Looked promising, ends up as a disapointment ...
These words are of course, pretty harsh, and maybe i had my expectations set to high. Like many others i was probably expecting a successor to the mighty Baldurs gate series, and judged the game not by its own merits, but rather by the giants of yesterday.
Luckily for nwn 1, the included toolset seemed to at least make you able to make something that would pass as a good rpg experience, though i must admit i am only familiar with the most basic of its functions. But as several user modules have proved (and parts of Biowares expansion "hordes of the underdark") good content and gameplay were possible with nwn 1.
Now onto nwn 2:
Obsidian took over the torch from Bioware, and promised to make up for what was lacking in the OC and to improve on the games appearance and functionality. A party system was introduced (although a party was possible in "underdark") and cinematic cutscenes added to the usually dull npc angles from nwn 1. The graphics and cutscenes is where nwn 2 succeeds in my opinion, gone are the generic looking tile based terrain, substituted with what appears as a fresh, uneven and naturalistic setting, that even has an x axis. From muddy swamps to fairly detailed houses and skylines, it seems possible to craft both the shiny and the gritty. The cutscenes work well to keep your interest in the conversations, and adds an extra dimension to the dialogue, with its fairly well done lip-synch.
Nwn 2 doesn´t deliver though. Obsidian stated that they would focus on the OC, but to me it seems like an afterthought to the toolset . It is a dreadfully linear experience to play through the OC, they might have included a living breathing party, but at the cost of sidequests and interesting npcs. Simply put, the world of Faerun, as envisioned by the Obsidian designers, holds very few surprises or special areas, or life, even. The gameworld is instead populated with unenterable houses (make a little b&e impossible), hordes of generic npcs and areas that does not reward you with exploring, but instead encourages to blindly follow the dots on your map to get to your next mission. This was supposed to be an open ended rpg folks ! An rpg that discourages exploration and sidequests seems to be neither. In fact, this is an example of poor level design , because it is better suited to games such as fable or other console rpgs, than an rpg based on a party with versatile abilities, which hardly gets any use in the OC. In order for this extreme "railroading" to work you need to have a really strong story keeping the player interested until the bitter end, which nwn 2 doesnt have. Granted it is ok, and far more suspenseful than the OC in nwn 1, but its no Planescape:Torment.
Oh, and before i forget i was quite disappointed in the fact that there is very little difference between playing as an evil or good character. Basically the game has two paths, but the missions are always regarding the same events, just seen from different angles. At one point where is was playing and evil character, the designers even got so lazy, that they had an npc slip you some forged documents , so they can force you to head down the good mission path. That was a real ugly experience, considering what was promised about the focus on the OC .
Obsidian deserves to be scolded for reuse of the original soundtracks and soundsets as well. Another example of either a rushed, poor or sloppy developer. It is quite aggravating to pay for something that so blatantly seems to just be an engine upgrade.
Despite my overall negativity, there are some genuine good and strong moments in the campaign. At one point you get to build up a stronghold of your own, and supply it with merchants, defenses and fair (or not so fair ) taxation. The npcs are quite good too,and well fleshed out, and the voice cast performs their duties to satisfaction.
Another minor grievance is the lack of attention to a concept called immediacy. Youve probably heard the term immersion thrown around often when developers are hyping their latest games. In an Rpg , immersion is one of the single most important aspects in a game where you are supposed to be imagining to be a different person. The game world has to be alive, and you have to forget that youre actually playing a game. Of course thats hard to do in game based on abstract statistics and classes such as d&d is, but it is nevertheless something to strive for. A simple trick to attempt to achieve immersion is through the aforementioned concept of immediacy. Immediacy means a media that tries it best to hide that it is in fact a media. An example of this would be a media player that allows you to go full screen and hides its logos, button etc. The opposite of immediacy is hypermediacy, where the media tries its best to advocate itself as being an artificial construct. Think of a website with flashing commercials and all sorts of buttons etc, in fact look at this very website an you will see a media that insists upon its buttons and usefulness. Nwn 2, has all the necessary interface without ramming them down your throat, so thats not the issue. Rather, i feel it is the little things like map titles that sometimes reveal what type of location youre in (plastered on the map is location number and map name , for instance Goblin Caves or somesuch) before you have a chance to be surprised by encounters. The loading screens also insist on telling you the amount of packages it is unpacking and area updates, which might hold interest for the techies, but works to pull you out of the illusion of the gameworld. Another poor choice of design decisions. like i said it is i minor annoyance, but for me, it detracts from the game experience.
But , in order not end on a sour note, i will stress that the toolset seems to be able to deliver unfulfilled promises, but like in nwn 1, it is up to us users to create the content that makes the game live up to its potential. After having seen the myriad of customization available in the toolset, i am certain that this game could be worthy of our time for some years at least, just don´t expect the developers to deliver that harrowing rpg feel for you. Look to the communities.