NWN2 is a long game ...

Phew, NWN2's campaign is really long for today's standards. I've played a
number of nights now, and I'm still in the first of three acts. Still doing
missions for the City Watch, though I think I'm going to finish that series
of quests soon (currently trying to deal with those twenty bladelings that
apparently do their master in the bedroom).

The poor, extremely poor, AI of the companions aside, this is still a
highly enjoyable ride. I settled for my bard (caster-style) and her
buffs/debuffs rock. She's slightly drifting a little in the healer
direction, though that's partly because the AI doesn't seem to know what
healing is (of other members of the team, that is). Actually, the AI isn't
consistently bad. It had its all-time lows in the orc caves in the Old Owl
Well area, but in the orc caves it seemed to play really well. I've not
quite figured it out yet, but in any event, the game continues to keep me
up until dawn. It's 5am now and I don't intend to go to bed for at least
another hour, because I must finish this one mission!

The writing is still good. The plot isn't actually quite as obvious as I
thought at first. Well, perhaps it is, but there are different "factions"
at work in the story and I'm not yet quite sure what their plans are
(besides killing me!). There are plenty of cut scenes that reveal the story
bit by bit, and that's actually really nicely done.

So, even on day 6 or 7, I still recommend this game. I'll say that there
are people who report all sorts of issues, mostly technical, but on my
mid-range system (P4 3.0Ghz, 1 GB RAM, X700pro/256 MB) it runs and looks
just fine. Interestingly, it seems that most people who have performance
issues have much better computers than me and/or use Nvidia cards. But
anyway, my issues are the quality of the AI and some aspects of the
interface (unnecessary cumbersome in some ways), though neither keeps me
from playing or having fun.

Apparently Kotor 2 is much like NWN2's campaign, so I actually might pick
that up before Christmas. I have the first Kotor on the shelf, and never
played it, so I might give that a try after NWN2. Then again, in two weeks
Silverfall is released in Germany, and the German press praises it highly.
One of the more critical magazines wrote, "Titan Quest showed us that there
is a life after Diablo 2, and Silverfall shows us that it can be very
enjoyable as well!". I'm very wary here because SF is from Monte Cristo,
but I pre-ordered it anyway. Silverfall won't come out in the US before
February, however.

M.

Phew, NWN2's campaign is really long for today's standards. I've played a
number of nights now, and I'm still in the first of three acts. Still doing
missions for the City Watch, though I think I'm going to finish that series
of quests soon (currently trying to deal with those twenty bladelings that
apparently do their master in the bedroom).

The poor, extremely poor, AI of the companions aside, this is still a
highly enjoyable ride. I settled for my bard (caster-style) and her
buffs/debuffs rock. She's slightly drifting a little in the healer
direction, though that's partly because the AI doesn't seem to know what
healing is (of other members of the team, that is). Actually, the AI isn't
consistently bad. It had its all-time lows in the orc caves in the Old Owl
Well area, but in the orc caves it seemed to play really well. I've not
quite figured it out yet, but in any event, the game continues to keep me
up until dawn. It's 5am now and I don't intend to go to bed for at least
another hour, because I must finish this one mission!

The writing is still good. The plot isn't actually quite as obvious as I
thought at first. Well, perhaps it is, but there are different "factions"
at work in the story and I'm not yet quite sure what their plans are
(besides killing me!). There are plenty of cut scenes that reveal the story
bit by bit, and that's actually really nicely done.

So, even on day 6 or 7, I still recommend this game. I'll say that there
are people who report all sorts of issues, mostly technical, but on my
mid-range system (P4 3.0Ghz, 1 GB RAM, X700pro/256 MB) it runs and looks
just fine. Interestingly, it seems that most people who have performance
issues have much better computers than me and/or use Nvidia cards. But
anyway, my issues are the quality of the AI and some aspects of the
interface (unnecessary cumbersome in some ways), though neither keeps me
from playing or having fun.

Apparently Kotor 2 is much like NWN2's campaign, so I actually might pick
that up before Christmas. I have the first Kotor on the shelf, and never
played it, so I might give that a try after NWN2. Then again, in two weeks
Silverfall is released in Germany, and the German press praises it highly.
One of the more critical magazines wrote, "Titan Quest showed us that there
is a life after Diablo 2, and Silverfall shows us that it can be very
enjoyable as well!". I'm very wary here because SF is from Monte Cristo,
but I pre-ordered it anyway. Silverfall won't come out in the US before
February, however.

M.