NWN2: The (New) 1 Up Review

[Ummi]

This is fun. My turn!

 

Fun factor - 8/10 (it is fun but so,e of the annoying things really annoy me)

Graphics - 7.5/10 (solid but usually unremarkable)

NPCs - 8/10 (I overall love them; want to give it 9.5; but with a  few really crappy npcs + the whole idea of FORCED companions deserves punishment)

Adherence to rules - 8/10

Stability - 9/10 (a single crash, some lag, and other various stuff; but overall cool)

Music/Voice overs - 9/10 (I love the fact that they use both old and new music sounds. Really, really smart to do so)

Inprovement over 1st game - A wash

Onlineplay - Haven't tried it yet, TBD

Story - 7/10 (decent)

Combat - 9/10 (combat is fun; my only real complaint is its easiness)

Bias - 9.5/10 (I love D&D, I love NWN, I love this game)

Overall - 8/10 (fun experience, overall).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Oddly enough this is pretty close to how i would rate NWN2 so far :ph34r:

 

I'm gonna have to give combat 7/10 though cause the way i play it, it's just too easy most of the time and i've been playing at the highest difficulty setting from the start. I'll admit i like to pause a lot though and take a more tactical approach towards battles. Also i'm a bit of a powergamer(not a min/maxer though) but i'd rate my powergaming effort so far as moderate. I haven't even bothered to put elemental damage enchantments on my weapons even though i have the required materials for some

[Loof]

Just upgraded from 1gb ram to 1.5gb ram, and there is pretty much no difference either. Normal Mapping, bloom, high textures also have no effect. Whether I have those or have absolute low, as long as resolution is 1024x (lower hurts my eyes with those jaggy texts and all), the fps remains exactly the same - 15-25 outdoors and 5-15 indoors.

 

I suppose it really is a CPU limitation, not ram or GPU. Pity.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'm pretty sure the game is not CPU bound. I tried running around a while with a CPU meter on my secondary screen and as long as I wasn't in combat the CPU was pretty close to 25% usage. And I only have a P4 2.8 GHZ. also noted that Windows + NWN2 seem to use around 800mb of ram. That being said memory speed could still be a factor, or cache utilization or disk access or about a million other things ...

[Wistrik]

Haven't read a review that expresses how I feel exactly. The one Obsidian proudly displays on their front page (Gamer's Choice) thinks NWN2 is using the Aurora engine. Err... I ignore people who say they didn't encounter bugs, because obviously they aren't very observant. On the other hand, those who complain about bugs can get so wrapped up in doing so that they overlook the game's many good qualities.

 

What follows is my opinion of the game. Some views may change as the game is patched and my computer is upgraded, but I will always and forever despise forced parties. (I have nothing against tag-along NPCs, like

Shandra, Slaan or Commander Tann

, because they don't affect my preferred party makeup, and I'm not referring to these when I talk of forced parties.)

 

Performance: 6/10

Good: can play the game on a machine that meets the recommended stats

Bad: have to play at low resolution with Low shadows; water hurts performance noticeably even with refraction and reflection disabled, can't find a way to enable FSAA no matter what I do with my driver settings (6800GT supports up to 6x FSAA in other games)

 

Stability: 9/10

Good: can play for hours without a hitch

Bad: rare, random crashes to desktop while reloading; can freeze permanently in fire giant mountain

 

Graphics: 9/10

Good: beautiful and immersive areas, lots of screenshot goodness, NPCs and companions look great if high quality textures are used

Bad: limited variety in tree models and textures, ugly 'bottle-brush' trees

 

Sound: 10/10

Good: music is excellent, not annoying; sounds are clear; vocals are well done

Bad: no soundtrack CD (I can make my own though)

 

Fun Factor: 8/10

Good: can't stop playing, feel like I'm making the world a better place

Bad: forced parties and resulting contrived dialogs are very annoying

 

Story: 8/10

Good: main character has a more personal history, the enemy is well developed, lots of tie-in with the opening movie, greatly expands on a minor quest feature of Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn, the distraction caused by a certain character was a nice suprise

Bad: forced party lends to contrived story elements which in turn reduce immersiveness; can make player feel like someone is playing the game for them

 

Adherence to Rules - no comment as I'm not overly familiar with non 2E rulesets.

 

Companions: 7/10

Good: generally well written, including the

romance and friendships

; they can be influenced by your actions and words; lots of humor; quests can be lengthy and typically don't revolve around the usual item fetching of other games

Bad: forced party sticks you with annoying/evil companions; some companions will

betray you

merely for not adventuring with them (or trying not to anyway); companions don't care who's currently in the party when making comments about so-and-so, even if so-and-so has never been in the party; one character's sexist comments will be offensive to some people, but he's forced into the party anyway

 

Combat: 6/10

Good: not overly difficult as in some games; can actually succeed with average characters; can sometimes be avoided with decent dialog skills

Bad: pathing, slippery target selection (too-small hot zones) when using mouse, incomplete attack animations due to slow animation playback, idiotic companion AI, main character stops attacking when current targets are dead unless something specifically attacks him, creatures float along the ground/warp due to internal engine lag (in singleplayer mode no less)

 

Multiplayer: no comment as I will never use this feature

 

Toolset: 9/10

Good: easy to use, mostly self-explanatory (for me), can quickly create and test new modules, can edit 2DA global rule files, more powerful dialog editing, more powerful scripting, can easily edit OC modules, many files stored in ZIP archives for easy access without requiring special archive management tool, override folder functions as expected, seems to be stable so far

Bad: as slow as the game is on my 'recommended' system

 

Bias: 8/10

Good: I enjoy the D&D ruleset, love fantasy CRPGs, am a sucker for classic good vs. evil plots, enjoy inter-character relationships (even romances)

Bad: I've preferred Bioware's methods and games to former Black Isle's in most cases; I'm not too pleased with the apparently KotoR-derived forced party feature, and I will purchase no further products that have this aggravation in them.

 

Improvement over NWN OC: 9/10

Overall: generally a big improvement, though I miss being able to dress characters in rags, tunics, and other non-armor clothing. AI remains mostly the same: weak. Weapon animations (Cleave, etc) worked properly in NWN.

 

Overall: 8/10

I'll recommend it to friends, with warnings about the issues mentioned above. I may play the OC once more (for a total of three times) but then I'm going to make a module with the toolset. (Perhaps "The further adventures of the Main Character and Elanee" )

Edited November 15, 2006 by Wistrik

[Tigranes]

I'm pretty sure the game is not CPU bound. I tried running around a while with a CPU meter on my secondary screen and as long as I wasn't in combat the CPU was pretty close to 25% usage. And I only have a P4 2.8 GHZ. also noted that Windows + NWN2 seem to use around 800mb of ram. That being said memory speed could still be a factor, or cache utilization or disk access or about a million other things ...

 

That's what I thought too when I chose to get extra ram, but it doesn't help at all. Maybe it's the VM settings - some say increase it, some say decrease it - or the cache?

[alanschu]

Haven't read a review that expresses how I feel exactly. The one Obsidian proudly displays on their front page (Gamer's Choice) thinks NWN2 is using the Aurora engine. Err... I ignore people who say they didn't encounter bugs, because obviously they aren't very observant. On the other hand, those who complain about bugs can get so wrapped up in doing so that they overlook the game's many good qualities.

 

It depends. Most people wouldn't consider a spelling error in a string to be a bug, even though it technically is. Furthermore, some would label the AI as being buggy, while others would label it as just being poor.

 

I'm betting that the people that said they didn't encounter bugs didn't run into any quests breaking, or NPCs disappearing, and that sort of stuff. The stuff that MAKES you take notice. The fact that a guy got stuck during pathfinding and had to click again, easily overlooked.

[Darque]

I haven't beaten it yet, so this isn't set in stone...

 

But so far I'd say the breakdown is (for me anyway)

 

Fun Factor - 9/10 (I'm really enjoying this game)

Graphics - 8/10 (Character graphics are a bit weak in my opinion, but environments look awesome )

NPCs - 7/10 (Pretty good - Not PS:T good... but at least KotOR good)

Rules - 6/10 (But things had to be changed to go from PnP to PC so this one doesn't matter much to me)

Stability - 8/10 (A couple bugs that are easy to get around, no crashes or major issues - For me at least)

Story - 8/10 (I'm enjoying it)

Music - Pass (I turn off music in the hopes it's improve performance... I do this with every game so don't read too much into it)

Voice Overs - 7/10 (Pretty good)

Improvements over first game - 10/10 (The first game bored me to death - I'm posting from the afterlife... honest)

Online Play - No idea.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Now that I've beaten it I need to change a few.

 

NPCs goes up to 8/10 Ammon Jerro is pretty cool ^_^

Ending is a 7/10

 

The rest stay about the same, though what's up with that voice over at the end? :ph34r:

[Pop]

Ending is a 7/10

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No wai. 5/10.

Epilogues 4/10 (no Adalon? No Nasher? wtf?)

 

End VO 3/10

[Volourn]

"I don't understand the endless complaints about the camera: isn't it identical to the original NwN camera?"

 

Obsidian disagrees are in the process of changing it to make it closer to the NWN1 camera.

 

 

"thinks NWN2 is using the Aurora engine."

 

That's because the game is using the Aurora engine.

[metadigital]

"I don't understand the endless complaints about the camera: isn't it identical to the original NwN camera?"

 

Obsidian disagrees are in the process of changing it to make it closer to the NWN1 camera.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But the overhead camera is the same, isn't it? If not it is intuitive enough to not matter, because I had no learning curve whatsoever ... unless I am just a superstar, of course ...

[Deraldin]

Can anyone actually tell me what the difference is between the camera in NWN1 and NWN2? I've just been using the Top Down camera.

[metadigital]

That's what I just said.

[Deraldin]

That's what I just said.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

[Dark_Raven]

Now that I have finally adapted to the cameras controls. Edited November 19, 2006 by Dark_Raven

[Tigranes]

Top down cam isn't going to change much at all, if any. Main changes are to the Drive cam and Free cam. The drive cam I couldn't care less: the free cam, they've FINALLY made it sensible so that the arrow keys pan the camera. Which means you can use it just like you use IE engine games.

 

*happyjoy*

[Deraldin]

Top down cam isn't going to change much at all, if any. Main changes are to the Drive cam and Free cam. The drive cam I couldn't care less: the free cam, they've FINALLY made it sensible so that the arrow keys pan the camera. Which means you can use it just like you use IE engine games.

 

*happyjoy*

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Can't you do that through the keybindings tab on the options screen?

[Tigranes]

There isn't an option for forward & backwards pan, afaik.

[Oerwinde]

Top down cam isn't going to change much at all, if any. Main changes are to the Drive cam and Free cam. The drive cam I couldn't care less: the free cam, they've FINALLY made it sensible so that the arrow keys pan the camera. Which means you can use it just like you use IE engine games.

 

*happyjoy*

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Can't you do that through the keybindings tab on the options screen?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I may be blind, but I didn't see a key bindings tab.

 

EDIT: Ok, either I'm blind, or they added that in in the 1.02 patch.

Edited November 19, 2006 by Oerwinde

[Deraldin]

Oerwinde: Open the options screen from the main menu.

 

Didn't realize that there wasn't an option for forwards/backwards pan. Can't wait till they add it in.

Edited November 19, 2006 by Deraldin

[Oerwinde]

Oerwinde: Open the options screen from the main menu.

 

Didn't realize that there wasn't an option for forwards/backwards pan. Can't wait till they add it in.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yeah, just tried that. Why doesn't it show up on the in game options menu? I was whining about the invert axis option not being there when it had been there the whole time if I just opened the options from the main menu.

[Deraldin]

Oerwinde: Open the options screen from the main menu.

 

Didn't realize that there wasn't an option for forwards/backwards pan. Can't wait till they add it in.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yeah, just tried that. Why doesn't it show up on the in game options menu? I was whining about the invert axis option not being there when it had been there the whole time if I just opened the options from the main menu.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yeah. Dunno why they did that. Pretty annoying if you ask me. Wish they would change that so that you get the full options menu in game. <_<

[Wistrik]

The one Obsidian proudly displays on their front page (Gamer's Choice) thinks NWN2 is using the Aurora engine. Err... I ignore people who say they didn't encounter bugs, because obviously they aren't very observant. On the other hand, those who complain about bugs can get so wrapped up in doing so that they overlook the game's many good qualities.

 

It depends. Most people wouldn't consider a spelling error in a string to be a bug, even though it technically is. Furthermore, some would label the AI as being buggy, while others would label it as just being poor.

 

I'm betting that the people that said they didn't encounter bugs didn't run into any quests breaking, or NPCs disappearing, and that sort of stuff. The stuff that MAKES you take notice. The fact that a guy got stuck during pathfinding and had to click again, easily overlooked.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have a programming background so I find bugs/glitches/typos etc., hard to miss most of the time, though I tend to overlook them when I'm playing while half-asleep/tired. If I'm rested and raring to go, and have a notepad handy, I can quickly fill a page with text errors I see while playing. I don't submit these because devs usually don't care unless there's a crasher, quest breaker, or some other 'serious' thing.

 

Obsidian renamed the engine to 'Electron' because it's supposedly a heavily modified version of the original 'Aurora' engine, so I expect NWN2 reviewers to get the engine name right. Since that review used the name 'Aurora', they should have qualified it with something like "a heavily modified version of the Aurora engine, called Electron by Obsidian" which is more accurate.

 

The top-down camera is very similar to NWN's, though it can be picky. I don't like that it can't drop down to ground level like NWN's camera could, so the lowest I can get is looking at the upper body of an elf-sized character, or the head and shoulders of a gnome; smaller characters don't even appear. The inability to render 'second story tiles' invisible tends to make the top-down camera more annoying in NWN2, so I'm having to remember to zoom in so I can see what I'm doing, even though zooming in typically reduces your field of view. A reduced field of view is better than no view at all.

[Spider]

Electron is the graphics engine which is brand new and written from scratch. Nothing of Aurora in that. Modified Aurora deals with everything else. So NWN2 uses both Electron and Aurora.

[Jorian Drake]

Electron is the graphics engine which is brand new and written from scratch. Nothing of Aurora in that. Modified Aurora deals with everything else. So NWN2 uses both Electron and Aurora.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And modders name it Aurora becouse thats more a part of their work than Electron

[Fionavar]

For the sake of clutter, do feel free to continue this here: http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?sh...58entry712758