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Neverwinter Nights 2
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Another issue is that your AI-controlled companions have a hard time keeping up with you. This isn't so much a problem in the wide open areas like towns or other outdoors areas, but once you get into dungeons or other buildings, they can easily become stuck. It's annoying to run around a corner and come face to face with a group of enemies, only to find your teammates several rooms back, standing around. Luckily, all you really have to do is pause the game and take control of the stuck teammates and move them yourself, but it happens often enough that you'll wish you didn't even have to do that.

I have to fight two giant bugbears while the rest of my party hangs out in another room. Thanks for the help, guys.

A couple of other minor notes worth mentioning, is the amount of reading and voice dialogue in the game, as well as the balance of the different character classes. There is a lot of reading, and a lot of cutscenes. Luckily, all of the cutscenes are voiced, and the voice acting isn't bad. Those of you who were hoping for a more action-oriented game with less reading and listening than the original Neverwinter Nights might be a little disappointed.

As far as the character classes, it seems to me that Sorcerers and Wizards might be a little too powerful, at least early on in the game. They get access to area-of-effect spells that can easily wipe out an entire group of enemies with one shot. Also, the difficulty of the enemies seems to fluctuate wildly.

There have been several times where I have breezed through a dungeon, easily slaughtering groups of enemies without needing to rest, only to come across one or two bosses who wipe out my entire party without breaking a sweat. I know bosses are supposed to be more difficult, but it seems like some of them might be a little too hard to beat, although undoubtedly others might say that NWN2 is too easy. Either way, just make sure to save often and this won't be too big of a problem.

To help balance out the varying difficulty, your characters don't actually die when they run out of hitpoints, they just get knocked unconscious. If anyone survives the fight, all of your unconscious characters will automatically wake up, albeit with only one hit point. You can rest and restore all of your hitpoints at any spot in the game where there are no enemies around. Only when all of your characters run out of hitpoints is it game over.

Just like the first Neverwinter Nights, online play is offered. You can play through the entire campaign cooperatively with friends, although you'll have to start from the beginning. If you want, you can toggle player vs. player settings if you want to be able to hurt other players. The toolset that allowed fans to create their own campaigns and scenarios also returns, which will help to add some longevity and replayablility to Neverwinter Nights 2 once you beat the campaign.

Anybody who enjoyed the first Neverwinter Nights will most likely enjoy its sequel, Neverwinter Nights 2. Unlike some developers who try for drastic changes in sequels, Obsidian Entertainment wisely choose to leave the gameplay that made the orignial so much fun, and added some new tweaks here and there. The addition of fully controllable companions is a welcome one. Although there are some issues, mostly involving cutscenes and companion AI, don't let those deter you. Neverwinter Nights 2 is a fun game, and with a 50-hour campaign, multiplayer, and toolset included, it should be fun for a long time to come.

Review by Matt Gallo.

Highs
Interesting story (although it does seem kind of generic at first); lots of choices to make means you'll want to play through the story more than once; fully controllable companions for the first time in the Neverwinter series; deep character customization; tons of replay value with online multiplayer support and an included toolset so you can create or download more campaigns.

Lows
Inventory system not as user-friendly as it could be; companions sometimes get stuck and can't help during fights; influence system means that every decision you make pleases one of your teammates, and upsets another, which causes some problems; framerate issues during certain areas of the game; most cutscenes are a mess.

Final Verdict
Why do we play video games? Because they are fun. And despite some minor issues, Neverwinter Nights 2 is fun. There may not be anything revolutionary here, but that's ok. Recommended for not only fans of the original, but any RPG fan as well. We'll be playing this one for a long time.

88%

Nov 21, 2006