The Big "How Is It?" Thread

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I thought I'd start this so that anyone who buys it tomorrow (and after) can expound on their playing experience - so the rest of us can decide whether or not we want to shell out the dough and join the fun.

Detailed impressions/reviews greatly appreciated. Thanks a pantload in advance.

 

I'm goiing to be picking it up tomorrow hopefully so I'll be hanging around here for a while!!

I hope it can run on my computer though...

 

Didn't get a good review on gamespot, infact, even the first one had a better review, so I deffinetly won't be buying it.

 

Still no sign of the mysterious NWN2 ("Yes, Mr. shop owner, it *is* a game.") in my picturesque area.

[EDIT: sorry, I got this thread confused with the "Who has it?" one.)

 

There was a review at 1UP rating it 5 out of 10 but they have pulled it and replaced with something more favourable to the game. You can still find the original review as a forum thread there.

 

The game has it's ups and downs. Obsidian did a great job of half-assing the role-playing/non-annoying part of it, but sure did implement a lot of stuff. Honestly I think NWN1 had more feats than NWN2 (organized better as far getting weapon focus and such goes) as well, but... as for the mechanics and all that - multiplayer will be much better, with further patches and maybe xpacs, the game has a lot of room for growth!!!

It's up to each player whether or not they want to play an RPG-esque action adventure game or not .

 

@omnigodly: Care to explain the weapon focus difference from NWN1?

@Catbert: To me, some of the screens look like Rage of Mages or another well-meant but budget game. And some stuff looks like Might & Magic IX, which is a bad association. Some looks like Might & Magic 6 and that's a good association, but come on, just how old it is. We're talking about a friggin' new game with unearthly requirements. And it's not an insane first person shooter, it's an RPG.

And KotOR rules. It was fluent and all on my machine, even KotOR 2. I do think it was sufficient, graphics-wise. Could have the same in NWN2.

 

My Lord do I want this game. Sure, the last thing I need is another distraction from studying, but still.

And catbert, I love your infamously lurking behaviour. It's been quite a while since I've spoken to you last.

 

The way Weapon Focus is displayed is annoying. Rather than selecting Weapon Focus... followed by the weapon in another box, there are individual feats for each, which makes the list of feats at levelup very cluttered. The same applies for skill focus and improved critical, and probably for any others that used a separate box in NWN.

I think the graphics look great. I love that everything has ceilings now. The characters have more animations, and the toolset is awesome. The camera can be a pain; it zooms too sluggishly for my liking. The characters are deep, and the quests, much like KotOR2, have a lot more grey morality. The game does start slowly, though; it's only when you reach Neverwinter that it becomes great. There's also a lot of humour in it, and the fact that this is made by some of the people who made Torment becomes quite clear. Voicing isn't great, and there aren't enough heads and hairstyles. And huzzah, there's no more radial menu!

[End of incoherent stream of thoughts]

 

Aside from issues I have with some of the mechanics and rules, I'm not finding the story very compelling at this point. You start off with life-long friends and a father who is far from appealing, which shows some promise. But before you really get attached, you lose/dump/leave the lot of them. The only real motive established, other than self-preservation, is the death of someone whom you didn't get to know well enough (in gameplay terms) to be sold on avenging. All in all, the backstory seems merely to be a device to get the game rolling.

Beyond that, no real story has emerged. No epic adventure. No world to save. No personal quest of discovery. It's about as mysterious and interesting as a Scooby Doo episode. I'm not hooked. If it doesn't pick up soon, I'll probably shelve it and replay the BG series for the thousandth time. Even the OC of NWN1 would be preferable to this -- at least the NWN1 NPCs had stories to tell.

In NWN2, I'm about to dirt nap the stupid tiefling myself. She's worse that Anomen, and the game engine won't let me dump her. I'm almost ready to start a new game and blow a dozen hours of play just so I can avoid making the mistake of saving her.

 

The movement animations are less important to me than the gameplay and environment. Doesn't make sense to set everything to medium/low graphics and then complain about the animations being medium/low quality.

Alavin hit the weapon focus thing right on the money. Same issue with Skill Focus. Seems like Obsidian just wanted to make it look like there were more feats since they failed miserably at applying anymore than NWN1 had. The tiefling is a tad annoying, but I got used to her by the time I hit the city. She also toned down a little bit. Otherwise I mute my sound during her animation and just read the text .

To be honest, I think Obsidian owes everyone a better game instead re-doing NWN1 - the story line just rings of "rip-off (NWN1)". Magical artifacts, woo... never seen that before in NWN1, SoU and HotU... I hope there's more to it after you get started in the city, or I'm going to quit playing the campaign and go straight to player-made mods.

 

I thought the graphichs looked too "cute". Kind of like wow or something. I haven`t played it too much though, but it doesn`t seem like it has improved anything from the original game. The guys who made Morrowind and Oblivion are decades ahead of the guys who made nwn in my opinion. In ever aspect of the game.

 

From what I can tell, the regular walk/run animations from NWN are still in the game, including walking and strafing. You may just have yours set to autorun. Frankly, I don't see how something that trivial can seriously impact a game experience.

The game is also running like crap on my rig, which is admittedly not super-high end, but even with all the settings turned to their lowest, it's still chugging hard.

 

When I said more animations, I meant specifically non-combat animations, since they're the ones that matter most to me. For example, after one quest, a large group of men starts cheering at the prospect of heading to the pub, and starts cheering; they use half a dozen different cheer animations. Since I intend to make extensive use of the toolset, this is important to me; I can make much more immersive cutscenes than was possible in NWN.

 

I agree about the animations, they look a bit silly...

When that fighter at the beginning of the game started running with this longsword I couldn't stop laughing. I was reminded of Monty Python. Or better yet, Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
Remember that scene where Robin Hood interupts the Duke's dinner. After a while a lot of guards run out, falling over like domino stones later that scene.
That fighter guy reminds me of those guards...

But, in all fairness, the game is cool, I'm enjoying myself immensly and I don't really care about graphics, as long as I can see the end of the story!

 

ithink this game has better npc's then morrowind/oblivion ever had. secondly the original campaign has a better story then nwn1(okay i have seen fps and c-movies with better stories)
thirdly the going back to full party control rocks.

and finaly, much like nwn1, this game rocks not do to the mainstory but do the possibility of playermade mods and online worlds.