NWN 2

Finally got around to installing and playing it this weekend. Unfortunately, my initial impressions of the game have been marred by technical issues. First, it took a long time to install, although judging by what I've read, I got off easy: the game installed and ran the first time around, and I didn't have any problems patching the game. However, the big problem is that the graphics are fucked up. In outdoor areas, there are "patches" on the ground - small areas in various geometric shapes - where instead of grass or road or whatever else should be there, I'm seeing blue-ish triangles. It's like someone sliced out parts of the terrain. I'm seeing a similar effect on characters as well; there are literally holes in the characters, like parts of them simply aren't being drawn by the graphics card. Indoors, I sometimes see odd bands of color cutting across the screen. Although I set the video settings way down, the problems are still appearing.

Aside from that, my reaction is somewhat mixed. The graphics, those that aren't fucked up, that is, look great. The difference between NWN and NWN2 in this area is like the difference between Diablo II and NWN. The exception is how character's faces look: although they're more three-dimensional in NWN2, many of them look butt-ugly, and the hair looks terrible as well, and there just a great selection of choices. What's more, there are no character portraits either, which is a sad loss. Character creation is richer though, with a new base class, a number of new prestige classes, two new races, and a bunch of sub-race options. You can now also select a diety and a personality type, the latter of which gives minor advantages and disadvantages to your character. Faces are also much more customizable, which choices of eye and hair color and hair highlights. There are also new feats, skills, and spells, and what looks like a bigger spell selection at each level. I particularly like how they changed the Ranger so that instead of always having dual-wield, at level 2 the player decides whether or not to focus on dual-wielding or bow use, with appropriate free feats at different levels.

Gameplay isn't too different, although I'm still adjusting to the absence of the radial menu. I love that there are a lot more quickslots, although I suspect that accessing what you want in the heat of battle may be trickier, since you have to scroll through them instead of using Tab or Ctrl. Also, it took me a while to figure out how to add and remove things other than items to the quickbar. The Inventory section is a lot neater, with everything now using an icon that takes up one spot. However, the icons are kind of small, and I kept running into problems finding my crossbow, because the icon for it doesn't really look like a crossbow. I like the quickcast feature, and the mode bar is kind of interesting. I don't like that I can't use Tab to highlight all the characters, items, and useable placeables in an area: it's more realistic, but it also means I have to mouse over everything to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Camera views have been something of a problem in the game, as it seems like the camera is constantly zooming in, changing elevation and angle, and so on. It's particuarly annoying in indoor areas, much more so than in NWN. I like that I can actually take over and control my henchmen. I don't like that if I want to manipulate my henchmen's inventory, I have to take control of him first. In NWN (well, in the expansions), I could just use the radial menu to access a henchmen's inventory by right clicking on him or his portrait, and then open mine as well and swap items between them. Right-clicking like this in NWN2 does nothing, and I don't understand why simple shortcuts like that were eliminated.


I mostly like what I've seen of the storyline so far. The village faire makes for a useful tutorial, but I like being able to skip it (although I noticed that I miss out on getting an item or two as a result). I also like that the game starts realistically, in that I can't go shopping for whatever I want in my home village. This breaks down a little though, when the wizard starts selling me things, and it breaks down a lot when I get to the first Inn, and I see that the Innkeeper has a bunch of magic items for sale (and yet, doesn't have an ordinary rapier available). Also, I'm not so thrilled with the fact that your character begins as a small-time villager since, if nothing else, it makes playing a barbarian unrealistic. At least in NWN, you could play any class, and the premise was such that it was believable.

Anyway, I'm interested in playing more, but until I can resolve these graphics issues, I think I'll hold off. In fact, I started playing through A Hunt Through The Dark again instead. I'm starting to feel like I blew 30 bucks. At least I didn't pay full price, and if I can't get the game to work smoothly now, maybe I'll be able to play it when I get a new computer... which, admitedly, isn't likely to happen any time soon.