The beginning of a new Neverwinter Nights series that does not disappoint. Full review inside.
Id like to put down how I Score games (this is important if you want to understand why my score is so 'low':
1 - Utter rubbish
2 - Utter rubbish
3 - rubbish
4 - average
5 - Good
6 - Pretty good
7 - Great
8 - Greater than 7
9 - Awesome
10 - so great ill never review a game that's this good...period.
If you have read my other reviews on the Neverwinter Nights series, you should know im a big fan of the series, as well as the genre. So i immediately bought the newest title aptly named Neverwinter Nights 2, which unlike Shadows of Undrentide or Hordes of the Underdark is a full game with some pretty neat additions such as:
GRAPHICS
The graphics in the originals, lets say 'Trilogy of games' were decent. Dated by todays standards, but they animated well and looked the part. As this is a few years later, and a new producer behind the wheel, they have updated the graphics...by a hell of a lot. There is proper facial details, you can see each individual hair on your characters head, every single link in your chain mail, every imperfection in your weapon. It looks stunning. They have even redone all the magic, so your magic missiles, look even more awesome than they used to. However, they are not perfect. Most computers cant run this game at Low-Medium never mind Highest. So if you have a dated machine, or a machine thats not state of the art then you may have to seriously reduce your settings if you want to run this above 30fps. However, if your like me and own a Mythical Computer that can run this game, then enjoy the eye candy.
SOUND
Like always, the musical score is fantastic. Everything is perfectly composed to fit in with everything thats going on in the game world and you just get sucked in because of it. Voice acting as a whole is really good. You can really sense the emotion each character is giving off and thats a hard thing to achieve. HOWEVER! Not all voice acting is great. Such as your father has the most bland voice i have ever heard, it is terrible. Its like Microsoft Sam, mabe he is supposed to be like that to be the prick in the game(which he is), i dunno. But the WORST thing about the sound has to be the recycled chants and war cries. Ok, yeah they have added one or two to the list, but the majority are from the ORIGINAL BALDURS GATE! I mean bllody hell, get some new voices people.
GAMEPLAY
You start off by creating your character. You get to choose from the Following (sigh, long list): Human, Halfling, Half elf, elf, dwarf, half orc, gnome, plane race(or something) and i think thats it. But inside these races you have: Wood elf, moon elf, sun elf and dark elf/ Drow, 3-4 types of gnomes, 2-3 dwarves and either some sort of godly thing thats basically an angel without wings or a demon who has his own set of horns. Thats also of races, oh yeah and then you've got Sub race (make ya own race). You then get to pick from the classes which there are a huge selection to pick from ranging from Warriors to thieves to wizards to druids. Theres well over 20 if not 30 classes to pick from each with at least 4 packages to pick from which determine your skill set up, as well as customize your own package AND loads of Prestige classes such as the Neverwinter Nine, Pale Master, arcane archer, arcane trickster and about 15 more. You also get to pick your religion which has little effect, but is a cool add on, your alignment and your upbringing which adds and reduces your skills. This is a really in depth character creation that lets you make hundreds of different characters all completely different.
Once you do that, your thrown into a 60-80 hour long story loaded with side missions, interesting characters and some comedy along the way to keep you amused. The story is really good, the characters are all unique and interesting and have there own prejudices against each other such as the Demon Rouge you get early on hates everyone because she thinks everyone hates her...which they do but thats not the point. And of course, the honor bound dwarf who wants to become a monk...which is weird in itself... If you loved the Tool Set in the original, then you will love the new one, its pretty much the same but with nicer graphics and a few new tweaks. Nice addition.
OVERALL
A great start to a new series, that should appeal to all fans of PC RPG's who want a new adventure that is both gripping and rather funny at times with a interesting line up of characters, locations and missions. However not recommended for people who dont like DnD, new ro CRPG's or have a really bad computer as you wont get the same great experience as everyone else.
7/10 GREAT.