Review Mask of the Betrayer Review

[Deleted member 7219]

VD, your review misses something very, very important-

Music and Voice Acting. First, how is the music? Good background music helps me a lot in liking a game. I find most good games have good music, most bad games bad music. Second, is there voice-acting? If yes, is it good (good being Kotor 2-level, it doesn't have to be Bloodlines good, though arguable, Kotor 2's is better in at least some ways (Kreia Kreia Kreia Kreia Kreia))? Is everything voiced or just some things?

The voice acting and music are EXTREMELY well done. One thing great about the music is that a lot of it doesnt sound like generic epic fantasy crap. Specially the music during the final battle.

Quoted for truth.

 

[Zomg]

I'm oblivious to music, but the VA is pretty good. The voices are well chosen and the acting is acceptable if very low-key (which goes with the lack of any animation during dialog other than lip-sync and a little head-nodding). If you're anal about voice acting like me you'll notice quite a few misreadings of context but in total it's very good quality and you don't have stuff like ten different shitty British/American variety accents from ten different people in the same hamlet.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Good review. Slightly unproffesional in normal meaning.

But this reply amazed me:

That's the best part. They[choises] are very easy to miss. Before writing my review I looked at several walkthroughs. In every one I saw plenty of stuff that they missed and had no clue that an alternative path/outcome exists.

Because some unprofessunal bastard and hooligan once said:
"That's what makes Fallout so awesome. No, not the nuke. That "I never realized..." thing."

Where is the inconsistency?

 

[Hazelnut]

I suspect that, given RPG genre's last few years, you're probably over enthusing a bit more than you would if this had been released in a RPG golden age...

Nope. Ok, granted, such sentiments are very, very subjective, but I loved the game not because there is nothing else to play or because the game reminds me of the golden age games. No, this IS a golden age game. In some aspects, it's much better than the golden age games. I kid you not.

Well that's Christmas 2007 sorted for me then... The Orange Box (only playing TF2 until xmas day ) and NWN2 + MotB. (oh, and maybe the Witcher if I can run it and find it cheap somewhere)

:D

(and then AoD in 2008.. )

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Very nice very nice.

I totally agree about the Spirit meter Mechanics.
It is a moron indicator.

 

[TruthDecay]

Woah, this sounds almost like an entirely different game from NWN2. I enjoyed NWN2 because I shamelessly like building characters and sifting through loot. I'd love the hell out of Diablo 2 if the multiplayer aspect wasn't so intolerable. Finally I can get a game that has the character building that also provides a meaningful experience as well besides Kill-n-Loot.

Of course, this means I need to finish that shit-heap of a final dungeon from NWN2. I love how the game trains you to rest between waves and waves of enemies only to take the mechanic away from you at the last minute. Oh well, the final two battles should be loads of fun when I'm already on the brink of death!

 

[Vault Dweller]

Woah, this sounds almost like an entirely different game from NWN2.

It *is* an entirely different game. Different mechanics, style, design.

 

[Saxon1974]

Hmm, nice review VD. I might pick this one up, I know you don't give out good reviews without some validity......

Question, if you start at level 18, how much room for leveling is there? I like the aspect of growing a character from the beggining so high level games usually turn me off...What the cap on the levels for D&D?

 

[Azarkon]

If MCA only worked on 2 characters and a small part of the game - then what prevented the writters from making a good story for the original campaing?

Different lead designers and, consequently, visions for what makes a "good" story.

And the fact that in an expansion, you have a lot more freedom, since you've already established your audience and isn't trying to "appeal to the masses."

 

[Annonchinil]

I posted this before about PC building, but it turns out I have more money than I was initially willing to spend. So far I am planning on getting this graphics card

Sapphire x1950xt

I was told that it is great for price/performance, however is there anything better in the 1950 series or the Nvidia 7000 series that is worth spending money on?

Here is the full config.

AMD x2 4600+ 2.4ghz
DFI Infinity AM2 NF570
Crucial Ballistix 2x1gb DDR2 800 4-4-4-12
Sapphire x1950xt
WesternDigital SE16 320gb 7200rpm 16mb SATA
Sony NEC Optiarc DVD Burner SATA
CoolerMaster Centurion5 mid-tower
Corsair HX520w

I will also replace the case, PSU, Hardrive, DVD drive with some components that I can find at my local Korean store as they have built me PC's before and I trust them. Is there any specifications that these components are supposed to meet? Finally I plan to replace the Crucial Ballistix with some Geil PC2-4300 that I got for free, would that be possible?

I am also open to suggestions and spending more money as long as its not top of the line

 

[Futile Rhetoric]

Since you're buying a new system, I would suggest splurging on a 8800GTS (320Mb should be enough). The performance gain is insane.

I'd go for Intel, myself, and I haven't bought a motherboard that wasn't Asus-made in almost a decade. Which is not to say that your choices are bad, per se.

Also, consider getting a bigger power supply (600W, say).

 

[The_Pope]

I'm going to plug the geforce 8 series too. It's the biggest performance jump I've seen since the geforce 2.

 

[Annonchinil]

Will I have to get a different mobo? What about the generic components and the geil RAM?

 

[cardtrick]

Since you're buying a new system, I would suggest splurging on a 8800GTS (320Mb should be enough). The performance gain is insane.

This isn't true. In general the 8800GTS is somewhat faster than the X1950XT, but the difference varies widely and is often insignificant. Sometimes the X1950XT actually outperforms the 8800GTS! (See, for example, Tom's Hardware Guide.)

The biggest advantage of the 8800GTS over the X1950XT isn't its power but the fact that it supports DX10. At some point in the future, good games are going to start requiring DX10, but so far (and for the near/mid future) this is pretty much a nonissue. Developers have to design for what people have, and not enough people have DX10 cards.

Also, note that the X1950XT dramatically outperforms the 8600. When the X1950XT came out, it was a wet dream card, and it's still a solid performer.

I was told that it is great for price/performance, however is there anything better in the 1950 series or the Nvidia 7000 series that is worth spending money on?

Nope, the X1950XT is definitely the best performer until you hit the 8800GTS. It's also (typically) a great overclocker, if you're into that.

Really, it all comes down to price. When I was building my PC, the X1950XT was available for $140 and the cheapest 8800GTS available was more like $300. Comparable performance at less than half the cost was a no-brainer at the time. Then a bunch of hardware sites started running articles about what a ridiculously good deal the X1950XT was, and it's price started rising; now, I think it may be so expensive that it's not worth it. If you can find a cheap one, though, it's worth getting, and it won't be disappointing.

 

[Futile Rhetoric]

Since you're buying a new system, I would suggest splurging on a 8800GTS (320Mb should be enough). The performance gain is insane.

This isn't true. In general the 8800GTS is somewhat faster than the X1950XT, but the difference varies widely and is often insignificant. Sometimes the X1950XT actually outperforms the 8800GTS! (See, for example, Tom's Hardware Guide.

The biggest advantage of the 8800GTS over the X1950XT isn't its power but the fact that it supports DX10. At some point in the future, good games are going to start requiring DX10, but so far (and for the near/mid future) this is pretty much a nonissue. Developers have to design for what people have, and not enough people have DX10 cards.

Also, note that the X1950XT dramatically outperforms the 8600. When the X1950XT came out, it was a wet dream card, and it's still a solid performer.

Aye, I was thinking x1950 PRO. The XT variant seems to be quite an improvement. However, the Dark Messiah benchmark seems to say very little about the cards, and a lot about the game's code; every other benchmark shows the 8800 ahead by a healthy margin.

 

[cardtrick]

Kind of back to MOTB. I was just looking at free/used space on my disk, and my NWN2OTB installation is taking up 9 gigs. This seems really, really high. Is this normal, or is something weird going on for me?

 

[Badesumofu]

Cardtrick: yes, that's about right. The saves, which will be in my doccuments somewhere also take up a shitload of space. It's pretty annoying.

As for rigs, I'm running it with a 6800GS (which is about as powerful as a 6800GT) AMD 3800+ Venice, and 2 GB of RAM. NWN2 didn't run that well when I first got it, but now it runs very well. MotB is a very pretty game (10 years on, and they've managed to make something as pretty as PS:T and BG2) and it runs perfectly on my mediocre rig.

The 'I never realised' thing is something I haven't experienced since Arcanum, and I'm only just now realising how much I missed it. The subsequent playthroughs of this game are as much fun as the first, just for all the stuff you discover; all the stuff you realise can go so differently; all the stuff you missed the first time, even though you were trying to be thourough.

I was thinking about the character system, and epic levels can be boring. If you level a single class, they probably will be. They can be more interesting when you experiment with builds that involve 3 or 4 classes. You can put together some interesting combinations, discover synergies between the abilities of different classes that you couldn't combine previously. Still, I'd prefer a system where each class kept getting new and interesting abilities from level 1 to level N.

 

[Annonchinil]

Between the Sapphire x1950xt and the 8800GTS

-I don't much care about DX10
-Which version of the 8800GTS is comparable?
-Which one uses less power?

Any help would be great, I'll check back in after I see the Canadian prices for the cards.

 

[Gambler]

What difficulty level are you playing on?

 

[Needles]

Between the Sapphire x1950xt and the 8800GTS

-I don't much care about DX10
-Which version of the 8800GTS is comparable?
-Which one uses less power?

Any help would be great, I'll check back in after I see the Canadian prices for the cards.

Forget the old 8800gts. The 8800gt 512mb version will be cheaper (and according to some folks faster), will eat up less power, and should be released on Oct 29.

Both the 8800GTs and 2950s are looking good if the rumours are to belived, with low power consumption (or better overclockability in my book), competitive pricing and perfromce in between the 8800GTS and GTX. Perfectand

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=241778
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/245 ... ing-nvidia[/quote]

 

[Marsal]

I posted this before about PC building, but it turns out I have more money than I was initially willing to spend. So far I am planning on getting this graphics card

Sapphire x1950xt

I was told that it is great for price/performance, however is there anything better in the 1950 series or the Nvidia 7000 series that is worth spending money on?

Here is the full config.

AMD x2 4600+ 2.4ghz
DFI Infinity AM2 NF570
Crucial Ballistix 2x1gb DDR2 800 4-4-4-12
Sapphire x1950xt
WesternDigital SE16 320gb 7200rpm 16mb SATA
Sony NEC Optiarc DVD Burner SATA
CoolerMaster Centurion5 mid-tower
Corsair HX520w

I will also replace the case, PSU, Hardrive, DVD drive with some components that I can find at my local Korean store as they have built me PC's before and I trust them. Is there any specifications that these components are supposed to meet? Finally I plan to replace the Crucial Ballistix with some Geil PC2-4300 that I got for free, would that be possible?

I am also open to suggestions and spending more money as long as its not top of the line

I'm not sure I understand what exactly you're trying to do here. Do you OWN the listed config or are you buying one?

If you OWN it, it's pretty balanced and you don't need anything new. PSU is not only powerful enough, it's an overkill. Please people, stop with the 600W bullshit. You don't know what you're talking about.

Wait a few days for the new cards (8800GT will be about 250$ and first performance tests, if they are to be belived, show phenomenal performance). If you don't want to wait, buy 8800GTS 320MB (the cheapest, with 2 or 3 years warranty, they are pretty much all the same performance wise) or 2900Pro (512MB is enough, I'd recommend Sapphire).


If you're buying the listed components:

Don't go for AMD. I'm an "AMD fan", but Intel is a much better investment. E4400 is great value and a great overclocker.

Cheap 800 MHz memory will suffice for OC (the high multiplier of the E4400). The said GEIL is great. It'll do nicely (you need at least 2GB RAM, preferably 4GB). As I said, you won't gain much with expensive RAM, so you could buy 4GB of cheap Corsair 800MHz RAM and sell GEIL.

P35 board is a good choice, let's say Asus P5K (basic model).

The rest of setup is good. You can buy 450W Corsair, if it's sufficiently cheaper. Maybe a bigger drive, if you have the money/need more room (or 2x320GB in RAID 0, this is risky, don't do it if you have important data).

Check the prices and post the total here. If you have some budget left, we'll find something to burn it on

EDIT: Crap, this is MotB review thread. Sorry for the OT, VD. Annonchinil, open a new thread or post a link if you already have?

 

[roshan]

Kind of back to MOTB. I was just looking at free/used space on my disk, and my NWN2OTB installation is taking up 9 gigs. This seems really, really high. Is this normal, or is something weird going on for me?

End game saves of the NWN2 OC were about 350 megabytes each.

 

[MountainWest]

Hmm, nice review VD. I might pick this one up, I know you don't give out good reviews without some validity......

Question, if you start at level 18, how much room for leveling is there? I like the aspect of growing a character from the beggining so high level games usually turn me off...What the cap on the levels for D&D?

You're gaining levels all the time. My main character started on level 19 and ten hours later (give or take) he's at level 24. I've got 3 companions who've gained an equal amount of levels in that time...

 

[Marsal]

Here's something mildly ON topic Gigabyte has Nwn2 bundled with it's cards. So, if you're in a search for a new card, this could be a good deal. The up and coming 8800GT has it too.

 

[Briosafreak]

Here's something mildly ON topic Gigabyte has Nwn2 bundled with it's cards. So, if you're in a search for a new card, this could be a good deal. The up and coming 8800GT has it too.

Yeah, I got a second copy of the game with my 8600GT.