places, and the actual play (bugs notwithstanding) is genuinely fun. The game also includes a tremendously successful community and wonderful developer support. That's something I can't even say about a lot of games that were nearly perfect right out of the box.
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However, one can't rate the game solely on its promise to be better in the future, however assured that will be. The official campaign is actually good in story, but pitiful in the world-building details that make a good game. Parts of the engine make it feel like it was trying to be something else, when it should have just stuck to what it's good at. And sitting under all of that poor level design and one-dimensional presentation is an engine that is at its very core flawed and bugged. It looks bad and acts worse. Is it patchable? Surely, but that's not what I had in front of me to review, even 2 months later.</blockquote>A bit too harsh, but kinda hard to argue with.
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[Jasede]

8? Out of 10 or what? And 8 does hardly mean "not really good" in my dictionary.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Well, you know how these things work. Games are being rated on a scale from 7 to 10, where 7 is utter trash, 8 is kinda crappy, 9 is pretty good, and 10 is Oblivion!!!

 

[Voss]

Score aside, the review itself isn't harsh at all. Its pretty honest. Its a far cry from that 'Game Informers' review of Gothic, or the group blow-fests that have followed other games.

 

[bylam]

Easy - Bioware has a history of releasing games right around what should be a beta stage.

He either means Obsidian or he has been smoking too much hooch.

 

[Ryuken]

Easy - Bioware has a history of releasing games right around what should be a beta stage.

He either means Obsidian or he has been smoking too much hooch.

Have you ever played NWN unpatched? Toolset never even worked for more than 10 minutes here without some updates. Those updates came fast yes, but NWN at release was far from a polished game, just as NWN2. Never had problems with BG series though.

 

[bylam]

Easy - Bioware has a history of releasing games right around what should be a beta stage.

He either means Obsidian or he has been smoking too much hooch.

Have you ever played NWN unpatched? Toolset never even worked for more than 10 minutes here without some updates. Those updates came fast yes, but NWN at release was far from a polished game, just as NWN2. Never had problems with BG series though.

Granted... but one game hardly makes a "history" as the writer said. I can't think that BG, BG2, KOTOR, JE were considered to be in beta at release.

 

[aboyd]

8? Out of 10 or what? And 8 does hardly mean "not really good" in my dictionary.

On the last page of the review, he admits he is being overly generous, because of the history of NWN 1 (which is that it was terrible upon release, but patched and patched and patched until it was much better). He is clearly expecting NWN 2 to get the same degree of patch goodness that NWN 1 got. He's giving what he guesses will be the longer-term score.

 

[Volourn]

"Easy - Bioware has a history of releasing games right around what should be a beta stage."

Utter bullshit. All of BIO's games, including NWN, wer efully playable from the get go. Did they have bugs? Sure. But for 99% of players, fully playable from start to finish.

 

[aboyd]

A bit too harsh, but kinda hard to argue with.

Well... yeah, I guess so. I read it and found myself agreeing with every criticism he raised. I mean, it's all true. But at the same time, I don't really care.

For example, he criticizes the way the cities were made, because the net effect is that Neverwinter "feels" about the same size as any of the other towns in the game. That is true. And it's a mistake by the Obsidian gang. But how often did I dwell upon that? Not once. The extent of my caring was to say, "hey, he's right" as I read the review.

He makes a complaint about time passing -- namely, that it doesn't seem relevant much. That's true. And it's a better criticism than city size, as I at least was bothered by this in-game. But the extent of my being bothered was to say "yeah right" whenever an NPC would give me a quest and say "hurry!" So his complaint is real, it's just a question of how much it matters. I'd say, not much.

I'm far more compelled by the arguments here at the Codex about the combat system sucking (which he claims is great). I'm more compelled by the arguments here that the battles are too easy (which he says are at just the right difficulty). I feel that the UI in its default state is not very good (he says it's much improved over NWN 1). But whatever the case, I've found mods to cover almost all of my problems.

He is right about one thing, though. The graphics are mediocre, but the requirements to run it are much higher than warranted.

 

[aboyd]

"Easy - Bioware has a history of releasing games right around what should be a beta stage."

Utter bullshit. All of BIO's games, including NWN, wer efully playable from the get go. Did they have bugs? Sure. But for 99% of players, fully playable from start to finish.

Um. I think you're trying to rewrite history there. According to my review on Amazon, from September 2002, I couldn't even get NWN 1 to run, months after release, and apparently many many many others could not do it either. These were known bugs -- the "11% bug" was well known as the point in hardware detection where the game would die. It took Bioware a long time to fix all these problems. They did fix them, and they are to be commended for sticking with the game and getting it into wonderful shape, but let's not pretend that they did well from the start.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Have you ever played NWN unpatched? Toolset never even worked for more than 10 minutes here without some updates. Those updates came fast yes, but NWN at release was far from a polished game, just as NWN2. Never had problems with BG series though.

Well, I played it unpatched. Ran smoothly for me. First crash actually came packaged with the second patch, which was a bit of a moment.

Never bothered with the toolset though.

Edit: And NWN2 hasn't crashed at all for me. Yay!

 

[Volourn]

"According to my review on Amazon,"

I don't give a crap about your review espicially since you embellish with bullshit numbers that you had/have no way of verify.

"10s of thousands"

What utter tripe.

If you had just stuck with your own personal issues, and maybe pointed that 'many others' had similair problems; I'd just nod. But, once someone starts throwing out random numbers just to 'prove' something; I smell complete and utter bullshit.

ie. Hundreds of thosuands of NWN players have had no problems with getting NWN1 to run fine from the get go..

R00fles!

 

[kingcomrade]

What utter tripe.

Spacemoose, attack!

 

[aboyd]

"According to my review on Amazon,"

I don't give a crap about your review espicially since you embellish with bullshit numbers that you had/have no way of verify.

I know. Pulling up old posts that fly in the face of your revisionist history is very inconvenient for you.

But for 99% of players, fully playable from start to finish.

Whoops. What was that about bullshit numbers that we have no way to verify? Hmm?

 

[Volourn]

L0L

Sarcasm is flying over your ehad and burrowing under your feet.

What a maroon.

 

[aboyd]

You're not crying, are you, Volurn? Your post came off like a defeated kid trying to shout comebacks at a bully.

Tell you what. PM me your Paypal address. I'll send you a couple bucks, so you can treat yourself to an ice cream cone.

 

[Volourn]

"You're not crying, are you, Volurn?"

Crying? There's no crying in posting. If someone cries over a post they should laughed at. R00fles!

"Your post came off like a defeated kid trying to shout comebacks at a bully."

"Tell you what. PM me your Paypal address. I'll send you a couple bucks, so you can treat yourself to an ice cream cone."

Only defeated kiddies try to bribe the neighbourhood bully with an icecream cone. Am I being too mean by pointing out the silliness of your numbers masturbation?

R00fles!

 

[Solaris]

Well, you know how these things work. Games are being rated on a scale from 7 to 10, where 7 is utter trash, 8 is kinda crappy, 9 is pretty good, and 10 is Oblivion!!!

Aint that the truth. Which is one of the reasons scores these days mean bugger all really...but on a true scale of 1-10 I'd say they really mean a 6.

I agree with the review in general though. Obsidian's technical skills just can't match their lofty premise. They screwed over Kotor2 the same way....at least they're consistant

 

[Avin]

Volo was owned, nothing new here.

 

[Volourn]

"Volo was owned, nothing new here."

1. No. You lie. But, that isn't new.

2. Salvery is immoral, and if you support slavery youa re immoral and pathetic. You pathetic moron.