Neverwinter Nights

Bioware's epic D&D-based revolution has finally begun. Read the definitive review, here.

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It’s hard to know where to start because essentially this game has four different, but co-habiting parts that make up its whole. There is the obligatory single player campaign, the toolset for making your own adventures, and the multi-player elements which comprise the DM client for running supervised party games and the massive possibilities of the online worlds. I’ll start with the bit that made Bioware famous in the first place, which also turns out to be the weakest element in the package, the single player campaign.

One of the elements that make RPGs stand out in the gaming world is the importance of the story, and NWN is no different. The grand northern city of Neverwinter has put out a call for champions and heroes. The city has been struck by a terrible plague, the Wailing Death, and is in desperate need of a cure. You have answered the appeal of the city’s protector, Lord Nasher, and begin the game at the city’s academy. This first level is the now obligatory tutorial level to gently ease you into the mechanics of the game world and will have you comfortably familiar with how to play the game by the time the academy falls under attack by skeletons and goblins. It turns out that four magical Waterdavian creatures have been collected in an attempt to source a cure for the plague and that the attackers are attempting to free them. Which regardless of your actions will happen, as the search for these creatures takes up the first of the game’s four chapters. You will start off in the city core with some hints as to where to search, aware of vague hints and a conspiracy against Neverwinter which may be responsible for the plague.

What follows is very similar to the Baldur’s Gate series, in so far as you will wander around chatting to the various inhabitants of the city, and eventually its outlying districts, picking up quests, experience, loot and more story fragments. The story and quests are nicely catalogued in a useful journal, and again you can add your own notes here, as well as to the maps. The inventory system is far larger then in any RPG I can recall playing, and when you have amassed a few bags of holding you could stick the contents of the entire party of Dungeon Siege along with a stinking donkey into your own backpack. Handily, any mission critical items which you loose or drop will be returned to whichever temple is acting as that chapter’s base. Get used to these surroundings as you’ll be coming back here often for this is where you resurrect when you die. Or respawn as it’s named, showing exactly which title this idea got it’s inspiration from. You can also come here voluntarily at the rub of your scroll of town portal, I mean Stone of Recall. Healing and equipment can be picked up here, as can any of your band of henchman which you have hopefully chosen to deposit at this handy rallying point.

Henchman are another new concept, and there are six of them to choose from, although you can only ever hire one at a time. If you have chosen to be a fighter, a healer or magic type is a good choice, if a spell-caster, a big beefy tank to be your front line would be a wiser alternative. There’s also a thief whose use decreases as you realise that any of the insane number of locked chests and containers can be bashed or ‘magiced’ open. So set yourself up with some trap-disarming skills and relieve yourself from the pain that is hearing the little mono-voiced arse repeat ‘I can pick that open easy’ over the sixty hours of estimated game time. (Voice and musical repetition is highly annoying in NWN, if you think you’re sick of the combat music by the end of chapter one I recommend turning it off altogether to save your sanity. Nor is the music original, I’ve heard snippets of a few famous scores in there, Duel of the Fates from Episode I - can you readers spot any others)?