Neverwinter Nights Impression

This entry about a video game impression is more likely to be read in one of Amazon's consumer reviews columns but just let it go posted here first.

This game is huge, immense I'd more like to say. So unless you are fairly ready to sacrifice some of your precious leisure time with your little disgruntled girlfriend and pretty daring to test her impatience you should just halt there looking for something more urgent to deal with. Nice little warning here first.

I got the game in Futureshop as soon as the game came out in 2002 when it was just few days after I sailed abroad for the first time if I remember right, so it could be the first genuine version software I bought abroad. A big fan of both the Chinese version and English version of the former series Baldur's Gates and other similar Dungeon and Dragon PC game series such as Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment (this one may not be but it really rocks with its outstanding novel), I know there is a guarantee that for me it is worth the money. However, the stupidity is that the fanatical compulsion clouded one's basic judgement as I found out later that the game's minimum configuration requirements just exceed what my notebook could possibly handle at that time, so somehow not until recently did I play it through, together with its two expansion packs Shadow of Undrentide and Hordes of Underdark, and came up with the following words exclusively based on the solo campaigns of the three official modules.

It did not let me down I'll say, even after three years before another following NWN2 is right in projection and supposedly be dished out next year. The 3D engine is often quoted to add criticism like saying it is not advanced enough to meet some fancy needs so that the models may look blocky when camera zooming in, but like the previous Baldur's Gate, the real power of the game much resides in the well designed D&D rules of its latest version applied, which enables you to well experience the very development of your own character in the fantasy world of the forgotten realms. With the newly learned skills, feats and spells of all sorts of classes that can be right off showed before the fierce beasts, and the enriched prestige classes and epic character feats in the expansions, as well as the big assortment of all kinds of powerful magic weapons and items, the game experience may easily surpass one's original expectations. You can either play a half-orc howling and fearless barbarian or an elven cunning and arcane sorcerer, and the game experience may vary substantially because you've got to learned totally different disciplinary skills and feats and used totally different weapons and items. Surely you can multi-classed, say a barbarian/sorcerer, but there is possible arcane spell failure penalty applied if you get some nice-looking armour equipped but feel wanting to cast some nasty spells to dissipate the enemies. Also, you really need to consider experience points penalties when get multi-classed or even further triple-classed (I've got a Wizard/Arcane Archer/Pale Master in the game, man). As a wizard, every spell has its specific subject and area affected, durations, damage inflicted or enhancement applied, saving throw related and such things that can be accessed in the spell book, so you know what it can do and cannot do, thus change your battling tactics against different situation and foes accordingly. All the detailed rules and somesuch seemingly make no sense to a new D&D player but it was just the rules that secure and yield great fun when exploring the depth of the game and produces much much more replay values.

Well, you can focus on your character's growing and hack-n-slash your way through the game till you see some big nasty dragons or the final bosses, just like what you might have already done in Diablo2, and ignore most of the NPCs' dialogues consisting of millions of words, but keep in mind that you can also click your dialogue options more slowly to experience the power of words. One reason to call the game large is its dialogue-oriented style. Every NPC seems to be much more talkative than it would be in real life so you may need get used to be a good listener. Besides the persuade, intimidate, insight etc options that sometimes pop out and the possible success depending on your skill and ability check, the dialogue selections develop many different solutions to a good number of quests you may come across, and can affect your character's alignment depending on your choice, enriching the game experience in another facet. Personalities are well set for some main characters through diverse dialogues with different phraseology or accent and some voice acting as well. Look at those plot writers, it seems that they are telling something that really happened beside them, my lord, those people are unworldly… I hold a strong vote on their names to be on the legendary list of amazing story tellers;)

Hold on, to be continued…