Total mess in every single aspect
INSTALATION / GAME PACKAGE To begin with the game installed without problems on my PC : P4 3.0 HT ,GeForce 6600GT 128 MB 1GB RAM,250GB HD WindowsXP PRO SP2 updated with the latest patches. After the instalation and while i was patching the game i opened and browsed through the manual of the game.Thought it would be wise to get a quick look on the new rules Feats spells etc.. There came the first negative impression. The manual apart from the trivial subjects it covers (that you really don't need to have a manual for them) it covers NOTHING about the game. It doesn't mention anything on races ,classes, prestige classes, feats, toolset functions, not even the spell list or spell progress!!! The game supposes you already posess probably the Ad&D Rule books with the spells and all. Well i am an experienced AD&D player but what if i wasn't? So first BIG negative hit is the manual. Really makes me feel like having a pirate copy since the whole box apart from the valid CD key it gives me nothing else! The update after 30 minutes had finished and i was ready now to start the game.
INTRODUCTION The starting screen with the options appeared with a minor negative thing. The options to chose from Play ,Toolset ,DMclient (at least that is there) ,readme , update, exit wouldn't highlight when my mouse cursor would pass over them like it is happening on NWN1 making me a bit uncertain to wether the game "understads" or not where my mouse cursor is. But this in really minor.... The introduction video looked cool. So i started the game. The character creation choices are not in fact as many as featured.They only have more colours compaired to the original.
SOUNDS The game sounds ok but they kept most of the old voicets for the characters with the addition of 2-3 new ones that gives a bad taste in the mouth. Too lazy obviously to hire some actor say some extra line for voiceset. ANIMATION The animation gives an impression this is an old game made by amateurs. It's just that the way the character is moving around gives a feeling as if playing BG . The character has only 3 modes. Standing walking and runing. From standing to runing there is no indermediate "accelerating" fase so it somehow gives an unnatural jerky impression. Also the character model doesn't "feel" like is actually touching the ground but instead that his feet are slightly hovering over the surface. Also when moving around into single player you get constant lag hits as if playing on a heavy traffic multiplayer world a Saturday night. And i mean it's in single player! Imagine what will happen to a multiplayer module.The combat animation is jerky and composed of the sam eboring moves over and over and over. Uninspiring. USER INTERFACE
The keyboard controls are too sencitive making impossible to move around the character using them . If you use the keyboard keays WASD you won't be able to avoid the constant zig zag . At some point i decided to change the control keys but couldn't cause there was no such option. Then i realised that you can change them but only on a new game . The general enviroment and the forms cursor takes when hovering over items reminds me much of BG or Icewind Dale etc. Somehow the whole visual feels old. You have to see it to get the exact feeling of it. The examine item option is tricky and takes too slow. The way the inventory is looking feels old as well. Brings us back to Icewind Dale series once again... The items are small and rectangular no matter what they are. From an armor to a dagger they all take the same space into the inventory and it doesn't feel right. Also the icons on the inventory are very small to distinguish between them. And when the inventory starts to get filled up it becomes a real mess to tell what is what. Threre is no walk feature. Of course you can press Shift and click but it is hard to do it all the time. If you use Search in order to make the character walk you will have the message "you seek the nearby area for traps" appearing all the time floating your dialogue window that by the way can't be splited in 2 so to separate the battle rolls from the talking. The camera makes things difficult and unfun. Needs constant tweaking but for me it wasn't the worst thing of the game. GRAPHICS
The character models don't look so bad although they surely look unathletic especialy the female ones.. For sure not acceptable for a game of 2006 with such high hardware requirments. The way the outside areas surfaces look is without much detail. When you drop items on the floor they don't appear as they should but always into a trasure sack. When you hover yout mouse cursor over it it gives the name of the item: "chainmail" for example. When you press key "Z" to highlight the itmes so to be able to target easier in fact it highlights every single placeable on the area in a glowing white funny manner that destroys the immersivity. Another disapointing factor is in single player that while the characters are supposingly talking to you their facial expression never changes. No matter how dramatic or nice the voice is sounding the faces have always the same expression and when the open their mouths it looks as if in there are not teeth or a tongue but just an empty hole. Also the cliping of the models is heavy. The zooming that the camera that the game does automaticly isn't helping the player to forget this. These visuals make me unable to immerse into the story. Give me instantly the impression that this is a game and all these are in fact fake. AREAS
Another disapointing factor is that the areas are in fact much smaller than they look. In the first areas for example both the map and the visuals give you the impression that the area you can explore is much bigger. Well in fact it isn't. Do you notice the little fence around the place? Well it is made for a purpose. The area extends till the fence.At some points there is no fence either...so you think you can move over there. doing so will lead the character to smash himself into an "invisible wall" .this would make very hard for the player to realise the true limits of an area making effectively the exploration very difficult. So the actual area that the players can move or interact is very small.The rest is more or less a wallpaper giving a pseudo-3d impression.I reallly don't like the mini map that has this round form so i can't have the whole area so to plan properly but only a fraction of it even on total zoom out. Also the way the mini map is drawn is not helping the player much. Brings in mind Morrowind's mini map but worst because the mini map actually fools you. The actual play ara is much smaller TOOLSET The famous Toolset has many more option but is too slow cumbersome to use hard to learn. I was able to creating small mods with the other one immediatly . With this i failed each time. MULTIPLAYER
Multiplayer has lost all the cool features. The beautiful drawned portraits of the characters have been substituted by these horrid looking 3D ones that are hard to distinguish between them. Also the internet connection speeds the cilent needs to have are much higher than the original . Even the most powerful computer of today won't be able to host a md with more than 15 players at the same time. Also the mods will contain in effect much less areas. For example a Mod for NWN2 will be 80% smaller to NWN1 . You will no longer be able to have big credible worlds. The game crashes often too when playing on the internet. Let alone that if one of your party talks to a merchant all party members get forced to see the merchant's screen! If a party member portals from an area to another all other party members will as well. The dialogue window can't be splited in 2 to separate the dialogue lines from the combat rolls . A party will be unable to go kill stuff while speaking some lines at the same time. Let alone the letters in the dialogue box are too small. EPILOGUE
To make the long story short. I think after this experience i will go and play the NWN1 original campaigns once again. Far more fun for me. Even people's mods seem better for my eyes and give me more fun. The single player story of NWN2 being nice or not makes no difference since i lack the patience to wrestle with the controls and the chaotic visuals. There it goes. I bought NWN2 tried it hated it and decided not to wrestle with it any more. I ll stick to NWN1