Neverwinter Nights

The Good
Whenever I talk about BioWare, there is always one game I try not to mention, and that is Neverwinter Nights. You can jump straight to the "Bad" section to find out why; but for the sake of objectivity, the game's good sides should be listed as well.

As a disclaimer, I must state that my review is restricted to the "vanilla" single-player campaign that constitutes the actual game in my eyes. I understand that Neverwinter Nights was conceived primarily with the construction kit in mind, aiming to allow players become dungeon masters and create their own adventures with the included editor. This would essentially classify the campaign as a demonstration of the new engine and rule set. This idea, while certainly controversial for a developer with BioWare's reputation, is not unacceptable per se. My main gripe with the game is the perceived lack of investment into the campaign, even considering its lower priority on their scale.

Here and there you can find glimpses of genius that earned the company its stellar reputation. The writing is somewhat awkward, but some optional dialogue choices attempt to bring back the glory of the sprawling conversations and the moral decisions of Baldur's Gate. There is also humor to be found, if not in characterization, but in some of the dialogue lines. A few characters are promising and could have evolved into substantial figures if this side of the game were given any serious attention. In short, even what BioWare does without care and love is still not completely devoid of merits.

The graphics are technically good, with some impressive shadows and nice-looking spell animations. Even though you can't look up and down, at least they included the possibility to rotate the camera left and right, as well as zoom in and out. Generally, I welcome the transition to 3D, though I think it should mean more than just modeling everything in the new fashion, and perhaps include physical interactivity. Still, it is important that a non-Bethesda RPG tried to be a bit more modern in presentation.

The Bad
Neverwinter Nights reminded me of Quake. I nearly had a feeling of deja-vu when I fired up the game, saw the impressive graphics, played for a while, and felt more and more that I was playing a tech demo. Just like with Quake, the game was obviously created with multiplayer in mind; in this particular case, perhaps the toolkit was meant to be the main selling point. I know that many will disagree with me, saying it's not fair to criticize the weak single-player campaign since the game wasn't supposed to focus on that. To this I can only say that anyone who played BioWare's previous offerings may have expected anything but a game with such premise, and I can't blame fans (myself included) for being sorely disappointed.

Probably in an attempt to cater to those affected by the Diablo craze of the time, BioWare decided to reduce most of what made their previous RPGs enjoyable - exploration, side quests, moral decisions, etc. - and concentrated on combat. Everything in Neverwinter Nights is smaller, blander, and much more shallow than what we have seen in Baldur's Gate games. There is little sense of adventure, and surprisingly little to do in general. You basically follow the main quest in one prescribed fashion, and that's it. The complex world full of characters, quests and decisions has disappeared almost without trace.

The laziness in design is evident in everything, starting with the thin, straightforward main story and ending with the abundance of "twins" (same character portraits are liberally used for completely different people). Even in the graphical front, I consider Neverwinter Nights a letdown. The 3D of the game is purely cosmetic; it brings nothing substantial that would enhance the gameplay beyond the previous isometric experiences. While the graphics are technically good, they lack the artistry of the company's preceding creations. Textures tend to be repetitive, and brown-yellow color palette is overused (again, Quake comes to mind). There is something artificial, mechanical in the way the game looks - perhaps not so surprisingly, considering the fact it consists of tiles, presumably with the goal of making it easier for the players to design their own maps. In fact, the whole game does feel like a halfway competent, yet uninspired mod.

However, if you asked me to choose one flaw that contributes most to the game's downfall, I'd answer without hesitation: the absence of a party. This is a fatal error that ruins the game, making me wonder how could it happen that the very same company that revived party-based combat for modern RPGs could overlook it. You don't need to be a RPG expert to understand the simple fact: turn-based combat (whether in its pure form or in BioWare's trademark "real-time with pause" incarnation) doesn't work without a party. It turns into a snore-inducing experience devoid of strategy and satisfaction. I still cannot fathom how these experienced designers released a combat-oriented game in which combat lacks the basic ingredient that would make it enjoyable.

The new shiny third edition rules become useless when you realize they only apply to one single character. You can't replay a game twenty times just to try out every single class and ability combination for the protagonist; moreover, it is pointless because AD&D was designed with a party in mind, where coordinated attacks are the meet and potatoes of combat. What's the point of playing as a lonely fighter, cleric, or mage, if you cannot control anyone who would complement your skills? Yes, you can hire henchmen, but they are pitiful substitutes to real party members, both in characterization and from the gameplay point of view. Like in Fallout, they cannot be controlled; much worse is the fact you cannot have more than one at the same time. Needless to say it becomes impossible to draw any satisfaction from this crippled combat. Even the monotonous clicking of Diablo was more rewarding, since action-based battles sit well with the "no party" policy.

The Bottom Line
I can easily understand why many fans are angry at BioWare for making Neverwinter Nights. Regardless of its innovations as a toolkit, the actual game is a dry, uninspired, formulaic affair with dubious design choices. To those looking for simple, unpretentious AD&D hack-and-slash, I'd rather recommend the conceptually much more coherent and fulfilling Icewind Dale. Devoted BioWare admirers should probably move on.

The Good
Neverwinter Nights (NWN) is a very difficult game to review because there are so many different ways to play the game. NWN's biggest strength is as a platform for game development since it is so expandable you never run out of things to do whether you are a player, a Dungeon Master, a world builder, or all three.

The pre-made modules make up a good RPG with good characters and a fun, if somewhat cliched storyline. Bioware did a good job of making it possible and fun for any class to solve the game using class-specific special abilities and your henchmen helper. The graphics, while not as good as Dungeon Siege, are still very good, and the quests and dungeons are well done.

Gameplay is straightforward and easy to get into. Bioware gave you three sets of configurable hotkeys for activating abilities, weapons, emotions (like waving or anger), and spells. The character sheets are well laid out and easy to read and the automap and journal make it easy to figure out where you are and what you are supposed to be doing.

The journal is especially well done, letting you sort your quests by priority, completion status, and several other criteria as well as giving you the option of adding your own entries. The automap lets you mark locations on the map, and is automatically updated with obvious marks such as local stores and points of interest.

Multiplayer play is very easy to set up (I mostly played a few PvP modules and played some cooperative games through the main game). I can't comment on the Dungeon Master modes yet as I have not tried them, but I had a lot of fun dungeon-delving with my friend through Neverwinter.

The editor is easy to get started with, and has all the tools you need to make a game just like the included Neverwinter Nights (unless if you want to add new graphics, movies, or sounds of course).

The Bad
The main problem with Neverwinter Nights is that it is not an exact implementation of 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons rules. The combat is very well done, but the lack of crafting, professional, and knowledge skills really limits the flexibility of a Dungeon Master trying to add spice to his campaign. Other notable skill and feat omissions are: no Tracking feat, no acrobatics, balance, jumping, climbing, disguise, or forgery skills for thieves, no magic item crafting feats for magic users, several fighter feats are missing including Great Cleave and Whirlwind, and my favorite weapon, the spiked chain is not implemented.

Bioware initially stated that flying, climbing, mounted riding, and crafting skills would not be included, but why get rid of knowledge and profession skills, even if they aren't used in the Neverwinter campaign? Any creative DM could put in skill checks when necessary, even if the skill isn't directly supported in the engine. Also, I was very disappointed that you had to take Parry to get a defensive skill because the Acrobatics/Jumping combo was one of my favorite thief or Monk skill combos.

The omissions in NWN may be fixed in patched, hackpacks, or expansion packs, so this may only be a temporary issue, but it should have been addressed in the first release.

The other problems with NWN are only minor. The automap, as it is used in the NWN campaign, tends to reveal too much as you explore. It is a little anti-climactic to see a marker on the map labelled "Orc Chieftan Throne Room" when your character would really have no idea what the room was for until after he had entered it.

Another gameplay issue (for single player play only) is that compared to earlier Bioware games, interaction between your character and NPCs is not nearly as involving as some of the romances and inter-party conflicts in Baldur's Gate 2 or Planescape: Torment. This is mostly a design issue: since you can only hire one henchman (henchperson?) at a time, your role-playing is limited to your interaction with one teammate instead of five teammates.

There are other minor quest and scripting issues in the game, some of which were fixed in early patches. None of them keep you from finishing the game, but they can get a little annoying.

Another design decision that I didn't like was to use tiles to create the maps. The result of this decision is that NWN is the only recent 3D game that does not support smooth terrain such as the rolling hills and steep mountains trails in Dungeon Siege. It may make the map design easier, but I hate the "terraced" look of the wilderness maps.

The Bottom Line
Neverwinter Nights is an implementation of the 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons game on the PC with 3D graphics, sound, and the ability to design and run your own games. It succeeds at providing a good bundled game and a well-designed if somewhat complicated construction set to build your own games. Of the three big RPG construction sets released this year (Dungeon Siege, Morrowind, NWN), Neverwinter Nights is the most successful at what it aspires to do.

The Good
The story, the new rules (3rd Edition), the depth of character development, the graphics and artwork, the gameplay.

The Bad
Only one henchman instead of a party, sometimes the graphics look rather blocky,the dialogues and the GUI were better in previous titles.

The Bottom Line
When I first played Neverwinter Nights, I had a feeling like I was returning to a place I left long time ago. Actually, back in the 80s, I was addicted to "Pools of Radiance" (TSR/SSI), the game made me spent hours, weeks and months in front of the computer. 3 hours into NWN I knew this was going to be more addictive for me than "Baldurs Gate" or "Icewind Dale", and 10 hours later, I was proven right. The new, more detailed skill/feats system is sometimes as motivating as the one found in "Diablo 2", and it lets You customize Your main character in a lot of ways within the boundaries of the class/race. The combat looks great, better than ever before, the weapons are fantastic (double bladed sword a la Darth Maul anyone ?), and the talents show in combat (multiple hits, hitting specific parts like arms/legs etc). The gameplay is really at the same time classic and innovative, the story is deep and the characters as cliched and typical as You might exspect from an epic fantasy game. The graphics are well done, not as good as Dungeon Siege, far behind Morrowind, but You will apperciate the little details and the general look after a while, because the lighting/shadowing system is truly atmospheric. The dialogue/interface system is the only point where I would say that is average at best. In previous Bioware games, this part was good enough, but here, the system looks a bit halfbaked because for example there are two windows where You can follow the dialogue (main event window/dialogue window), which is not necessary. Also, the windows such as automap, inventory etc look like they can be moved around (windows style), but they are fixed in place and can only be resized. Speaking fo dialogue...this part could have been better, in fact in NWN I found myself clicking away the dialogues as fast as possible, because it just feels a bit clumsy to have to read through them. This was easier and more pleasing to the eye in BG, IWD... But these are just minor problems, the improvements are too good in comparison, and I want to recommend this game to any serious roleplaying gamer.