NWN 2: Storm of Zehir - Review @ GameBanshee

GameBanshee has kicked up their review of Storm of Zehir, which reads even lower than the 6/10 score awarded:

From reading the forums here, I know that there are some people out there who hate Obsidian Entertainment with a passion, and who for some reason think that Knights of the Republic 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 are an affront to western civilization. I’m not one of those people. I’d much rather champion a developer who tries new and interesting things but sometimes fails, rather than simply going along with a developer who clones ideas and succeeds. But something just seems to be wrong with Obsidian. They usually come up with good ideas, but can they actually develop games? Can they finish a project on time and without a plethora of bugs? Recent evidence suggests that the answer to these questions is “no,” and Storm of Zehir, their latest expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights 2, is at best a black eye for them.

More information.

This review seems to contradict itself a lot:

The overland maps look like regular Neverwinter Nights 2 maps, except that instead of clicking on a location and instantly traveling there, you have to walk around. That gives the game a new dynamic, plus a reason to keep certain skills high. For example, if your hide and move silently skills are high enough, then the enemies roaming the map won’t detect you, and you’ll be able to move freely. If your spot skill is high enough, then you’ll detect where enemies are, and you’ll also find some random goodies, like abandoned wagons and lost cargo. There are actually lots of skill checks involved in the overland map (including everything from detect traps to craft alchemy), and so the more skilled you can make your party, the better.

The downside to overland maps is that they usually force you into combat when you just want to get somewhere (anybody who played Arcanum knows how frustrating this can be). But in Storm of Zehir, assuming that you have a competent rogue or ranger in your party, you can pretty much pick when you want to fight, and so you don’t have to worry about every trip getting bogged down with a string of battles. I also thought it was fun to explore the countryside and find hidden locations and random objects, and Obsidian even threw in a few special encounters, such as meeting One of Many from the Mask of the Betrayer campaign.

His only complaint so far is with the overland map, but then he tells you how the game is designed to get around that complaint and makes positive points about it. The overall feel is positive. But then he adds this:

Also new in Storm of Zehir is a trading system. Unfortunately, unlike the overland map, this new feature didn’t turn out very well.

Huh? It sounds like in the end he found lots of things to like about the overland map system.

EDIT: Ok, I somehow read unlike as like. My complaint there is invalid! Damn reading before my morning coffee!

In particular, the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine is rather slow and cumbersome, with long loading screen waits every time you change maps or save your game.

I'll give him that the loading screens can get long in the game, but unless he's running this on some ancient computer or they significantly changed the save feature in SoZ, the save game is quite fast, especially the quick save.

He gave and 8.7 and 8.2 review for NWN2 and MotB respectfully so I guess by generalizing the opinion of the forums for SoZ and KotOR2 he gives himself leeway to trash Obsidian as a company - because he personally didn't conclude that the first two games were bad.

So it looks like he's quibbling. He can't say anything bad about OE because he'd contradict himself so gleens it out of a (usually untrustworthy) forum consensus.

For him to say he gives credit for trying innovative things then to proceed to trash said innovation - it just don't add up.

SoZ is buggy and, from what I hear boring as a game, but what I also hear from people that have gotten into the meat of it, its full of innovation and options.

SoZ is the better Oblivion. If your familiar with the rules of the overland map, you can avoid combat and then it's like travelling the sword coast in Baldur's Gate. There is a mine, there is hidden place, a gravestone with some interesting equipment or a strange traveller. It's a real adventure, it has the "come on, one more quest" thing. But the story line is weak, has to be weak. When you think of NWN2 as a storydriven franchise and expected a story driven NX2 you will be disappointed as the reviewer seemed to be. I think I can understand the way he feels.

But on the opposite OEI never pretended to do another MotB. They didn't promise to deliver a rich storyline, they promised an overland map, a new dialog system and a new death system, combined with some trading options. He didn't read the game description carefully before but put his review on personal taste, and that's imho the wrong way. You can only judge what has been promised and how these goals have been approched in the end, not what you wanted to have in the first line. The 6.0 is a personal opinion, nothing more, nothing less.

Originally Posted by Lucky Day
So it looks like he's quibbling. He can't say anything bad about OE because he'd contradict himself so gleens it out of a (usually untrustworthy) forum consensus.

For him to say he gives credit for trying innovative things then to proceed to trash said innovation - it just don't add up.

I'm not sure I get this point. Note that I haven't played SoZ and am not Westlake, so I can't really explain his reasoning fully (if you're curious about it, post on the GB forum and ask), but I don't really see the contradiction in praising a company for principle of innovation and then bashing its game for being unfinished. I love good ideas too, but good ideas, bad execution and 40 cents buys me a cup of coffee. There's no excuse for releasing unfinished games, and liking or disliking a developer has little to do with that.

He didn't read the game description carefully before but put his review on personal taste, and that's imho the wrong way.

What part of the review makes you think he went in with the wrong expectations? I think he kind of addresses what you're saying in the review, actually.

Article quote: "It’s almost as if Obsidian decided to make Storm of Zehir into a combat campaign, with little regard for story or character development. The problem is, the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine isn’t especially good at that sort of thing. It was designed with scripted conversations and cut scenes in mind. In particular, the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine is rather slow and cumbersome, with long loading screen waits every time you change maps or save your game. These loading screens weren’t really a problem in the OC or Mask of the Betrayer, because the maps in those campaigns were large and you’d stay on them for a while. But Storm of Zehir is all about quick hits. Each random encounter on the overland map generates a new map and a loading screen, and almost all of the locations are places that take ten minutes or less to complete. That means the ratio of playing the game to staring at loading screens is way too low. It took me somewhere around 20-30 hours to complete the campaign, but it felt like half of that time was spent twiddling my thumbs."

Although I don't agree with the final score, you have to admit that he's right on the money with the above paragraph. That was a poor design choice, plain and simple.

Originally Posted by Brother None
What part of the review makes you think he went in with the wrong expectations? I think he kind of addresses what you're saying in the review, actually.

Passages as the one Cabel Blacke quoted above got me the impression.

Originally Posted by Cabel Blacke
Although I don't agree with the final score, you have to admit that he's right on the money with the above paragraph. That was a poor design choice, plain and simple.

Absolutely agree - I really like SoZ, but find it flawed - the original NWN did better with handling all-combat stuff than NWN2. I lose my patience with too much loading.

Originally Posted by Avantenor
Passages as the one Cabel Blacke quoted above got me the impression.

That's an odd interpretation. From my reading, that paragraph is saying "I get what they were trying to do, make Storm of Zehir into a combat campaign, but it just doesn't work", which would make me conclude he had no problem understanding what they were trying to do but concluded they were doing it badly.

Originally Posted by Brother None
That's an odd interpretation. From my reading, that paragraph is saying "I get what they were trying to do, make Storm of Zehir into a combat campaign, but it just doesn't work", which would make me conclude he had no problem understanding what they were trying to do but concluded they were doing it badly.

Or even that while what they were trying to do made sense, and they did the best they could, but the underlying engine didn't support it well.

Originally Posted by Brother None
That's an odd interpretation. From my reading, that paragraph is saying "I get what they were trying to do, make Storm of Zehir into a combat campaign, but it just doesn't work", which would make me conclude he had no problem understanding what they were trying to do but concluded they were doing it badly.

I get the same impression. SoZ has some good concepts, but the overall execution makes it an unbelievably dull game.

Who out there hates Obsidian with a passion?

I think that some motivated modders could make a really excellent campaign with the SoZ improvements.