The raw suck of Neverwinter Nights 2

[sigma7]

Knights of the Old Republic was a hell of a game, another classic RPG from the mad geniuses of BioWare in the Star Wars universe. But when it came time for a sequel, the torch was passed to Obsidian Entertainment, and they proceeded to set themselves on fire with it. It wasn't unplayable, but everything that made it fun was just a holdover from the original game or a cosmetic improvement therein. The story? Abysmal. The characters? Annoying. The ending? Tacked on at the last minute as an afterthought. Hideous narrative.

Well, history has repeated itself. I enjoyed the original Neverwinter Nights, and even though Obsidian was taking over the sequel, I was eager to re-explore the game and the universe and was initially impressed by the perkiness of the interface and the ability to have a party bigger than two. But then I got to the end of the campaign, and you know it's not good when you can summarize the story's ending by using a memetic cliché: rocks fall, everybody dies. It's another sequel rushed out the door for a deadline, riddled with bugs, full of empty promise. And that's just sad. Maybe I'll just install Oblivion again.

Comments

[jkgriffin.livejournal.com]

It really was a letdown. I feel your pain. I was deeply annoyed by the lousy ending and ranted at great length at the time. :)

[missmiah.livejournal.com]

Well, that makes me feel a bit better about the fact that Captain's current computer probably can't even run it, and I'm not even sure mine could.

Not that I've ever finished playing the first NWN (or any of the expansions yet), but I will someday. Maybe.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, the original KOTOR and NWN's campaigns are strikingly similar, especially in the characters of Bastila and Aribeth and their respective plotlines.

There were some good parts of NWN2 -- I really enjoyed the bit where you get your own fortress and have to build it up and recruit for it -- but the characters were a hell of a letdown and compared to the KOTOR games (or Baldur's Gate), the social possibilities were somewhat limited (one possibility per gender). On its own it was pretty good, but measured against its own potential it was pretty weak.

[missmiah.livejournal.com]

If I really want to build a fortress, I could just play Sims 2. Which is another game that I haven't really touched.

One would think that being unemployed and not even looking for a job I might actually have more goof off time, but no.