NWN 2 : Storm of Zehir out -- 1UP - 85%, IGN-83%

This is a real return to the classic D&D games. Anyone who enjoyed Icewind Dale or even older SSI games will love this. And they've improved AI and battles.

A must buy.

This is a real return to the classic D&D games. Anyone who enjoyed Icewind Dale or even older SSI games will love this. And they've improved AI and battles.

A must buy.

zhivago_x

Cool. I pre-ordered it and should receive it next week. I'm looking forward to playing it. 

Great expansion and totally worth buying. Its almost a new game by itself since the gameplay is really drastically different with the overland map and party creation.

I played it around 10 hours so far, there is a lot of exploration and a load of variety in monster encounters, all skills are actually used and serve a function on the overland map as well as in dialogues. There is a trading system ingame which at some point later in the story let you develop a trading company that function kinda like Crossroad Keep, you set up caravans who trade goods between towns and make money that way. There is less roleplay in a way but more at the same time, depending on your characters alignments, classes and races a multitude of dialogue options appear but you wont see drastic opposite moral choices for dialogue, a paladin won't have the choice to kill the peasants for example while your evil guy can. However despite that, having different alignments and classes in your party will unlock their respective dialogues, lots of skill checks too so it create a gigantic variety. Beside that its great to see how the world has changed since you played as the Knight Captain, you revisit locations you have seen and cared for like Crossroad Keep. I think it's safe to say that it is closer to the DnD experience you would get in pen and paper.

In short, its worth buying because it deliver a totally amazing unique experience. Its really cheap as well, 29,99 for the content it added is almost like stealing.

I would like to hear what you think of it Naval, I was planning on getting it.. But due to the fact I have yet to find a job for a month and a half sense I got laid off, I have been having to curb my spending.sSubZerOo

Great expansion and totally worth buying. Its almost a new game by itself since the gameplay is really drastically different with the overland map and party creation.

I played it around 10 hours so far, there is a lot of exploration and a load of variety in monster encounters, all skills are actually used and serve a function on the overland map as well as in dialogues. There is a trading system ingame which at some point later in the story let you develop a trading company that function kinda like Crossroad Keep, you set up caravans who trade goods between towns and make money that way. There is less roleplay in a way but more at the same time, depending on your characters alignments, classes and races a multitude of dialogue options appear but you wont see drastic opposite moral choices for dialogue, a paladin won't have the choice to kill the peasants for example while your evil guy can. However despite that, having different alignments and classes in your party will unlock their respective dialogues, lots of skill checks too so it create a gigantic variety. Beside that its great to see how the world has changed since you played as the Knight Captain, you revisit locations you have seen and cared for like Crossroad Keep. I think it's safe to say that it is closer to the DnD experience you would get in pen and paper.

In short, its worth buying because it deliver a totally amazing unique experience. Its really cheap as well, 29,99 for the content it added is almost like stealing.

Cenerune

I think Obsidian has finally hit their stride with this one. This expansion is fantastic and some of the best work they have ever done (with the exception of the work they did when they were Black Isle). Gooeykat

I wanna know how buggy it is before I buy it, NWN 2 was super buggy.

I got it installed but I wanted to start a new guy in the oc and take him through that and MotB first. I didn't even finish MoTb because I got killed in the first town by some dudes that seemed impossible to kill. I got a long day ahead of me.EndersAres

I played for a couple hours yesterday. Performance wise it runs just as good on my computer as MotB did, so it's pretty smooth with no crashes or issues yet.

I was wondering how the whole team aspect would work when it came to dialogue and I have to say it works pretty good. They make it a key point to diversify your party by throwing in different genders, races, religions, classes so I did that. Then you're pretty much thrown into the mix of things in the first battle which is fairly easy.

The crafting seems a little better and different members can craft different things out of the same debris depending on their skills and stats. The one thing I don't like about the dialogue is that the whole party seems like they have to be right in the area when you begin conversation. If you click while some of the people are still catching up you'll only see 1-2 party members in the dialogue box even after the other party members catch up.

I haven't had one of my characters get beat down yet but the new way deat is handled sounds more realistic and will add strategy to the gameplay. I have to say it starts out real slow, so I haven't been able to get into it yet. Also the problem with offering a whole party to create with 4 slots, I'm in a constant debate whether I should take a barbarian out for a paladin, maybe remove a cleric for a warlock...things like that.

I wanna know how buggy it is before I buy it, NWN 2 was super buggy.

digitalman42

I've been playing nwn2 again...I started playing it when it was released two years ago, and it was horribly buggy. Not so, anymore. All the patches seem to have fixed the bugginess of the original campaign...also, if you didn't like the twitchy camera angle, there are other camera option to choose from. 

I played for a couple hours yesterday. Performance wise it runs just as good on my computer as MotB did, so it's pretty smooth with no crashes or issues yet.

I was wondering how the whole team aspect would work when it came to dialogue and I have to say it works pretty good. They make it a key point to diversify your party by throwing in different genders, races, religions, classes so I did that. Then you're pretty much thrown into the mix of things in the first battle which is fairly easy.

The crafting seems a little better and different members can craft different things out of the same debris depending on their skills and stats. smerlus

The one thing I don't like about the dialogue is that the whole party seems like they have to be right in the area when you begin conversation. If you click while some of the people are still catching up you'll only see 1-2 party members in the dialogue box even after the other party members catch up.

I haven't had one of my characters get beat down yet but the new way deat is handled sounds more realistic and will add strategy to the gameplay. I have to say it starts out real slow, so I haven't been able to get into it yet.

smerlus

Also the problem with offering a whole party to create with 4 slots, I'm in a constant debate whether I should take a barbarian out for a paladin, maybe remove a cleric for a warlock...things like thatsmerlus

the best thing about this addon is the feature where u can create your own party. crapdog

[QUOTE="crapdog"]the best thing about this addon is the feature where u can create your own party. teardropmina

[QUOTE="crapdog"]the best thing about this addon is the feature where u can create your own party. teardropmina

[QUOTE="teardropmina"][QUOTE="crapdog"]the best thing about this addon is the feature where u can create your own party. naval

[QUOTE="zhivago_x"][QUOTE="naval"] I think this around there is only your own created party and no ingame NPC partynaval

1UP gave it :8.5

What do you want your role-playing game to be? It's a subject that I've thought about a lot recently. While I love RPGs, the genre can drive me batty. Many push you through a story with a metaphorical Spear +3 at your back -- and that's fine when the story's good enough to warrant this. Others toss you into the game and let you do what you will, leaving you with this sense of aimlessness. ......Storm of Zehir may have a lackluster story, and that's OK, because it doesn't need one. It gives you the means -- the freedom -- to make your own story. And isn't that why we like RPGs in the first place? 1UP

An unpatched installation of Storm of Zehir will break the cutscenes in Mask of the Betrayer. The voice work is lost and the scenes move ahead too fast to read the captions. There is a new patch that I think might fix it. I haven't had a chance to play since I saw it. Obsidian has some solid content designers. There were only a few spots in the main campaign where I wanted to track one of them down and throttle them. However, the programmers are not so hot. MofB broke parts of the main campaign and SoZ broke parts of MotB. Woot. I really hope these guys get their act together. I'm looking forward to Alpha Protocol. I'd hate to see the experience damaged due to a weak programming team.Drosa

I think not expecting Alpha Protocol to be buggy is expection way too much.

I've had the game crash on me a few times when I forget that I'm in one camera mode and I try to click and drag a box around the party as if it's in strategy mode. This could be a rare bug but it has happened to me on occasion.

So far the Obsidian Party Characters don't seem to add much. I've run into 7 of them so far and only one of them had a quest that delt with him. I would have gone on the quest anyway but with this character the quest catered to him more.

I think an 8.0 or 8.5 seems about right. So far the story has taken a backseat. I seem to be doing more trading than anything else and I've found it almost impossible to find a shop with decent equipment in it. It has some new ideas that work well but the story doesn't have my interest like NWN 2 or MotB had.

Wth, I haven't even gotten around to playing anything but the OC......ShotGunBunny

Fans of D&D and single-player role-playing games should definitely check out Storm of Zehir. Yes, there's a shortage of single-player D&D games in this age of MMOs that we live in, but Obsidian has still crafted an involving and engaging adventure. It's also nice to see the company take risks, presenting new forms of gameplay and evolving its series even further. With its emphasis on party, this feels like an homage to the old school D&D games of the past.ign

6.0 at gamespotSonir77

Interesting to see the Gamespot reviewer missed the point of that expansion... While there is a few flaws in the game, it is really solid for what it aimed to do. The game received mixed feelings, some think its the best NWN game, others its the worse. Clearly it seem the Gamespot reviewer had no idea what he was doing apparently or he didnt play the same game i played...

I had very minor problems with the AI that i fixed by adjusting the settings and i managed to skip 98% of the Overland Map encounters unlike him apparently.

So apparently the story has to be compared to the OC and MotB (both were story oriented) when it was confirmed since the early stages of development that it would not be a story oriented game and reminded a bunch of times over the course of the development. The Voice acting is terrible, well yes it is so what?

Because of those 2 its worth a 6,0?

Where did he mention that amazing uses of skill points who were left in the dust during the last 2 games?

Where did he mention the wonderful crafting system overhaul?

Where did he mention the whole merchant company feature, the set up of caravans and trading posts?

Where did he mention the ridiculous amount of possibilities and paths in the dialogues as well as the way to deal with the game?

Something tells me he didn't play it more than 25 minutes top because he sure did miss a lot of stuff in his review and totally missed the true problems the game has.

Sure isn't anything i would expect out of a professional reviewer. Its amateur at best and very opinion centric.

[QUOTE="Sonir77"]6.0 at gamespotnaval

I actually read GS review thoroughly, not doing this for a long time since It's hard for me to take them seriously since  Oblivion's obscene score.

the BG and Dale reference is totally off. BG is popular for its PC with in-game NPC party, not an all custom one; Dale is that way, but not really a resource gathering, trade managing and exploration-adventure type of game. anyway, the reference of old D&D RPG should go further than BG, with more DM involvement and freeform story making. if anything, this game is anti-BG. 

anyway, regardless of the score, I get a pretty clear picture of the game from all the reviews and gamers' account. I prefer stroy driven and PC+ NPC system RPG. some stronghold-management quests are fine, but not a strategy type of game mechanism. 

eventually I will get to it, but not with high priority though. 

Interesting to see the Gamespot reviewer missed the point of that expansion... While there is a few flaws in the game, it is really solid for what it aimed to do. The game received mixed feelings, some think its the best NWN game, others its the worse. Clearly it seem the Gamespot reviewer had no idea what he was doing apparently or he didnt play the same game i played...

I had very minor problems with the AI that i fixed by adjusting the settings and i managed to skip 98% of the Overland Map encounters unlike him apparently.

So apparently the story has to be compared to the OC and MotB (both were story oriented) when it was confirmed since the early stages of development that it would not be a story oriented game and reminded a bunch of times over the course of the development. The Voice acting is terrible, well yes it is so what?

Because of those 2 its worth a 6,0?

Where did he mention that amazing uses of skill points who were left in the dust during the last 2 games?

Where did he mention the wonderful crafting system overhaul?

Where did he mention the whole merchant company feature, the set up of caravans and trading posts?

Where did he mention the ridiculous amount of possibilities and paths in the dialogues as well as the way to deal with the game?

Something tells me he didn't play it more than 25 minutes top because he sure did miss a lot of stuff in his review and totally missed the true problems the game has.

Sure isn't anything i would expect out of a professional reviewer. Its amateur at best and very opinion centric.

Cenerune

The Voice acting is terrible, well yes it is so what?

Cenerune

yeah, if there's nothing good about a game can be said, good voice acting can give it some bonus points (="at least its voice acting is decent")

if picking on a game's voice acting, it's a stretching from reviewer who's somehow motivated to find faults in a game. 

OR, voice acting is extremely important for those who wants games to be cinema simulators and hold on to their naive realism. 

The GS reviewer's main complaint seems to be that he picked the wrong party. He was pissed that his mage would overdo situations and pissed that no one in his party had the skills to navigate the overworld map.

The first one is technically an AI flaw but one I didn't experience. After playing MotB and having a party so overloaded with magic users, I didn't make any characters in my party that specialized only in magic.

The second one is his fault. I read the book and saw that more emphasis was being given to skills like hide, spot and survival. I usually play as a rogue first (and all party's should have a rogue) so there's a character that specializes in two of the most important skills for the overworld map; hide and spot. Hell even one of the first cohorts you get in the game is a ranger so if he would have just balanced out his party better and changed characters on the overworld map, there would be no complain about running into random monsters over and over again.

He did mention trading but he blew it off.

It's obvious he just had to review a game he had no interest in and didn't even like the type of game he was playing.

Interesting to see the Gamespot reviewer missed the point of that expansion... While there is a few flaws in the game, it is really solid for what it aimed to do. The game received mixed feelings, some think its the best NWN game, others its the worse. Clearly it seem the Gamespot reviewer had no idea what he was doing apparently or he didnt play the same game i played...

I had very minor problems with the AI that i fixed by adjusting the settings and i managed to skip 98% of the Overland Map encounters unlike him apparently.

So apparently the story has to be compared to the OC and MotB (both were story oriented) when it was confirmed since the early stages of development that it would not be a story oriented game and reminded a bunch of times over the course of the development. The Voice acting is terrible, well yes it is so what?

Because of those 2 its worth a 6,0?

Where did he mention that amazing uses of skill points who were left in the dust during the last 2 games?

Where did he mention the wonderful crafting system overhaul?

Where did he mention the whole merchant company feature, the set up of caravans and trading posts?

Where did he mention the ridiculous amount of possibilities and paths in the dialogues as well as the way to deal with the game?

Something tells me he didn't play it more than 25 minutes top because he sure did miss a lot of stuff in his review and totally missed the true problems the game has.

Sure isn't anything i would expect out of a professional reviewer. Its amateur at best and very opinion centric.

Cenerune

Seemed like a fair review to me.

I'm more interested in games with a story, so I'll be giving Zehir a miss. I've no interest in generic dungeons and random encounters. Trading sounds dull and I couldn't care less about the crafting aspect of the game. I hate crafting and only do it when I'm forced to by the storyline and even then it feels like a chore.

Seemed like a fair review to me.

I'm more interested in games with a story, so I'll be giving Zehir a miss. I've no interest in generic dungeons and random encounters. Trading sounds dull and I couldn't care less about the crafting aspect of the game. I hate crafting and only do it when I'm forced to by the storyline and even then it feels like a chore.

bogaty

Im cool with the fact some people will like or dislike the game, if it is not your cup of tea, don't buy it. But to say this is a fair review is wrong on so many levels because within game journalism you are supposed to keep a neutral stance towards any games you review and establish the pros and cons of those games without having a formulated opinion. That is one major difference between what is supposed to be a professional critic and a pure amateur.

In this special case it seem our dear reviewer fell straight into a pure opinion centered bashing frenzy over the game and as i said, haven't played beyond 25 mins because he did miss a lot of content but somehow managed to cover the first 25 mins of the game. Spreading negativity based on opinion is not what he is paid for and most definitely hurt the game company in the end since Gamespot is still a big review website consulted by many people. What makes me really angry over this review is that he missed both the pros and cons of the game and somehow regurgitated a review with extremely random points and slapped a 6,0 tag on it. Gamespot should question itself and ask why the hell they are paying this guy to make an opinion centric review based on the first 25 mins that anyone could have made? If he didn't had the time to make a proper review than why was it even published in the first place?

At the risk of sounding old fashioned... since when are non-story driven RPGs considered good? Last I checked, storyline was very important in any RPG, let alone a D&D RPG. Also, the fact that you create your own "NPC" allies, as I understand it, means that all of the usual backstory and dialogues that come with allies would be missing - another big no-no in RPGs. Is this the Fallout:Tactics of the NWN series?F1_2004

They can be good, if its your cup of tea, taking Bethesda work is a shining example of how a crappy story can still be well received. The more freedom you give to the player, the harder it get to pull a coherent story together. The only common thing between RPGs is that they are character devlopment oriented no matter what type you chose, it can be story oriented or else but you always have a feeling of character progress without necessary having levels. You have to play it to understand how they pulled the party creation and how it comes alive. The dialogue of each members is affected by their class, race, skills and alignment giving out a variety of ''personality'' to it. Role-Playing by itself is done with your imagination, not watching a pre-made movie, not eveything has to be epic and scripted to be enjoyable. This is exactly what Storm of Zehir give, freedom and imagination which as i said is not eveyone cup of tea but my user created party is more alive than the vast majority of the characters present in the first 2 games.

DnD in its roots is about adventuring parties where the players create the personality of their characters. There is no epic story being told, its simply a bunch of guy creating their own story within a ''module'' if you want.

So the party members you create come with dialogue and backstories? That'd be pretty interesting to see.F1_2004

Backstory wise, you write it, there is this little space called biography for every characters, if you don't want to write it than dont and assume they are adventurers of some sort or keep it in your head. There is this other space called party name and party biography which you also write. The only limit is the player imagination, if you don't have any than yes your characters backstories will be bad.

Personality wise if you have 4 Lawful good fighters with the same skills than yes they will be all the same but if you have a chaotic neutral rogue, a neutral evil warrior, a lawful evil wizard specialized in necromancy, a neutral good cleric then yes you will see a huge variety in their dialogues. My necromancer had specific dialogue refering to undeads at some points within the game, you can betray your word if you are chaotic but cannot if you are lawful. The dialogues are not ''free'' like they were in the previous games, if you are lawful good you cannot commit evil acts unless you have an evil character who can do it and vice versa. They pulled an amazing job on the dialogue and frankly, your user created npc will end up speaking more than any characters in the previous 2 games if it is your choice.

I was never fan of NWN games because of their somehow awkward gameplay. Yes i know,we play role playing games because of role playing, but imo every game should have gameplay @ first place,than everything else,otherwise,why would i (game)PLAY when i can go and READ book or play some tabletop games

I hope this one fixed this problem