Its a great game but (Neverwinter Nights)

Member Name: an-r-ky-uk

Product:	Neverwinter Nights
Date:	05/03/03 (296 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cutomisation, easy to controll

Disadvantages: single player is seriously lacking

Neverwinter Nights (NWN), is a great game in its own right... but it's far from perfect. If you have played previous D&D and AD&D Bioware games, you will need to enter this game with an open mind as it's nothing .... nothing at all like what you are going to be used to.

NWN has 2 modes which are totally different, the first is single player which IMHO is a great let down. Instead of the usual party you control from previous Bioware D&D games you are stuck with just one character, although you are able to hire a "henchman" it does take away a great deal of game play as you have very, very minimal control over this henchman, in fact you have about as much control over your henchman as you do an untrained dog, being able to only issue commands like stay, fight, guard etc. While the single player game is strong on plot it is dry, although this is backed up by the usual seemingly infinite amount of sub quests, it does not help the main flow of the game. The main let down of this is the fact that there is no ending to the game, still to this day there is an online petition urging Bioware to release a proper ending to the single player campaign.

While NWN isn't the RPG that BG and BG2 have become so popular for it does have its own perks, throughout the entire single player game there will be moments that will make you say "wow" to yourself, there are some real amazing effects and sounds and I guarantee that there will be moment you are hanging off your chair and even some that will make you jump out of it.

In short the single player mode of NWN makes for a nice hack N slash but if your looking for some real hardcore roleplaying this part of the game sadly doesn?t deliver.

The second part of NWN is the Multiplayer side of the game and this is a totally different ball game. Even if you have played the single player campaign all the way though and think you have seen everything you are sooooo mistaken. Multi
player is handled by custom player modules ( campaigns ) being run on servers which you can connect to and play, without ever downloading the custom module. While there are several hindered modules to chose from some really shine above others and it is here where NWN comes into its own league of game play.

Thanks to many very talented individuals within the NWN community the game of NWN has been rewritten for multiplayer, each server has its own qualities, custom ideas, monsters, items etc etc, in short the multiplayer game is what ever you want it to be ( or rather what ever the person who owns the server you are playing on wants it to be ).

While there are many, many more features of the game, it would be impossible to write a full review of this game as a worthy review would take some 4-5 pages to do so. While the game is one of the most customisable I have seen ( besides the sims ), it does have certain limits to its customisation, but thankfully the NWN community are breaking these barriers on a daily basis. One other small annoyance is the fact that Bioware appear to be releasing a patch for the game almost every 4-6 weeks and is now on version 1.28 although these are mainly addresses to Multiplayer mode issues and additions.

Something to also look forward to is the release of 2 new expansion packs within the near future, which this it is fair to say that NWN is going to be around for some time and can only get bigger an better.

NWN is the best online RPG I have ever played
BG2 is the best offline RPG I have ever played
That?s about as fair as one could be.

Summary: