_Targeted's Full Review: Neverwinter Nights (PC) for Windows
It's really difficult to be picky about this game - truly an amazing piece of art !
I would say the game feels similar to D2 with one big difference - the visual difference is that of between Tom and Jerry cartoons and [your favourite fx packed movie as of 2002].
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Graphics.
Full 3D, zoom in and out, rotate, enjoy the view :) And there IS something to enjoy ! Can you imagine knee-high grass waving with the wind ? realistic raining ? snowing ? fog ? transparent water ? acid drops dripping off the sword blade ? smoke clouds that your torch leaves behind ? shiny armour that reflects the surroundings ? true shadows (there are several shadow settings, ranged from none with a dark spot on the floor to best with every light source casting a separate shadow off each scene object) ? boys working on corn fields ? This all is not to mention the spectacular acts of casting spells. Anyway, the screenshots I'm sure you have already checked out are true.
It feels like Narcissus, spinning the camera around your alter ego, checking out the slightest details in appearance, carefully crafted. Swords, armours, helmets are stunning. I'll have to play for a monk next time to see how naked arms look like :)
Character animation is AMAZING. You can't expect it to be real, but it's as _realistic_ as I've seen so far. And it's all kinds of creatures, ranging from humans (bipedes that is) and animals (uhm, fighting gophers, anyone ? :) to floating and flying things. Granted, the golems constructed from hardware look better than rats, but it's the downside of polygon meshing - tough to imitate the smooth curves.
The people behind the graphic engine deserve to be praised. It really takes no prisoners when it comes to features. It uses whatever your hardware has to offer and pushes it to the limit. Keep an eye on Aurora engine based game in the future !
So, the graphics is excellent. I only wish I had more powerful PC. With 800 MHz (recommended config btw) I can only get around may be 10-15 fps (feels like it) with medium settings and NO shadows.
The difference between 16 Meg and 32 Meg sets of textures is HUGE. With 16 Meg you get flat and phony surfaces, simply displeasing. With 32 it's smooth and shiny. I can only guess how would it be with 64 Meg.
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Gameplay.
Simply put, you are a hero who does stuff for people for gold, glory, artifacts and just plain fun. Get the job done, get paid, buy a bigger gun. Having a bigger goal in mind (saving the world, what else ?) you run around with a big stick accompanied with a single henchman (like in D2), kicking all the living things (here dead come as living too). Have you summoning powers, you can get more company.
Predictably, the game introduces several classes from which you could choose, like barbarian, fighter, monk, wizard, paladin, ranger etc. each with it's own pro's and con's, special abilities, spells, weapons, restrictions, so on.
LOTS of stuff, armour, weapons, artifacts etc. The inventory management is _almost_the_same_ as in D2.
They claim it's fully compliant with the DND rules, I don't know enough about DND, but it looks like it. When it comes to battles it turns into real-time-looking-turn-based-game. Everyone is breathing, flapping wings, dodging, waving tails, but only one is attacking/casting at a time. The log window shows whose turn it is, who does what, what spells are being cast, what damage is done, so if you care, you may actually check that your latest enhanced armour or weapon is doing any good. Pressing space pauses the game, so you can assign the spell or attack targets, drinking potions etc. Then unpause and sit back, enjoying the amazing swordfighting.
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Humour.
Smile, laugh, rofl, whichever you prefer.
Why was the rainbow armour made from assorted colored pieces ?
Why is the ghoul manner of speakings-s-s-s is-s-s-s s-s-so famililar ?
How much money does a pretty blonde need to buy her weapons and join you ?
And yes, 10 out of 10 for the name of the "farmer against wolves" quest name :)))
You'll have to see for yourself, I won't tell you :)
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Bugs and suggestions:
Still lack of good pathfinding. The stupid stupid henchman can get stuck on a stupid stupid corner and let you die in a battle. My guess would be that they had it so bad, they had to introduce a "instant henchman" feature - from time to time the guy (girl) just gets teleported from wherever it's right now to the location close to you. Absurdically, sometimes he appears in unreachable locations, like isolated cliff, and all you can do is to run away and hope for another teleportation to happen that brings him back.
Similarly, I have hard stuck in the wall couple of times. Luckily, save/load gets rid of that.
Still not enough hand-drawn faces, so you occassionally have to speak with yourself. Not enough voices too. It would certainly be better if there was more than a few lines of audio per key character (and none at all for secondary). I wouldn't even ask for a (simple) face animation. Come on, it's been done in Starcraft few years ago and in Doom long before that ! Although, I don't know, may be DND rules prohibit that ?
Not enough casual detais. If you care enough to bring in the more or less functional "palaces of pleasure", why all you can find in farmers' houses is gold and swords ? Where is all the useless but fun garbage ?
The cloaks are invisible. That is - you have the cloak on but you are still dressed in the armour only. I guess the realistic cloak would be too hard to render. (I told you it's difficult to be picky about the game).
Can't figure out how to give a potion to a sidekick off the shortcut bar. You click it, you drink it yourself. So, even though you have the bottle in a shortcut slot, you still have to open inventory and drag it from there.
Crashes occasionally, but not too often. You save your game anyway, aren't you ?
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