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NWN2 - Review @ GameSpot

GameSpot has posted their review of NWN2, describing the story as "compelling" and awarding a score of 8.6/10:

Quote:

To say that the expectations are high for Neverwinter Nights 2 would be a massive understatement. Not only is it the sequel to one of the best role-playing games ever to bear the Dungeons & Dragons license, but it's also been developed by some of the creative talent behind such other revered role-playing games as Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. The good news is that Neverwinter Nights 2 lives up to its pedigree by delivering a captivating story full of exciting twists and characters who you'll grow attached to out of fondness or, perhaps even better, complete loathing. It's not without a few frustrating technical shortcomings, but overall Neverwinter Nights 2 is a great role-playing adventure that just about anyone can enjoy.

More information.

I'm kinda disappointed that the review score is lower than the first game, given that the single player campaign appears to be much much better. In my opinion, the first game was grotesquely overrated and it never got the panning that it deserved for its crappy OC. But the second game appears to have some technical issues. What is it nowadays with PC games that have average to above average graphics running like total crap on high end systems? (e.g. Gothic 3, NWN2, Dark Messiah of M&M) It's also a bit disappointing that they didn't update the sound effects, and it sounds like they didn't come up with new animations either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by doctor_kaz (Post 4581)

I'm kinda disappointed that the review score is lower than the first game, given that the single player campaign appears to be much much better.

My advice is always the same - don't get fixated on scoring. I just had a debate with one of my editors about the final score for my 'Dark Messiah' review because of some of the sub-scores … but the text of the review is very clear and supported my final number in the context of their review guide. But *their* review guidelines are somewhat different from GameSpot and IGN and so on.

The issue with NWN2, which is a valid one, is the Quality-to-Cost ratio for the gfx. When you have a mid to lower-mid system and can get decent performance out a great-looking game like Oblivion, you would expect that higher system requirements would result in better presentation. That isn't the case with NWN2, as playing it at its highest settings looks nice, but doesn't seem to justify the cost of a 4+Ghz processor, 2GBs of DDR3 RAM, and a high-powered SLi configuration.

Optimizations are required with future patching or the game will simply never get off the ground like the first one did, no matter how well-written the story.

The reason why games like BG2 got such high reviews at the time is because they were playable by nearly the entire audience at the time AND had some spiffy new spell effects, etc.

Yes, I fully agree that the game is not optimized, especailly with respect to the graphics. That said, one thing that I did was to turn down the draw distance (which I actaully thought was too far) to about 100 , and that seemed to help.

Well from what I have read on forums it doesn't seem to be working well on SLi machines but fine on single card ones. I have the game myself but only got to look at the first room this morning before rushing to work. I'll let you know how it runs on my machine when I get home.

edit:

On this system: AMD 3500+, 2Gig RAM, 7800GTX runs fine on high settings.

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Originally Posted by txa1265 (Post 4598)

My point is that this game is not getting set up to succeed nearly as much as the first game. In more ways than one. The early reviews very good but they aren't as flattering, and the game just isn't getting hyped or marketed nearly as much. It showed up on the scene with barely a peep of excitement except within the hardcore PC RPG community. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic has been getting more hype than this game. Timing is probalby a big issue too. The first game came out in Q2 and this game is coming out the same week as FFXII and only weeks before the Playstation 3. The PC desperately needs non-MMORPG's that aren't Diablo clones. Atari has been funding the worst kinds of crap that use the D&D license and they might continue to do that unless they get a strong signal from the market that this is what they want.

NWN didn't just sell fast, though, it has had 4 years of sustained good sales. My estimation from the early going in this is that we'll be playing mods of this for years to come!

Dark Messiah gets the billing because its an action game. NWN2 got pretty decent billing in my opinion - especially at E3.

Also don't forget the PS3 is already outdated. The so called "Hi Def" console industry will get drop kicked in the nuts when Crysis arrives. Did you see the G80 clips? LOL. Consoles are totally outclassed by next years PC games. Let them have their fleeting moment. In two years the PS3 and xBox 360 will look like crap and PC game genres will start seeing the big bucks again.