Originally posted by: Bob151
I loved Planescape:Torment, just like Icewind Dale. Anyone played Planescape and NWN, comments about overall experience, reward from the gameplay.....
Well, I've played every Bioware/Infinity Engine game except IWD2 and the expansion for IWD, just finished NWN, and am now in the second chapter of Undrentide, so I suppose I qualify to answer that question.
NWN has the same distinct Bioware look and feel, and I mean that in the highest praise possible. Playing through brought back all the memories of playing Baldur's Gate the first time, but with the added bonus of the extras BG2 brought to the plate. The story was a bit weak and predictable, though, and the end left me
EXTREMELY disappointed (love interest
NOT fully realized, won't say more than that), but I'll definitely be playing it again, if for nothing more than to find out how it plays with different henchmen, as well as to see what stories and items those henchmen have to offer. I'll also be playing through at least once as a female, to see what love interest they added for the ladies.
I wouldn't rate this at the same level as Torment. But, then, I've yet to find
any game that measures up to that standard. Call this BG2 Revisited, if you will, because it's got more in common with that than any of the others. Class/race specific dialogues, interparty conversations, and so forth make it as enjoyable as the unique magic items and battles.
What I didn't like, at all, was the free camera control. None of the three styles really felt comfortable to me, as it was a constant fight to get the proper distance, angle, and rotation in order to do simple things such as pick up items or see your character. The camera also, much to my great annoyance, completely reset itself on every load or reload (but not map loads, fortunately), so you're forced to spend almost as much time tweaking the camera as you do playing the game.
Graphically, the game's fine, though I suspect a lot of people wanted and expected more in this age of R3xx powered eye candy. Audio was fine, though I suffer from outdated hardware and as such, had to reboot on occasion due to completely lost audio. Note that that was due to DX7 acceleration, not the game itself, and didn't happen at all with the standard Miles 2D or Dolby Surround. Even more unfortunately, my card doesn't support Dolby in hardware, so if I wanted to use it, I had to change it every time I started the game.
My final complaint about the game was the rather pronounced paucity of higher level magic items. By the finale, I was a 16th level ranger, and still using +2 weapons I'd had since the beginning of the second chapter. And, yet, strangely enough, I was still capable of practically sleeping through most fights, remaining almost completely strategically unchallenenged outside the dragon fights.
Oh, and henchmen have a tendancy to wander off and get themselves killed with startling regularity, or ignore your orders and do ridiculous things like try to disable traps on the other side of a wall when you're trying to get them to unlock a door. Since you only get one henchman, this presents a pretty significant problem, as the game is designed around the expectation that you'll have that henchman.
Overall, the game is great, but it suffers from a few very significant annoyances. If you liked BG2, you'll like NWN. Again, it's not Torment, but, really, what is?
Now, moving on to Undrentide.
This expansion fixes a few of the things I'd noticed missing or wrong with the original, such as more class/race specific sub-quests and dialogue, items, and abilities. The game itself starts out pretty weak, so if you import the character you saved just before the end of NWN, you're not going to feel the least bit challenged. The plot is also rather underwhelming, but that may be just me being spoiled by the BG2/Torment phenomenon. At least one point during the second chapter left me extremely frustrated, as it was clearly designed only for those using scorcerous capabilities, which I typically eschew in favor of more hands-on classes, and didn't take along a suitable henchman for. But this boils down to the old "can't get more cool shizzle!" syndrome, not an issue with getting through the story itself, and it didn't truly affect the game.
The pathfinding in Undrentide took a serious nosedive. And I do mean serious. Not an hour has gone by that I haven't found myself shouting in frustration at the screen because my character couldn't figure out how to walk around a circle of stones surrounding a campfire, or bumped into an NPC and wouldn't start moving again, or tried to walk all the way around the far side of a building to reach a spot 3" from where he was currently standing AND which he would eventually move to if I clicked out a path of short steps leading to it. Expect to spend a very significant amount of time coaxing your character along.
In both games, monster respawning was almost completely non-existant. Outside of a handful of planar portals that only elementals and imps/quasits/mephits come through, everything has been hand-placed and there are NO random encounters. If you enjoy wandering about, killing things, you're going to run out of stuff to do very quickly.
Henchmen control was expanded upon in Undrentide, meaning you can now manage their inventories (not possible in NWN), which saves you from a lot of travelling and/or worrying that your henchmen are going into battle with nothing more than standard weaponry and armor. They still, however, don't give you the full range of their abilities to call upon. Example: I accidently sold one of the artifacts I was supposed to recover, and as my henchman was a cleric/thief, I hoped I could use her to pick the merchant's pocket and recover the item. Not happening. Most of her thief abilities weren't available as commandable options.
Potions, scrolls, and charged items abound in both games. Furthermore, if you import your character from NWN into Undrentide, then you'll find yourself with more money than you know what to do with (NWN was item rich, and as a result, i had close to half a million gp by the time i finished), so don't be afraid to throw down the loot for plenty of Heal potions. Everything else is almost handed to you on a silver platter, though, so you'll rarely find yourself wanting for a potion for almost every contingency and/or battle. This is one of the things that actually detracts from the gameplay, because it makes it so incredibly easy to waltz through nearly all your battles. Honestly, there was only one battle in NWN, and none yet in Undrentide, that really forced me to reconsider my tactics, reload multiple times, and really work up a sweat to make it through alive... but, then, who wouldn't be a little overwhelmed with one dragon going down his throat and another climbing up his bung?
The additional modules available with the Gold edition, or for download, offer potential avenues for better weaponry, spells, armor, items, and more experience, if you export your character and import him/her back in, but, seriously, the neither NWN nor Undrentide really challenge you enough to warrant bothering to do so. At best, they're there for playing after you've finished the two aformentioned and just want more.
Lastly, be prepared for endless hours of fun inventory management. The games and modules throw so much {b]stuff[/b] in your lap that you'll find yourself needing multiple storage solutions just to carry it all between trips to town. The game does have, and I highly recommend, Bags of Holding, Magic Bags (like BoH, but only subtract part of the weight of their contents), and even a few standard bags/boxes. Grab them all (don't waste any money on Bags of Boxes until the full Bags of Holding show up, though) and start throwing things in them. I used two for potions alone, and still had to leave room in my standard inventory for random or extra potions. Use the Bags of Holding for the heavy armor and heavy/large weapons, use the lesser Magic Bags for lighter things, and store all your books, journals, papers, and random quest items in the low-end and standard bags and boxes. And, again, you
WILL need them, because the games throw so much extraneous garbage at you that you don't know what's safe to keep or dump, so you end up walking around with 5 or 6 bags of paperwork and items that you never use.
End of review. I'm going to get some lunch and get back to Undrentide. It's finally starting to get both challenging and interesting.
Oh, and find/read a good walkthrough! Can't stress that enough. Not for the story/plotline, but for the goodies you might miss if you aren't careful.
Facebook
Twitter