- Your city is under quarantine as a deadly plague decimates the population is running amok. You are sent on a quest to find a cure..
- You'll journey through ancient dungeons, battles allkinds of monsters, and learn the skills you need to become a mighty warrior.
- Hire muscle or join up with other travelers to form war partys.
- Incredible online multiplayer action -- you can be the dungeonmaster and control every facet of the adventure.
- The unique new scripting language lets you design your own encounters.
Product Description
-------------------
Explore the fast-paced single-player campaign or create
your own unique path with the included Aurora Toolset and invite
others to play!
.com
----
Neverwinter Nights isn't simply another computer game.
It's a Dungeons & Dragons (
/exec/obidos/ASIN/0786915501/%24%7B0%7D ) computer game, as well
as all the tools you'll need to create your own Dungeons &
Dragons adventures. Neverwinter Nights is an achievement. It
accomplishes what computer role-playing games set out to do when
Wizardry debuted in the late '70s: re-create the social, hands-on
experience of op gaming.
Neverwinter Nights uses the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition rules
in (nearly) all their complex glory. It's the first game to
attempt to fully support D&D 3E's customizable features, and more
significantly, it's the first game designed to re-create the
experience of playing op D&D. You can play BioWare's
extensive campaign alone or online with your friends, or you can
use the included Aurora toolset to build your own adventure
module and run it for your buddies with all the control you'd
have if you were running a op game. The powerful Dungeon
Master client lets you put words in nonplayer characters' mouths,
control monsters, alter the game world, and customize your
adventure on the fly. If playing is your thing, you can join
other people's games and play through encounters with other
gamers around the world.
Everything works as it should and the game is beautiful to
behold. BioWare has used a limited 3-D engine to allow you to
spin your viewpoint around your character and zoom in on the
action. During combat, Mages unleash spectacular spells, Priests
raise their symbols to drive undead hordes back, and Rogues
tinker with locked chests, while Fighters dodge, parry, and
strike ferociously at any attacking beasts. The sound is
topnotch, with BioWare's typically high-quality voice acting and
music from composer Jeremy Soule.
But all isn't perfect.
The game makes a great effort of implementing the full D&D 3rd
Edition rules, but doesn't quite succeed. In NWN, Paladins lose
their Detect Evil and abilities. Druids can shape change
into animals, but can't change back to human form at will.
Darkvision has no noticeable in-game effect. Troublesome issues
for hard-core D&D fans, but it's understandable that some changes
would have to be made in order to shoehorn a freeform op
RPG into a computer program.
Other issues are not so easy to understand: the camera controls
are simple and will not allow the user to lower to decrease the
camera angle--you'll never get anything approaching a
character's-eye view of the world. Moving to a new section within
a building or going from an indoor to an outdoor area takes you
out of the game and presents you with a (mercifully short)
"Loading" screen. There is an artificial limitation on how many
henchmen you can hire in the single-player game: you're limited
to one hireling, and Baldur's Gate fans will miss the squabbling
party from earlier games. More significant are the problems that
arise from trying to re-create a social experience like D&D in a
computer game. Multiplayer games with strangers are confusing and
not as fun as they sound and, like the op game, they're
really only as fun as the players and especially the DM you're
playing with. Multiplayer NWN is only worthwhile if you have a
dedicated group and a DM that knows what he or she is doing. The
last drawback is the documentation. The manual is large and
detailed but it omits key help in module creation; you have to
buy a separate strategy guide (
/exec/obidos/ASIN/193188613X/%24%7B0%7D ) if you want that
information.
But though slightly flawed, NWN has indisputably won the holy
grail of RPG gaming: getting the Dungeons & Dragons experience
into a personal computer. The included campaign is fascinating
and the tools are powerful enough to ensure a steady stream of
module content from devoted fans. Make no mistake, Neverwinter
Nights is an achievement and will likely change the way CRPGs are
played from now on. It's a game no RPG fan, no D&D fan, should
miss. --Bob Andrews
Pros:
* Almost perfect implementation of D&D 3E rules
* Deep single-player game
* Intriguing multiplayer game
* Powerful module creation tools Cons:* Not quite perfect
implementation of D&D 3E rules
* "Loading" screens
* Inflexible 3-D camera
* Only one henchman
* Multiplayer is dependant on quality players and DM
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Review
------
Do you remember those late-night D&D sessions? They
always seemed so illicit. There's a kind of wanton luxury
inherent in pretending you are an elf when you should be doing
your math. Oh, you can act like you don't know what we're talking
about, Elwyn Stormrider. Your secret's safe with us. But though
your late-night geek fests have likely been disrupted by school,
work, love, or moving away from your long-lost buddies, a new
game from BioWare will soon let you reunite your far-flung band
and head into the dungeon.
More often than not, role-playing games on consoles and personal
computers have shied away from that sort of experience--by which
we mean the experience of dorks sitting around a table in the
basement--and there are valid reasons they have done so. There is
a certain a of linearity that must be accepted without a
live moderator to handle events that veer from the beaten path.
What's more, the task of creating a completely open-ended
mechanism for players to engage in their own storytelling seems
daunting--and that's putting it mildly. Imagine trying to convert
a game world hundreds of thousands of people have been imagining
for years. Then, just for kicks, try to give gamers some measure
of the leeway they're accustomed to in freeform, pen-and-paper
role-playing. Well, that's precisely the task before veteran
developer BioWare. And if the demonstration at this year's
Electronic Entertainment Expo is any indication, the company has
a lot to be proud of.
Neverwinter Nights endeavors to be faithful to Wizards of the
Coast's 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons, which will be familiar to
anyone who has ever played any version of D&D. Neverwinter Nights
actually consists of two separate but related products: a client,
which is used to connect to and play in active Internet
adventures, and the Aurora Toolset, which aspiring Dungeon
Masters can leverage to create tales of action and intrigue.
The client portion is where most players' entire experience will
reside. Characters are created here, including the full roster of
official races and classes and a boggling assortment of character
art. Even weird stuff, like some of the new race-specific
weapons, are included. Interactions with other characters, the
environment, and creatures of the night utilize a radial menu
system--think The Sims--where context-appropriate choices fan out
wherever you click. Spells, special abilities, and virtually
anything else to which you'd need quick access uses the same
interface.
The 3rd Edition of the venerable D&D system brings with it the
concept of feats, which are special abilities selected and honed
as you accrue experience. Though we could speak for several hours
on the subject without taking a breath, let us simply summarize
by saying that as a player you will not want for ways to
customize your alter ego. Though Neverwinter Nights is designed
to bring computer and op role-playing together, it also
sports a fully featured campaign that can be played alone or with
friends. No stranger to the genre, BioWare brought about a
veritable renaissance in electronic role-playing with its
Baldur's Gate series (and the Infinity Engine that underpinned
it). Though very little has been announced in the way of details,
it seems reasonable to assume that we'll be in for a treat.
The Aurora Toolset, like any arcane device of great power, is
going to need its secrets coaxed out of it. You can't just walk
up to it, turn a few knobs, maybe wave a wand around, and expect
it to produce a masterpiece of enduring vision. For one thing,
you'll have to provide the vision, which is not included with the
product. It does, however, include wizards, or automated tasks,
that will excise some of the drudgery from the process. But while
perfectly enjoyable campaigns could certainly be created by the
novice, truly compelling and well-imagined games are going to
take more than imagination.
In short, Neverwinter Nights is like any other role-playing
game, except the table you're playing on is the size of the
planet Earth. So that's something. And don't worry, Elwyn, all
the dice are inside the computer now. Nobody has to know. --Tycho
Brahe -- Penny Arcade Preview
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