Hey, remember that
running joke about me reviewing the sequels to games before reviewing the
actual games? Looks like the prophecy
has come true once again with Neverwinter
Nights. It’s a single player RPG
made by the guys who do the single player RPG justice, namely Bioware. Published by Atari, it runs off of the Third
Edition rule set for Dungeons & Dragons, that gave us such disgraceful
things as a positive Armor Class and the removal of THACO, and having more than
one spell for a first level wizard (when you can tell I’m being ironic, let me
know). Needless to say, however, this
game is really good in almost every way.
Its few flaws can be pretty much just pointed out to how video games
work in general as opposed to how playing an actual game of Dungeons &
Dragons works.
But first, the plot.
It’s a simple enough affair for vanilla Neverwinter, the player character is one of several students at a
school for adventurers set up by Lord Nasher of Neverwinter and headed by his
close advisor, paladin Aribeth de Tylmarande.
However, just before the player is due to graduate and be pressed into
the service of Neverwinter, the Academy is attacked and four creatures that
were needed to combat a cure plaguing Neverwinter are freed and escape into the
city. And thus, the player is tasked with
recovering the creatures and helping to create the cure.
 |
| Aribeth: Unforgivable traitor or broken soul? You decide. |
Not, you know, Aribeth. Aribeth,
who is a paladin and quests to go out, slay beasts, and cure the good people of
Neverwinter are bread and butter to. Aribeth, who in fact doesn’t really do
anything until she becomes evil at the end of Act Two.
Spoiler alert.
Nevertheless, it is up to you
barbarian/bard/cleric/druid/fighter/monk/paladin/ranger/rogue/sorcerer/wizard
to go out, set right what once went wrong, and hope that the next leap will be
the leap home. Those are your options
for character classes, around the same from Neverwinter
Nights 2, as well as the prestige classes from its successor and a few
others (though, if I’m not mistaken the Purple
Knight of Cormyr class got folded into the Neverwinter Nine class for 2). You also get a choice of race, with the
selection being far less than that of the second, with no real subraces
available for play. Of course, this is
fine due to it being the predecessor.
Also, by the time you play for long enough, you’re going to be covered
from head to toe in gear that will obscure you from view anyway.
Combat, like the sequel, is pretty uninvolving unless you’re
a spellcasting class. Click on enemies
until they die, be it melee or ranged. Just one click and your character will
(usually) just attack the chosen opponent until they die, which brings up a
sort of problem I have with this as a Dungeons & Dragons game. Not that I expect it to be exactly like the pen and paper game, but
there’s a weird disconnect between my player character making an attack and the
computer automatically rolling the dice for me to see if it hits. As a veteran D&D player, I really do
think that something is lost in the translation to a computer game.
My own stigmas with it all aside, the game is really good. The main campaign picks up pretty strongly in
the Second Act…oh, did I not mention that?
The main campaign is split up into four acts. The first act comprised of the bit I
mentioned before in seeking the cure for the Wailing Death plaguing
Neverwinter. Acts Two through Four are
seeking out who is really responsible
for it…and dealing with the consequences.
It does bring together a betrayal, the rise of an ancient enemy, and a
war that would have long reaching consequences for the whole of the Sword Coast…or
at least for Neverwinter and its rival city Luskan that would continue on into Neverwinter Nights 2.
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| The final fight with Morag is a pain in the ass even if you're prepared... |
If you allow yourself to get involved and invested in the
storyline, there really is a lot of reward to it. There’s hours’ worth of side quests that help
flesh out the world to some degree. Or,
if you’re not the RPGing type (then why are you playing this game?), use them
to munchkin out those last few experience points and get to the next level.
Yes, Neverwinter
Nights is a definite classic and a must have for anyone who’s a fan of
Dungeons & Dragons, Forgotten Realms, or just PC gaming in general. It even got a few expansions added to it, the
two biggest of them I’m going to go over in resplendent detail. So, get your travelling boots ready, because
next week we’re heading from the snows of the Silver Marches to the sun and
sand of the deserts of Anauroch to stand in the Shadows of Undrentide.
Neverwinter Nights is
now available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS from Bioware and Atari.
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