Neverwinter Nights is a long anticipated isometric view computer RPG based on the latest version of the longest running RPG ruleset in the world...Dungeons and Dragons. Considered by many to be the best version of Dungeons and Dragons written, many were eager to see these new rules, which are much more flexible and forgiving than previous editions of the game when it comes to character building and development, put into a computer game. Add to that the Dungeon Master Client, the ability for a player to modify the game setting for others, thus achieving the 'non-linearity' computer RPG players had been craving for years and the Aurora toolset, which promised the ability to build worlds and you have one complete package that has a lot of expectations to fill.

But did it?

Welcome to Dungeons & Dragons

Alright... a little background on the reviewer for a moment (just a little). I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons since 1985. As a result I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition (3E from now on) since its release. I thought myself jaded and was very skeptical when I opened the 3E Players Handbook and looked at what they'd done to 'my' game. After a few minutes of reading I was sold on the idea. The rules were everything I had wanted in D&D (and in fact a lot of them were rules I had 'created' in my own games years earlier). When I heard that NWN was going to use these new rules I was both pleased and skeptical. They were much more freeform than previous editions...and computers hate flexibility.

When I hit that start new game button and went to create a character, it was with a world of doubt.

I didn't need to worry.

While it's easy to say NWN's character generation is the best implementation of 3E rules to date, it's only competition for that title is Pools of Radiance 2. So I won't say that. I'll go as far as to say that NWN on a whole is the best implementation of a tabletop RPG ruleset I've ever played. There were slight modifications to some of the feats and the skills, but the core was untouched. I was impressed, and lost a few hours just creating characters.

One Ring to Rule them All...

The user interface is neat. A simple right clicking extravaganza of options, it is thorough and easy to use. Unfortunately, it is also very time consuming in a game with real time combat (especially in multiplayer). Had they stuck to this ring UI exclusively, I think I would have jumped up and down on the CD. However, they had the foresight to provide *36* hotkeys. Well, that's certainly enough for even the most diverse wizard to hotbank his spells. And hitting F4 and then clicking on an enemy or area is much easier than right clicking on the enemy, then spell, then level three, then fireball while it's charging you!

The Look and Sound

The graphics in Neverwinter Nights are the best seen in a D&D game ever. The characters and backgrounds are crisp and detailed. The character animations, especially in combat, are great. Heads and shoulders over that, though, were the little things: The shadows and armor reflectiveness in particular impressed me. Zoomed in to minimum distance or out to maximum, the characters, monsters, and world looked fantastic. Could it compare to a 3D adventure game or MMORPG? Nope. Though in its own way I personally thought the graphics were better than Morrowind's, most won't see it that way. The graphics screamed 'Forgotten Realms' to me, so they did their job.

The sound is very well done. The music scores are exellent and non-nerve grating. The monster sounds and ambient noises are done well. The NPC voice acting is nowhere near as annoying as it was in BG or BG2 (with the exception of Irenicus... but then, his voice actor had 20 years experience in various cartoons). All of the major dialogue is spoken (which annoys some people, for some reason), increasing the immersiveness incredibly over previous Dungeons and Dragons games.

You face death itself in the form of 3,000.000 zombies...

Combat is decently done in this game. It's simple and chaotic at the same time. If you're not careful, you're probably worm food. The real time nature makes such things as retreating strategically hard, unfortunately. At least it's harder to chug potions in the middle of combat than Diablo or Dungeon Siege, so some foresight and planning is needed to win battles instead of hitting the potion bank or button while the character does its thing.

That said, combat is one of the weaker aspects of NWN, which is unfortunate, as in order to satiate people the developers elected to divide the experience you get in tabletop by 10 and increase the number of monsters you face in your career by a similar amount. I understand why they did it, of course. Otherwise each 'part' of the game could only be two screens large, which would be a bad thing. But there is a lot of combat. That's fine...I just learned to ignore it for the most part and focus on the writing and the story.

You face death itself in the form of a reboot bug...

Stability in single player and multiplayer are two entirely seperate beasts. Single player I didn't have a single crash to desktop...thought after the patch to 1.19 I had a hell of a time starting the game, crashing often during the loading movies. Manually reinstalling the patch before starting the game fixed this, after seven or eight tries at this the problem finally stayed dead and I played in peace.

Multiplayer I've had some real issues. I crash servers when I change armor, sometimes, which baffles people. I've learned when hosting a game or playing in one to save or tell the DM to save and export my character before switching armor, just to be sure. Since 1.19 I've also had a hard time playing on Gamespy's servers, especially with server vault characters. I'm hoping the next patch fixes these issues for me, as I have to dock NWN points for it, and I hate doing that because Bioware normally is on top of these things. But then NWN is the most ambitious multiplayer game they've made.

Still, it runs smoother than most games I've played lately. For me. I'm sure to the people getting hang and reboot bugs it's an entirely different story and I hope their problems get addressed too.

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