Into The Act I

At this stage in the release of Neverwinter Nights 2, I won’t go into detail about the Official Campaign content to avoid spoilers, I will concentrate on my impressions of the game and story and maybe some technical discussion. Moving along through the OC has been a bit of a struggle, not with the content per se, but with the controls, particularly the keyboard. The ‘WSAD’ system is fairly straightforward, but the game’s response seems overly sensitive. The slightest, quickest press of the ‘A’ key, for instance, often yields a turn angle of somewhere between 45º and 90º, quite a large change of direction, especially when moving. I have tried making adjustments through the Control Panel’s Keyboard applet in an attempt to reduce the hardware’s sensitivity (I may need to slow this even further), but I suspect that the angle of rotation on a turn is some factor in the game. Using the mouse for all movement is a little unwieldy as well because the camera angles and the character model can get in the way for small moves.

One feature I really like is the World Map, which brings back great memories of the old SSI Gold Box games like Pool of Radiance, Secret of the Silver Blades and Treasures of the Savage Frontier. Back in the day – 1988 for those interested in the History – these games provided hours and hours of D&D fun particularly when a group couldn’t be found to play pen and paper D&D. The original Neverwinter Nights on AOL – ancestor of the game we know and love today – sprang from these Gold Box series games in 1991. Gold Box originated the concept of the using the World Map for movement between encounters and dungeons. The World Map also captures the flavor of the pen and paper game where the DM will gloss over the tediously uneventful travel time and continue on to the meat of Adventure. It even gives module builders the ability to schedule ‘random’ encounters during travel.

So far I find I am enjoying the Campaign; story, plot and characters are rich and engaging, the cut-scenes and VO are excellent. The quests so far have been fairly typical and the roleplaying aspects haven't come to full fruit yet. I am looking forward to the time when my choices have broader effect on my character's companions.