Well. Now I know why there was no demo to be found for it. Nobody would've bought it.
Though they thankfully hired a decent music director and actually did make a decently interesting beginning to the game, and otherwise addressed many of my faults with the previous game, the end result is the same- utter crap.
Understand that I'm coming from the perspective of someone who's played RPGs of the hack, slash, and occasionally pause nature since Diablo and Baldur's Gate, and my experience of those games was one of absolute delight. I loved Baldur's Gate 1, 2, 2.5 and Icewind Dale 2. I still play them as often as any of the newer games I buy. I loved Kotor 1 and 2.
Anyway, back to the review. Having absolutely loved the BG series and KoToR, NWN was an absolute let down because of it's lack of decent music, lack of decent voice talent (except for some of the NPCs), abysmal beginning storyline (seriously... "Go cure a disease"? Isn't there a Tycoon game for that?), and ultimately, EXTREMELY weak gameplay.
I say in my review of NWN that the gameplay is not bad. I recant. Looking back on what I experienced, and putting it in the light of Baldur's Gate 2 (which I just recently played through again), and now playing NWN2, I now am forced to say that the gameplay is absolutely terrible. Even aside from the appalling camera controls, the fighting in the game is so slow as to be ridiculous. Spell casting is quick enough, but plain old attacking? Your character spends more time standing in front of and starting hard at your opponent than he does walking from place to place! I swear, it felt like in that round of 6 seconds, fully 5.9 of those seconds involved waiting while your character breathed hard. And while I vaguely remember NWN not being that bad, I remember that I had sort of the same issue with it as well.
That aside, let's go back to the cameras. I don't know WHAT the hell they are thinking these days. Diablo and Diablo 2 and other such games succeed and do well only because either the camera doesn't move at ALL and so all the designers have to do is choose a good angle, or because the control of that camera is vaguely doable. Not so in NWN2. It's all but impossible! Even IF I somehow found the energy to want to try to tweak it, I doubt I'd be able to fix it that well. (I suppose I should mention i haven't tried the patches yet, so I fully intend to eat my words if their patches fixed any of my issues with the game, but I highly doubt it)
But the worst, most horrible soul-raping aspect of this game is the character system itself. I hadn't known about it before hand, or so help me I might be dead now from acute underwhelm-itis so I was extremely surprised and very pleased to read in the installation that there would be 4 companions total in the game, controlled by you. I thought "oh my god, THANK THE LIGHT!, they're going back to their roots, my 3D Baldur's Gate dreams are coming true!!!"...
But not so.
Instead... tragedy. It's still just one player character. And a couple little-more-than-henchmen. Sure you level them up too. But can you switch them out for characters you make yourself? No, that'd be too fun and interesting. (for those who might want to point out KoToR, understand that that game is in an entirely different universe, and involving a heavy plot and story, making it absolutely necessary that all your playable characters be tied to the story. You could say that NWN is trying to do the same, but I say nay nay- Neverwinter Nights had a failure of a storyline that having multiple player made characters wouldn't have made a lick of difference in, and the latter part of that carries into NWN2.)
I'll tell you now, I NEVER played a singleplayer game of BG2 or IWD2. I always played multiplayer. Why? so I could make my own party and do whatever the hell I wanted with them. I had total freedom and the game was made all the more fun for it. Sure I missed out on the interactions with the NPCs that bioware lovingly made, sure I only used them for free weapons and armor. Doesn't matter. I don't play these D&D games to run around with characters other people made. I play these games to make my own characters, and see what I can make of them. That was the true beauty of BG2 and IWD2, the freedom you had to experiment with parties and classes and strategies. And then comes NWN 1 and 2, BRAZENLY, INSULTINGLY trying to pass themselves off as being even in the same genre as Baldur's Gate.
I'm sorry. But Baldur's Gate was beautiful. Neverwinter Nights is a travesty.
Also the whole billion choices for skill checks.... that was just freaking irritating. I mean, I understand and appreciate it... but that doesn't change the irritation in needing to basically plan those skill choices out so far in advance for the right prestige class or for being able to continue to be useful in both the skills necessary to be effective at say, hiding and spotting, as well as crafting. And the crafting, oh! Jesus, unless you have a really damn intelligent rogue you pump skills and feats into all the crafting slots, you'd have to spread the 5 or 6 crafting skills out among your entire 4 man party, possibly reducing their effectiveness at other skills... I dunno. The whole skill system just seems pretty fubared to me. If I recall correctly, IWD2 also had skills, but not NEARLY as many and much more easily thought over, especially since you had so many characters to do specialization in while not necessarily missing any of the skills.
You know, really, IWD2 was the perfect iteration of BG2, except it was too darn cold... even apart from being in the frozen north, there just wasn't anywhere near the same sense of closeness/involvement with the NPCs of the world, except for the gnome and his airship and the two villains. I dunno. just my experience with the game. Not as warm and fuzzy as BG2.
I realize they were trying to make a different game with NWN 1 and 2 than BG. I understand. But dammit, if you're going to make a different game, you could at least make it well. And if you start to do a crappy job, do us a favor and go back to your roots and make a newer, prettier version of one of your better received games, not some bastard child of Diablo and BG without even the benefit of the polish of Blizzard games.
And yes, I'm calling EVERYONE who liked this or NWN 1 more than or the same as Baldur's Gate completely tasteless and unworthy of any decent games they might accidentally play. And I urge the poor people who never knew BG2 or IWD2 to find a copy of those and see for themselves the games Bioware USED to be able to make. Play KoToR and see what they USED to be able to do. Then TRY to play NWN again.
(I realize Obsidian made NWN2 and KoToR2, but seeing as it seems that obsidian has only ever touched something that bioware/black Isle touched first... I can't help but consider them almost the same group....)