Neverwinter looks gooood
So, you’ve built a character and you’ve used the comprehensive creation system to craft him or her (or it) to your whim and you’ve used the mods tools to make your Neverwinter Nights 2 character look how you want, now it’s time to take your first steps into Neverwinter and get on with the game itself.
Click for larger imageYou start off in the village of West Harbour, where, luckily for you, they’ve got a fair on, giving you an opportunity to learn how the game works. This initial opening level is really a tutorial section, where, through the story of taking part in the fair, you can learn how to play the game. There’s 4 contests in the fair, each giving you a chance to try out your melee, ranged and mage skills as well as your sneaky thief skills too.
Click for larger imageThe first thing that you’ll notice in Neverwinter Nights 2 is the graphics, which aren’t just an overhaul of the old engine but a complete, ground-up re-write. This graphical rejuvenation has had a knock-on effect in other areas of the game, which I’ll cover later, but for now, let’s just say that Neverwinter Nights 2 is looking very good. We were playing pre-BETA code though, so the engine is still being tweaked and though there were a fair few special effects already in there, we’ve been promised a lot more before the game is released.
Click for larger imageThe game itself can be played out from a fully 3D isometric viewpoint, much like modern RTS games, or, for a close up feel, you can play in a third person view. Interacting with NPCs take place pretty much in the same way as Neverwinter Nights but this time around the important conversations zoom out to a cinematic style view, with important stuff lip-synched and voice acted for you. The overall effect works very well and serves to help you distinguish the mundane from the stuff you really should be taking notice of.
Click for larger imageNow fans of Neverwinter Nights will remember the party system, which, if we’re honest, left a little to be desired. Your fellow adventurers were pretty much autonomous beings outside of your control. In a fight it was almost like you were having a scrap with some other people who just happened to be in the same scrap with you, even though you were all fighting a common enemy. That’s all changed now as you have complete and total control over anyone who joins your party. You can do everything to any party members that you can do with your own character, from choosing which weapons they have ready to deciding what they do in battle.
Click for larger imageAnd while we’re on the subject of party combat, when the game is paused you can still issue commands to your party which they’ll carry out when the game is unpaused. Though it’s still in development, its hoped that you’ll be able to stack up three commands per character which should introduce a nice tactical aspect to the combat.
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