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By the time I picked up NWN2, I already knew some general points about the game -- it was akin to NWN1, featured a stronger storyline, and had an updated interface. Delving into the package (installation was a breeze), I booted the game up and was ready to go. After a solid week of playing this title, I feel I'm able to give a tentative summary of what worked and what didn't work so well with me. The campaign: Unlike NWN1, the main campaign in NWN2 felt more personalized and less cookie cutter, although some of the same "fetchquest" elements and uninspired dialogue remains. From a personal perspective, I felt that Obsidian could have improved upon the weaknesses inherent to NWN1 (regarding the main campaign) more than it did; however, at least an attempt was evident and the main campaign is by no means completely boring. The largest complaint I log herein is the fact that the main campaign left me with the same feeling KOTOR2 did -- incomplete. The game builds up pretty nicely but somewhere along the way decides to rush and mash as many plotlines together as it can; leaving gamers like myself with a incredulous look on our faces and a sick feeling in our stomachs. Graphics: Basically, the graphics suck. I'd try to phrase this nicely but the problem is ... I can't. There is minimal improvement from the CEP packs in NWN1 and based on how much this game decides to suck up processing power on my middling CoreDuo2 mid-tier machine, I'm logging heavy complaints. Oblivion has framerate stutters if I max out viewdistance or go overboard on community texture packs; NWN2 stutters around like a cripple with 3 legs when I get attacked by 10 enemies. Turning off some components (notably shadows) smooths things out a lot, but that's just horrifically bad code optimization. Sound: I didn't really notice it much, and that's a good thing. Then again, this isn't going to be winning any awards, so we'll leave it at that. Online: I'm not certain what sort of mod support is out there yet, as I've only fiddled with a few mods, but if it's anything like the NWN1 community, this is going to be another one of those ridiculously well supported community-oriented games. The online component works well, though I did run into some latency issues while hosting games, something that really SHOULDN'T happen unless the coding scheme sucked. Since the graphical coding optimization is obviously crap, I guess I can't cry too much about online optimization being only sometimes-crap. Overall: When it comes down to it, I had fun dropping this on my computer and whittling a few hours here and there playing it. It's not by any means the next great RPG, but it does come packaged with the necessary materials for you to DESIGN the next great NWN2 module. The campaign was of middling length and decently fun, and the online component works well enough that it isn't something that'll end up with you bashing your computer with a baseball bat. The sheer amount of content and online mod availability together make the value of a product such as NWN2 amazingly high. At the end of the day, a game is meant to be an enjoyable experience -- and NWN 2 does deliver the requisite amount of "fun" to make it worth picking up for your gaming pile.Read full review
Im a huge fan of the NWN series and i own the first game plus the expansions. Co op is the best part of the NWN series and its the leading factor in my purchase of this game. System requirements are pretty high. I run the game on two systems, both core 2's and both running Nvidia 9800gt's. Both systems are running vista with my main system being 64 bit. Both systems use Creative sound cards and EAX support is added by installing Creative Alchemy and adding the games. Both systems run at 1680x1050 and the game runs excellent at high settings. If your a fan of the first games, starting this one will be a bit of a shock at first. The interface has been changed some and there are ALOT of options for customizing the view. I spent at least 30 minutes tweaking the interface, moving and resizing some of the menus, and trying to get the game back to the feel of the original. I LOVE the added quick bars! FINALLY the game features the ability to not only equip your party mates, but you can take full control of them. A great tip though is to turn off the option to click on them to take control...its really annoying when things get hectic to accidentally click and take over a party mate. Another new feature is the way the story is told. During cinematic scenes where the plot is revealed, you and your party is forced to view the conversation. The game will also force a pause when anyone from your group talks to someone. Thankfully it only pauses during the speaking portion when vending. The game also forces the party to follow when you enter a building or a new zone. This issue only becomes apparent during multiplay. I personally like the way the game forces everyone to see the conversation and helps keep your party into the story. Overall Im very happy with the game and the new graphics are beautiful and VERY immersive. Combat hasnt changed much and it still feels very much like the original. I found myself playing in the close in "Drive Mode" camera view. My fiance and I play this a few nights a week and we both enjoy it. She hasnt been much of a gamer till now and she really gets into this game. If your a fan of the first and your system can run it....get it. Just dont get discouraged when you start out and it seems totally different. Once you tweak the controls, the view, and the placement of the menus...it feels like a true upgrade from the first series. Happy Gaming!Read full review
Note: I am using the DVD version, CD version may be differ then mine. The Good: Graphic wise, They kinda overloaded too much IMHO; although fans of realistic representation of the fantasy world would absolutly love it. The muzak is fair - compared to the old NWN. Story is good so far and I expect is it good as NWN 1 (Just starting playing the week after its release) The D20 3.5 rules supposed to be well represent here.. I don't play latest book & dies version so I assumed it is okay. The Bad: Because of the graphic - it drains a lot juice out of my NV6200 card. - So you better have a latest video card or this sucker will be really slow. (I have to down my graphic options to lowest.. even that is slow) The Gui is a bit like guild war - but it lacks the freedom of moving windows IMO this new game acutally taken a step back compared to NWN 1's clean, fast and effective gui. The Ugly: I have a rather subjective annoyance with this game; I like the old graphic icon that was used to represent your character. And because that graphic can be mod so easily perform. Also, while your character's creation sprite had a lot of option, it is not as as clean or good looking as Guildwar (As a desinger myself, Guild war is pretty much the best graphic I had seen on an RPG so far.. imo)... although certainly a huge improvement from little pixeled elf girl I have from the NWN. My conclusion: Well, looks like this one will be "it" for single person RPG for PC for at least a couple of years.. although I have a feeling that old NWN will continue be a fan favorite for some time. But for now, it's COD2 Multi player, BF:2142 and this one shares that will share my free pc gaming time.Read full review
The system requirements have been majorly increased when compared to the original NWN, although your gaming experience will not be very fun if you meet the basic requirements...NWN 2 is a resource hog. Quite odd, when one considers that the graphics, though of better quality than the original game (not including some of the player-generated material), is not what one would expect from a game requiring a 2.4 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM and a 256 MB graphics card (my system exceeds all of these requirements, yet still has slow frame-rates and hangs at times). Independent reviews at Gamespot confirm what countless users on Atari and Black Isle support forums are reporting: In order to achieve a playable framerate ( 30 FPS) in this game you will require significantly better hardware than that which is "recommended" (as mentioned above) by the box. The campaign itself is decently put together and an entertaining storyline, however the view options do not work very well to play the game in real-time. You will spend a lot of time in the game repositioning the camera. It is a fun story, with more depth to it than the original, that is unfortunately swallowed alive by its own technical limitations. The technical flaws, though not as significant as of version 1.06, still tend to take some of the fun of playing through the story. Among the technical flaws, the user interface, and particularly the camera control, is horrendous. Any time you enter one of the game's many tight, curvy dungeons, you can count on stopping to adjust the camera angle regularly as it gets hung up on seemingly every wall, building, or chunk of rock nearby (plants tend to fade out more often than not, so they are not as big an issue). You may miss much of the game's more impressive eye candy depending on what you have to modify the graphic settings to. For those who remember the radial menu in NWN...now you must hold the shift key when right-clicking and the menu is now more similar to a drop-down style (which is the one part I do like). For those who had hoped that NWN2 would be supported on Linux or Mac OSs, the bad news remains that they will not. Obsidian and Atari seem to have originally intended to make the game available for the X-Box 360 and decided to rely on DirectX instead of OpenGL. For those interested in playing NWN2 in Multiplayer mode...well, the DM-Client is said to be released with the 1.07 update (Obsidian had bigger bugs to squash). The Toolset is much more powerful, yet a serious pain to learn...it is not very user-friendly. The client allows multiple windows to be opened at once, unlike NWN. Some game content, including NWScript and dialogs can be directly imported from NWN, however exterior locations use a heightmap instead of tilesets, and for this reason, the module itself cannot be imported. You will also not be seeing modules as big or detailed as those made with NWN due to various issues, one of them being memory. Note that that as a rough estimate, you can expect your server to require about three fourths the amount of ram compared to the actual physical size of the module, though this statistic can vary greatly. For a Persistent World of about 70 zones, you need at least 1.5 gigabytes of ram, preferably 2 gigabytes. All in all NWN2 is a good game, however not the great game it had the potential to be. I still consider it worthwhile and hope that upcoming patches will support my recommendation.Read full review
While taking a bit of time to adjust from the earlier NWN, most things I didn't like to start with later became improvements. I.e. the way shops were handeled etc. I love the storyline, and the ability to select your party, take control of them, and the cut scenes. I don't like you can't have party members in different zones, during multiplay. The game also uses an insane amount of resources. The world, while much prettier than the original NWN, is also much smaller and less 'explorable.' They tried too hard to make the game strict-PG. The toolset is insanely difficult to use. All in all, a great game, but held back by technical issues, and a bad toolset.
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