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dkirschner's Neverwinter Nights 2 (PC)

[September 4, 2010 08:13:29 PM]

First entry for this game, but I played it some time ago, Spring 2010 I believe. Always enjoyed NWN games and D&D games in general. I kept this one around after beating it because there's a dedicated mod community, and I wanted to try out some popular mods. I had downloaded 6 or 7 back when I beat the campaign, and finally took one on. These are my first impressions of NWN2 modding, and a specific mod, Pools of Radiance, which is a recreation of an old D&D module from a long time ago.

I was hesitant to try any of these because I assumed they could not be as good as the original game, and if they're not as good as the original game, and I have other games to play, then why bother playing something sub-par. Well, because I want to know and see what fans do with the editing tools.

Things I liked about Pools of Radiance:
(1) Journal entries written in first-person drew me into the story. I felt like my character actually had a personality, that it could have been me. In fact, the mod suggests choosing a 'mundane' character. I chose a Shield Dwarf Fighter, level 1.
(2) The author(s) were technically proficient with the editor, ultimately creating a mod that was visibly on par to the regular NWN2 campaign.
(3) Storyline voice-overs were a nice touch. I felt the people who made this mod were incredibly dedicated to Pools of Radiance.
(4) I never played the original and don't know the story, so I don't know to what extent they were faithful in recreating it, though I assume they were very, and this is interesting to me that people update classics to new skins, such as people have done with various other games.
(5) Interesting tweaks to the gameplay. My favorite is that you cannot just 'rest' anywhere. Well, you can, but you have to have supplies. I suppose the original NWN is silly in that you can just lay down on the floor in any old dungeon or forest and have a nap. There are 'restful' places, such as beds, where you can sleep without supplies.

Things I did not like:
(1) Little buggy things that were mildly annoying, such as my weapon magically unequipping itself, so that I started a lot of fights bare-handed.
(2) Misspellings and grammatical errors in text.
(3) Being stuck and not being able to get help.

I'll end, because #3 killed the game for me. I was supposed to find this ogre cave to rescue some people, and I could never find it. I looked for probably an hour. The downside to playing a mod is that few people have played it, there's no walkthrough for it, and so if you get stuck, it's trial and error, the forums, or quit. I couldn't find anything on the forums, and I couldn't find the cave, so what else to do? I don't want to spend time looking anymore since I've other mods and games to try. But I feel the short amount of time spent with this mod gave me a glimpse at probably a high-quality NWN2 mod. I will play through some others to see what different things other authors are able to do, how they may tell stories differently using the game, how else they may tweak the original game rules to make it more realistic or whatever.