NEVERWINTER NIGHTS REVIEWS


 
  Overview
Okay, let's review. *clap*
This page contains games and reviews of games created by the Aurora Toolset that is the main selling point of the game Neverwinter Nights. You will need the game Neverwinter Nights to play these games. If you don't have it, you're stuck with RM2K games. So go on. Get out. Why are you still here? There. Now, for the rest of you, just download the game and unzip them to a new folder in your Module subdirectory of Neverwinter Nights. Start a new game like you would in the single player campaign, except this time go to Other Modules instead of the chapter. My review system is explained here. (link to come)

Reviews are based on the subjective observation of the reviewer. Opinions are protected from libel suits under the First Amendment. Not that I post any opinions here, heavens no.





  Gravedigger


(Note: Proper nouns will be inserted into this review as soon as I recover from the reformat to my goddam hard drive. If anyone can tell me where I can kil...er, find the person who created the Saator worm, please email me.)Gravedigger is a smallish adventure that concerns an adventurer's (you) brief pit-stop in a hamlet Halfway to Somewhere. The game gets off to a bad start, dropping you onto the road into Loaghand (the hamlet) in the dead of night. Assuming you're playing with an LCD monitor, you can continue forward to a sign, reading "The way ye came."...Exhale. It's just a fluke. The rest of the mod isn't that bad.

Loaghan consists of a handful of houses, people, and wild beasts whom you can talk to, walk into, and dominate. The quests are fairly standard, with Investigation here and Save My House From Vermin there. Gravedigger came out a scant few weeks after Neverwinter Nights itself, so the mod gets at least a point right off the bat for being a pleasurable (if a bit mediocre) diversion so early in the Aurora development cycle. By mediocre, I generally refer to the static story and the default graphics and sound, which will one day (God willing) be looked upon with the same distaste as the RTP files are in RM2K. The NPC text is not quite "natural," (the Laoghand sheriff insists that you, a random traveler, look into a plague of undead before he lets you leave his town. Because he can.) but they don't sound like tiger claws against a chalkboard, like other games I could mention.

You can likely find better than Gravedigger by the time this review is posted, but Gravedigger itself is a prequel to a larger series. Which means that the creator will have more experience next time, and will likely create a better game. Which could make Gravedigger a passage from mediocre to good. Wishful thinking? God, I hope not. You don't know what its like to play some of these.

   

Uh-oh. I smell the craptastic fantasy of Salvatore, rife with Olde English! Luckily, it begins and ends here.

 

Screenshots to come. Fucking virus.


Essential Categories  Nonessential Categories
Story Graphics
Immersion Audio
Conflict Features
Polish Theme
         FACTS OF LIFE

  The story of Gravedigger is less than compelling, but better than irritating. That's 3 stars.
Combat is evenly spaced, but a little on the easy side. Impossible monsters are placed in spots where they're really not that impossible.
The game feels rushed, but at the same time the rush is justifiable because your character is supposedly trying to get out of the pissant town. So you're both rushing. Nice, huh?
Part of the downside of being rushed is that it occasionally falls out of the mood and into the mouths of NPCs. I think some editing and rephrasing would have been nice.
Standard NWN graphics and music. Hopefully, one day, I'll be able to put minuses here.
The words of the writer aren't spectacular, nor are the graphics or music, but for some reason the game transfers mood well.
Standard single player shtick. No special features.
The theme is standard DND, without being tied down to any particular universe.




The Golden Dragon
The Golden Dragon starts innocuously enough. You start in a bar and listen to the patrons' suggestions until you agree to a quest. You then go and fight some battles against orcs that are completely impossible without taking advantage of the game's free-respawn policy. You then get to watch the climactic battle unfold before you without doing anything.

Yes, Golden commits the cardinal sin of Dungeon Mastery- (gamer lingo for designing and running a game) it takes the focus away from the player. Evidently, you (the player) are supposed to be so blown-away by watching two illiterate dragons duke it out in a predetermined fight akin to a Japanese terror movie that you would fail to notice the fact that the plot has nothing to do with you, aside from your slaying some orcs in battles poorly proportioned for low level characters. Unfortunately, I wasn't impressed by a dragon on my screen. Not even two dragons. Just last night, Matt, Dave, and I booted up a NWN server and pitted our high level party against 5 dragons. We then pitted 5 drgons against 5 other dragons. So it goes without saying that putting one of the damn things on the screen does not consitute a plot twist. At least not in Neverwinter Nights, where the winged, flightless, breathless dragons die like steer in Texas.

Oh, right, the rest of the game. The rest of the game consists of dying orcs which make Quake play like Mortal Kombat. The only thing stopping Golden from getting a lower grade was that it came out not a week after Nevwerinter Nights, itself. Of course, that just makes you wish the designers had played the single-player game before lauching an undertaking like this. Then again, bad DMing transcends medium, so the Dragon-centricity would probably still be the main feature.

 

    

I wanted a guy like this in our D&D campaign, but our DM said that it would make the game less immersive. Fucking DMs and their realism.

 

Screenshot to come. Fucking virus.


Essential Categories  Nonessential Categories
Story Graphics
Immersion Audio
Conflict Features
Polish Theme
         FACTS OF LIFE

  Like a hugely fat person cannonballing into a pool while defacating, Golden Dragon is an explosion of waste.
Imagine Diablo 2. Imagine being the superhero, killing all those monsters. Now imagine Diablo 2 when you're as weak as the monsters.
Luckily, the game makes up for its insane difficulty by letting you respawn as many times as you want for a minimal fee which arbitrarily dissapears when you die.
Spelling and grammar made me reconsider my choice to be an English major.
Incredible syntax errors. I imported my level 20 ranger to fuck up the evil dragon before the scripted battle. Evidently, the creator didn't think of that, because the game essentially froze.
Graphics are standard.
Its one thing not to be able to roleplay well, and its another thing when your prescripted NPCs can't even roleplay well.
When you're watching those dragons battle, the music sure is exciting.
If you were illiterate, the Small Town theme would come accross as well done.