Neverwinter Nights Review

Overall Rating

Encourages customisation/modding
Excellent storyline
In depth character creation
Superb multiplayer support
Pleasant to look at
Coherent sound
Can be challenging

Repetitive soundtrack
Offset graphic responses
Movement is laggy
Plot is only exciting once
Linear plot
Characters could be more diverse
Optimum experience requires high end machine

Neverwinter Nights is a fantasy role-playing game based on Dungeons and Dragons, and indirectly follows up Icewind Dale and Baldurs Gate. After character creation, you embark on an epic journey in a tale of treachery and deceit, as well as heroism and valour. The plot has a lot of depth to it, and on the first journey through it, it can keep you without food or water, and possibly for the most hardcore fans, make you bring a toilet into your room. However, the major setback to it is that unlike Diablo things are extremely linear and the game really does lack replayability. However, you do have the freedom to do what you want within the constraints of the game world and the available actions. There are hundreds if not thousands of different non-playable characters with whom you may interact, but this interaction though diverse can be a little pointless and dull at times, and trundling through the dialog can be a bit of a pain. The game is long as well, and that makes up for the lack of replayability because it will take you weeks to get through it all.

The astonishing difference between NWN and the other two series is the graphics. NWN has a lot less of a pixelated feel to it, and the districts and cities in the gameplay are lively places that do well to convince the gamer they of a credible world. However the game also falls down on navigation in this world in terms of graphics, and on my system which has integrated graphics I found that my character moved around in a laggy manner and even when it moved well, movement was perhaps too slow, making journeys quite annoying.

The game's sound was coherent and pleasant at first, and the music made the game have a more important serious feel to it, and created intrigue for me as is expected in a fantasy RPG. However, after a while of being completely oblivious to the real world outside the game as I was completely gripped for hours on end, I did find myself turning my speakers off. The game's main theme song became extremely boring and annoying, and especially more so when I attempted to play it after I had started again with a different character.

Though the diversity of character customisation had room for improvement, the very concepts that controlled character creation and the interesting factors involved that can significantly affect your game as you progress - these proved to be tantalising.

Where the game lacks replayability, this is also remedied by the immense room if not encouragement for modification and customisation of the game, and with it comes scenario and map builders, so you may be your very own "Dungeon Master" just as you may be in the written dice-roll-based D&D games. The great thing about the modification side to it is that the mods are encouraged to be distributed across the internet for other people to play, and there are whole communities of people and websites dedicated to it. On top of that, many of these mods are played online though some are not meant to be.

I would say this game is certainly one to have on your shelf and be proud of, and it is therefore value for money. It truly is an epic despite discrepencies that other players will not worry too much about, and I really recommend it, as well as the two expansion packs - Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark, which really add to the experience.

I would recommend it to all fans of fantasy RPG and RPG, as well as folks who've not played this genre before, because it does well to introduce people to the genre like it did for me.