RPGWatch Feature: NWN 2 OC Review

Avantenor said:

Sry to interrupt this discussion with a stupid question, but what's the final rating of Corwins Review? 3 of 5? 5? I can't recognize if these stars have different colors...

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Yeah, the stars are difficult to read regardless of the color scheme you use.

I enjoyed NWN2 a lot; the combat and story is much better than in NWN1. Still, there are some valid points in the review, such as the annoying resetting of formations after cutscenes. Other than that I found a bit too linear, without enough sidequests.

It was still the 2nd best game of 2006 for me, Gothic 3 being number 1. In fact, they are the best two games I've played since KotOR/Gothic 2, so I can't complain about either.

Also, was anyone surprised that diplomacy only works for the main character? It's been that way for ages - NWN1, the Star Wars: KotOR games, Baldur's Gate and so on. Charisma and Diplomacy is only useful for the main character in pretty much every D&D based RPG I've ever played. The only use it has for NPCs is to increase certain rolls for a few classes.

Furthermore, someone mentioned crafting is useless? You can make, by far, the strongest items in the game if you do it properly. It's a bit too complicated at the moment though, which is why it's getting a slight makeover in the add-on as far as I know.

And another thing, I've seen people call it easy enough to beat on the hardest difficulty even without puppet mode. You need an amazing amount of luck to pull that off - in most hard fights, Miss Fireball will blast your party into the realm of Bhaal long before the enemies die. In fact, she even kills herself with this flawless tactic.

All in all, that's nothing I worry about though - like in Baldur's Gate 2, I wouldn't even want to have a party AI, I like controlling all partymembers. In fact, it's one of the biggest weaknesses in NWN1 in my opinion - completely retarded, uncontrollable NPCs that get themselves killed more often than not.

At any rate, me and Corwin agrees on certain aspects and disagree on others. This is not unexpected as we probably want different things out of the games we play. I am, however, surprised that Mr. Indie complained about the graphics, hehe.

Maylander, my point about diplomacy, crafting, etc, is not that only the PC can do, though that is annoying at times, but that you can build up those skills with your companions at level up, yet they are completely useless; they aren't able to use them!! This is POOR design. Is this a solo game, or a party game? It's neither, it's a solo game PRETENDING to be a party game. Give me one, or the other, please, so I know what to expect!!

Actually, I said the deeper crafting system added diversity.

Voice acting really annoyed me - same in NWN1 actually.

It's only diplomacy - other characters can do crafting and what not, just place the items in their inventory and let them go through the process, and their skill will determine the outcome. It might be a little tricky to get magic crafting and so on to work on companions, but it's definetly possible. Only chat option checks are main character only - intelligence, wisdom, strength, charisma, diplomacy, intimidate and so on.

As far as I know, this is the way it works in Baldur's Gate 1-2, KotOR, NWN and so on and so forth. Charisma/Diplomacy is a complete waste on most non-main characters in such games. Yes, I know it's a shame Corwin - I agree with you, but it's not unexpected; I've grown used to it by now.

Maylander said:

As far as I know, this is the way it works in Baldur's Gate 1-2, KotOR, NWN and so on and so forth. Charisma/Diplomacy is a complete waste on most non-main characters in such games. Yes, I know it's a shame Corwin - I agree with you, but it's not unexpected; I've grown used to it by now.

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Not quite true. In all the IE games (baldurs gate 1&2, IWD, Torment) the stats of the character who initiates the talking are used, so you can use companions who have better charisma to get better prices etc.

Hmm, that's true, and there were never persuasion options based on the charisma skill either so that wasn't needed. I stand corrected: All Aurora games have the same system (in fact, Aurora games usually have quite a few similarities).

Well, the review points out a lot of flaws in NWN2 - and I have to agree with the review in most cases (apart from the fact that NWN2 isn't ugly at all when played with a GeForce 8800 GTX *g*). However, and that's an experience I had with a lot of games: NWN2 has SOMETHING that makes me like it. And that's a something you can't really catch in a review that lists the pro's and con's.

For me, NWN2 is a comeback kid - it makes me come back again and again. I have to other games like that on my HD (the only games that reside on it nowadays): Spellforce 2 and Oblivion. It's maybe because even their flaws fall together nicely to form something enjoyable. Or maybe it's just because I tend to like games that purists would rate as "bad" *g*. Dunno, really, but fun and enjoyment is different to everyone.

Finally, I have to say that I thought the review was one of the best I have read about NWN2, when you look at the facts given - even if my conclusion would be different...

Rendelius said:

Well, the review points out a lot of flaws in NWN2 - and I have to agree with the review in most cases (apart from the fact that NWN2 isn't ugly at all when played with a GeForce 8800 GTX *g*). However, and that's an experience I had with a lot of games: NWN2 has SOMETHING that makes me like it. And that's a something you can't really catch in a review that lists the pro's and con's.

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*subscribe*

That's a good explanation of my feelings, too. I see the problems, the mistakes that have been done during development, the lack of polishing... But NWN2 has a soul. It's not perfect, but it is pleasing me. I never liked BioWare's Toolset (+ demo campaign) they delivered, because it was no fun. NWN2 isn't the best game ever, but the best classic CRPG for a long time. And it's more than just average.

But I also understand the reviewers who are disappointed.

When you say "average", do you mean the score? 3/5 doesn't really mean "average" to our scoring system - it means good but flawed, such that the flaws will split opinion on the game.

Average - or perhaps more accurately "mediocre", would probably score 2/5. There's a link to our scoring guidelines at the bottom of the review.

Hi Rend, long time no see!! Thanks for the kind comments on the review; it's all your fault actually, you 'hired' me back at the Dot to write articles!!

Corwin said:

Hi Rend, long time no see!! Thanks for the kind comments on the review; it's all your fault actually, you 'hired' me back at the Dot to write articles!!

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*g*

I stop by here quite often, and enjoy the high standards of RPGWatch. It's always the team that makes a site shine, and this is a helluva team here .

My interest in CRPGs hasn't faded, but my time to actually play them has :-(. So much work to do in real life.

Greetings to the whole team!

Thanks for the comments, Rend. Always nice to have you visit.

Bad Review in my oppinion

Ionstormsucks said:

Guess it's a matter of taste... I was pretty much done with the OC when they told me that I was a foster child and when they came up with that magical shard. Honestly I cannot stand it anymore. I have nothing against traditional fantasy motifs, but do they really have to use every single cliché that the fantasy genre has ever witnessed? If I play a fantasy rpg nowadays I always have the feeling that I'm experiencing one constant stream of deja vus...

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In my oppinion Corwin's review was not so good. While true that he pointed out some issues the game has, those issues are not so horrible to ruin the play. For example, the AI problem can be very easily solved by customizing it or completly turning it off; the camera just needs some time getting used to, and it does a decent job. The combat is made by the D&D rules so you cannot expect battles from first person like in Oblivion. The story is one of the best ever made in RPG genre. Maybe it cannot be compared with Baldur's Gate or Final Fantasy stories, but it's certainly far, far better then Oblivion. That's a fact and not a matter of taste or oppinion.

Corwin mentions the AI can be turned off -- he says "thank the lord for Puppet mode". I'm also not sure why you think we expect first-person battles like Oblivion? Most of the people involved in this review have been played D&D (both PnP and the early D&D CRPGs, such as the Gold Box games) for many, many years, so we get how D&D combat works. That wasn't the problem - the issue was how NWN2 implements some of the battles and related issues - have another read.

I thought the story was OK but it's awfully slow until you get to the city and there are plenty of issues to cause frustrations such as the excessive forced party changes.

Mareus, your comparing your play through on at least 5 patches and 6 months AFTER the review was made.

Well every story is vastly superior to oblivion, but still the effect playing a game in a broken state, (which NWN2 OC was) is impossible to gauge a games story, if your pulling your hair out at every location due to bugs, broken mechanics and poor design.

Yes, poor Corwin thinking this was going to be like oblivion combat.
Most times he thinks he is playing Doom and wants a Rocket Launcher, too.

Glad you had a great experience 6 months later.

Acleacius said:

Mareus, your comparing your play through on at least 5 patches and 6 months AFTER the review was made.

Well every story is vastly superior to oblivion, but still the effect playing a game in a broken state, (which NWN2 OC was) is impossible to gauge a games story, if your pulling your hair out at every location due to bugs, broken mechanics and poor design.

Yes, poor Corwin thinking this was going to be like oblivion combat.
Most times he thinks he is playing Doom and wants a Rocket Launcher, too.

Glad you had a great experience 6 months later.

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Well i just wanted to comment his review because i finished the game 2 times before buying the original and only few days ago being able to install all the patches(i didn't want to buy the original until i tested the game first, because of all the bad reviews out there). And let me tell you i was really surprised with the game, because i really didnt feel the game was in a broken state, even in 1.0 version. Sure it had some issues, but no need to pull your hair over it.

I mean if the problem is AI, lets talk about AI in Oblivion! So many people are pulling their hair over AI in NWN 2 while rarely anyone speaks about the 10 x worse AI in Oblivion, and i feel that is not fair. For example:
In Oblivion you dont have a party, but on some occasions soldiers and alike join you for a while and then they charge into battle like madman, even killing eachother in the process! If you hit and kill one of your party members in the heat of battle by accident, they turn on you and kill you where you stand! Now how is that for terrible AI, but no one is talking about that?! In NWN 2 you can atleast customize it and even play it alot like Baldur's Gate(although its not so simple because of 3D graphics, but its also not terrible).

In Oblivion dialogs make you wanna puke! Characters are without charisma or personality! Game is 10 x times more buggy than NWN2. For example:
When i rescued Kvatch i returned there after two months and to my surprise the city was still burning in flames!!! I mean the rain in two months could have at least put out the fire??

Let no one here think i have personal issues with Oblivion because i am a huuuuge fan of Morrowind, and i was expecting Oblivion will bring everything Morrowind had, just with better graphics.

But i don't want to talk about Oblivion, because this is about NWN2. Its just i feel the two games didn't get the same treatment from reviewers.

Reviews like Corwin's made me test the game before buying the original, while good reviews Oblivion got made me spend my money for a game that has alot more issues than NWN2. Let me tell you this is the last time i will buy an original game before testing it out thourghly.

NWN2 is a rare gem that brings out all that is good about RPG genre. In the last 7 years (with exception of KOTOR 1&2, and Vampire Masquarade: Bloodlines) i was really missing a good story, great characters with a great plot and dialogs. It was always about graphics! Long are the days over, when games like Morrowind, Baldurs Gate and Planescape Torment came out year after year after year and its really a shame that with the technology we today posses, we have to play old games to get what we want. NWN2 is a step back to the good old days and that is why it makes me very pissed off that some people value good graphics over everything else and they make huge issues over things that are in other games made far worse, but they are forgiven cause the game looks good! I just hope NWN2 is selling great, so we could expect more such great games from Obsidian and Bioware, because they are the only two in who i still have faith. Its like they are the only ones who still value things that really matter over good graphics.

Dhruin said:

Corwin mentions the AI can be turned off -- he says "thank the lord for Puppet mode". I'm also not sure why you think we expect first-person battles like Oblivion? Most of the people involved in this review have been played D&D (both PnP and the early D&D CRPGs, such as the Gold Box games) for many, many years, so we get how D&D combat works. That wasn't the problem - the issue was how NWN2 implements some of the battles and related issues - have another read.

I thought the story was OK but it's awfully slow until you get to the city and there are plenty of issues to cause frustrations such as the excessive forced party changes.

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Yes true. Corwin did say Thank the lord for the puppet mode, and he just compared NWN2 with Oblivion graphicly. Its just there is too many reviews out there that are just concentrating on the bad things in the game, and let me tell you there is not one game that doesn't have issues before being patched. He doesn't mention alot about the great things in the game, which are far more noteworthy than the bad things.

Based on such reviews we decide weather to buy the game or not, and while most sites sing praises to games like Oblivion, a far better game NWN2 is slandered because of having few bad things. And bad is a harsh word. Every issue that he mentioned can easily be solved.
For example:
Cam just needs some time getting used to and does a decent job. Pathfinding is easily solved with just one or two cliks more and a bit more of your concentration on the party members. AI can be customized. The issues with the story where Corwin says its riddicules how the head honcho passed the guards with her thugs unnoticed are really not true, because it says in the game that the half of the city watch is corrupted, so its only logical how she managed to get pass them. Why did she bring 50 thugs with her for one betrayer? Maybe she expected the noble luitenent who has been causing her so much troubles lately, so she wanted to set a trap. As to why she didnt kill the betrayer when she found him, maybe she wanted to question him, or torture him for betraying her... Its certainly doesn't sound riddicules. Thats the beautiful thing about RPGs because answers are not always obvious and often you have to guess the motives behind villian actions.

The story is slow at the beggining, true... but so is Baldur's gate and Lord of The Rings and some other fantasy games and books, so no big deal on that point either.

Makes sense to me and glad you enjoyed the game, and I also know the frustration of oblivion as many reviewers just completely caved and printed the lies the bethesda PR shoveled.

However, that didn't happen here and as a matter of fact most people here Corwin, Dhruin, txa1265 and magerette (apologizes if I forgot anyone) have all done reviews here now, all try to fight against that crap.

Afai, remember Corwin was sort of a moderator/referee during the oblivion wars, as you can see in the Stickied thread he started, "Let's rant and rave about oblivion" to keep the war in one place.
http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1148

So afaik, at the most this site has members whom despite bethesda's lies still love the game and many don't think it's so great and since Corwin usually only plays RPGs iirc, I doubt he was posting things like "oblivion is greatest, evar!"

So really your lucky you didn't have to put up with all the bugs the rest of us did, especially someone trying to write a review of a game that was very buggy and was considered so in most RPG sites.

We gamers and those reviewers put in tons of hours, trying to even get through the game, much less all the restarts due to buggy and broken quest, plus horrible mechanics and design problems, but most all of that was atari or hasbro rushing the game out early for the holidays, while Obsidian has given an noble effort in getting the game fixed.

I agree with you story is very important, there is a really good story in there, my biggest disappointment was the ending and my favorite characters were Kelgar, Gobnar and Sand.

I really like KotOR 1 & 2 (with some issues) but Bloodlines maybe my favorite, still help Wesp test, trobuleshoot and offer suggestions for the Unofficial Patch and have tested almost all from the beginning since DanUpright original fix for the Leopold Game Breaker.

I wish I had the patience patience you did, would have saved me tons of frustration.