whtknt's Full Review: Neverwinter Nights (PC) for Windows
Neverwinter Nights Manufacturer: Bioware
Platform: PC
Category: Role-playing
Genre: Fantasy
Price: $54.99 (USD)
ESRB Rating: Teen
THIS IS NOT PENCIL & PAPER D&D!
Let's clarify that up front. NWN is not going to replace your face-to-face tabletop role-playing sessions. It isn't meant to and it won't. Sorry to disappoint those of you who thought that this would be a personal holodeck where you could run all of your games in real-time. There are simply too many variables in PNP D&D to try and duplicate it in a computer game of the magnitude that we are capable of running with today's technology.
BUT IT IS D&D 3E, RIGHT?
Yes and no. The D&D 3rd edition rules provide the framework and the game does adhere quite strictly to this ruleset. Character generation is through point-allocation (to prevent cheating by constantly rerolling until you get scores you like), all of the D&D races and classes are represented, and skills and feats are included. Not all skills and feats, though.
WHAT THE *%$@^#! is PARRY?
Due to the nature of the game, Bioware did take a few liberties with the skills and feats system. You won't find, for example, Swim or Climb. The game simply has no means by which to use these skills and therefore, they are not included in the lists. On the other hand, you will find new skills like Parry (to take a defensive stand in combat, equivalent to the Full Defense option in D&D3E) and Discipline (to resist combat feats like Knockdown and Disarm). These are not core 3E skills, but are necessary for the Aurora Engine to function properly.
Familiars also work a little differently, staying out of sight (and out of mind) when you don't need them. They also aren't the standard list found in the Player's Handbook. However, since you can "possess" your familiar and send them ahead to scout an area, this shouldn't upset players too much.
OKAY, SO HOW DOES IT PLAY?
Beautifully. As a single-player game, the sample adventure that is included will keep you entertained for hours. Plus, there are a wealth of user-created adventures already available at the Bioware website. But the real beauty of NWN isn't it's single-player capability. It's the idea of being able to adventure with (or DM for) friends across the country or around the world!
Neverwinter Nights is a multi-player game capable of supporting up to 64 players at once. Ideally, of course, most groups will be significantly smaller, say four to eight participants, but the option for large-scale warfare is there if you desire it. But so what? After all, Diablo can do multi-player.
True, but can Diablo allow one of the players to act in the role of the Dungeon Master, making alterations to the adventure on the fly and possessing the bodies of NPCs and creatures in the game? I didn't think so. And there we see what makes NWN stand out from the crowd. Multi-player capability has become almost blasé, so Bioware needed something different, and they delivered!
As the Dungeon Master, the player has complete control over the adventure, from altering the number of monsters in an encounter, to changing lighting settings, to possessing the body of any creature in the game (except player characters) and speaking and acting through the host body. You can't fudge die rolls, as you might in table-top DMing, but you can kill a monster arbitrarily if you see that the PCs are having trouble. You can place and remove treasures and encounters at will. In short, you have almost as much control as a table-top DM would have over their campaign.
From a graphical standpoint, NWN is beautiful, though only the higher-end machines will be able to appreciate the full beauty of the 3D modeling. Still, I run mine with all the extras turned off and I have no complaints. It doesn't detract one whit from gameplay.
The computer handles all die rolls, from Search checks to attack rolls. A nice touch is the status box which displays your attack and skill rolls and the damage results, but you can turn it off for a more "mechanics-free" experience. The computer also determines when your rogue can sneak attack, attacks of opportunity, and whether or not a critical is scored. This frees the players and DM up to concentrate on the focus of the game.
I was remiss in not mentioning the radial menu system and the hotkey slots. Right-click on your character, an object, or a creature/NPC and you bring up a radial menu system that permits you a broad range of options, depending on the object in question and the circumstances. For example, if you right-click on your hireling, you can ask them to heal you (if possible), change their default actions, leave your party, or open a lock. If you right-click an NPC, you can change your emotional state towards this character, taking a more aggressive stance or being a bit more withdrawn. The radial menu system is very nice and easy to become accustomed to, though you can become lost in the options available to you.
Hotkey slots are similar to those used in the Diablo series of games. You can assign certain feats, functions, spells, or items to a particular Function key, enabling you to use it at the touch of a key. This is a very nice feature that I have come to appreciate in Diablo and I'm glad to see that they implemented it in NWN. Assign your weapon to a hotkey because most people in town won't talk to you if you have a weapon out and it gets to be a nuisance to keep bringing up the inventory screen and transfering it from hand to pack or vice versa. You have a total of 36 hotkey slots, using the SHIFT and ALT keys. Of course, the hotkeys are completely customizable.
The solo quest assumes the you will hire a henchmen to accompany you and the game warns that certain areas may be too difficult to accomplish without help. I've found this to be true. While my monk proved quite capable of holding her own, there came a time when it was just impossible to carry on without some help. My gripe is that, no matter how much wealth you have, you can only acquire one henchman at a time. Yes, this is supported by the D&D rules, but there it requires a feat and that the character be at least 6th level, so since they bent so many other rules, they could have bent this one as well.
Another problem with henchmen is their tactlessness. My henchman would go immediately into attack mode, even against stronger foes. As soon as she saw them hit the screen, she would begin firing on them. While this may not seem significant, if you're trying to open a lock or disarm a trap, it can cause problems. The game assumes that if you are not in combat, you will "Take 20" to perform the task (which means that you automatically figure your success as if you had scored a 20 on the skill check), but if your henchmen suddenly goes berserk, this throws you into combat mode and the result can be most distressing. There are also times when you might like to sneak by an enemy unnoticed and with your companion beating them in the head, it makes this event less likely. The other problem I have is that whenever I try a chest or crate to see if it is locked, my henchman begins attacking the object, not giving me the opportunity to attempt to pick the lock (or disarm the trap).
While the sample module is not overly role-playing driven, I can easily see how a well-written adventure with a DM at the helm could become a very deep scenario where role-playing is of the utmost importance and that's refreshing in a world where games like Diablo and Dungeon Siege focus on "open the door, kill the monster, take the treasure." It is this difference that will let NWN stand apart from the others.
YOU SAID "USER-CREATED" ADVENTURES?
NWN also comes with an added goodie called the Neverwinter Toolkit. The toolkit contains everything you need to build your own adventures for NWN to share with your friends or even post online to share with the world! And when I say everything, I mean everything! The Toolkit is the same one they used to build the sample adventure. Nothing is left out! They've given you the very same tools they used to design the game!
But what if that just isn't enough? What if you wanted to create new sounds, or you wanted a broader range of character portraits, or what if your world just isn't the same without the presence of pink minotaurs? Relax. Besides a wealth of tutorials available on the Bioware site covering everything from the basics of adventure creation to customizing monsters, users are always uploading new goodies called hak paks, which change the very way the game works! Everything about NWN is as transparent to the users as possible, meaning that there is no limit to your creativity!
SO WHO WOULD ENJOY IT?
Any diehard D&D player will find something about this game that they like, and though it uses the D&D 3E ruleset, it's still friendly enough that Diablo and Dungeon Siege gamers will also enjoy what it offers. Programmers will go nuts with the toolset! I'd say that it's well worth the $60, unless you were hoping for something that duplicated 3E to the letter (in which case you're going to be disappointed).
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