Neverwinter Nights Member Review for the PC

Neverwinter Nightmare

  After reading numerous reveiws from websites (all of which said that the game was good), I decided to buy Neverwinter Nights hoping for a well-made and engaging CRPG. Sadly, I was wrong. Neverwinter Nights is really a game that is in a list of the most overrated video games. Before I talk about the negatives, I'll discuss the positives.

  For one, the story in Neverwinter is very unique and different than the plot in any other RPG. You see, there's this plague that is infecting the residents of Neverwinter and the leading paladin of Neverwinter requests every possible warrior to try to find a cure and uncover the plagues origins. Sadly though, that's really the only positive i can think of. The other parts of Neverwinter Nights are either mixed or negative to me.

  It's style of gameplay has mixed feelings for me. It's like Diablo but with the D&D 3.0 ruleset. The problem isn't only the fact that it's a Diablo clone, but the character custimization and statistics are way too complex, and there are some races and abilities that are pretty useless in the game. You spend most of the game crawling through dungeons defeating enemies, finding treasure and completing misssions. This can make the game feel very repetitive due the derivitive formula of "go to dungeon, teleport back to town, get healed, go back to dungeon, etc.".

  Also, there isn't really much freedom in the game. There isn't a huge world like what you would find in Morrowind and such. Also, you really can't control the outcome of the missions, like you could in Fallout. Basically, you can't help the cult spread the plague or choose to do a mission the way that's unintended.

  You can recruit other warriors to give you some help on some parts of the game that is too dificult to accomplish yourself, and each of them has their own interesting story to tell. The problem is that you can't directly control them, you can only just give them orders like attack, defend ect. Another problem is that you can only recruit one person at a time. So, if you want to travel through a dungeon with two warriors, oh well you can't . Although, in most ways, this type of party mechanic is way better than that of Fallout, but that game came out 5 years before Neverwinter was released. I would have liked to see a larger improvment.

  You know, I'm kindof cheating writing this review. Mainly because I only played the single player game (and didn't even complete the first chapter). But I guess this review is written to be read by those who intend to by Neverwinter Nights soley for the single player experience. So all in all, it seems that Neverwinter Nights is a game that seems to cash in on the fact that it uses the 3rd edition rules of D&D and that it's developed by Bioware. There are other, better CRPG's out there like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment. Get those games instead of Neverwinter Nights.