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Neverwinter Nights 2 | 
| From: Atari
Category: Video Games
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $8.99
as of 9/7/2010 06:32 EDT details
You Save: $11.00 (55%)
New (8) Used (14) from $6.88
Seller: buynowlv
Rating:  197 reviews
Sales Rank: 3150
Format: DVD-ROM
Platform: Windows XP
Genre: role_playing_games
ESRB: Teen
Media: DVD-ROM
Edition: DVD-Rom
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.5 x 1.5
MPN: 26503
Model: 26503
UPC: 742725265035
EAN: 0742725265035
ASIN: B000E0XX9Q
Release Date: October 31, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Build a character that suits your style of play - good or evil, chaotic or lawful, with any number of skills, feats and professions available at the click of a button | | • | Create your own modules, campaigns, and adventures for your friends - move buildings, terrain, script encounters, write dialogues, create quests and items |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Everything you do has a meaningProduct InformationNeverwinter Nights 2 is the sequel to one of the best-selling and genre-definingrole-playing games ever set in the popular Dungeons & Dragons ForgottenRealms universe created by Wizards of the Coast.Bards sing tales of heroes from ages past but never have the Forgotten Realmsso desperately needed a champion. Years have passed since the war between Luskanand Neverwinter almost enough time for the wounds of war to heal. But the briefpeace the Realms have known may be at an end. Tension growing between the mightycity-states means the Sword Coast again teeters on the edge of open war.Unnoticed a greater danger stalks the City of Skilled Hands. Unbeknownst to thedenizens of the North deep in the Mere of Dead Men dark forces from across theRealms have been rallied under the banner of a legendary evil. If leftunchallenged all of the North is doomed to fall under its power.Even in this darkest hour hope remains. A mysterious relic is borne toNeverwinter in the hands of a lone hero so that its secrets may be unlocked -secrets that carry the fate of all the North. So begins an epic tale ofshattered alliances noble acts and dark deeds to be told across the Realms forgenerations to come.Product Features Use the completely rewritten powerful Obsidian Neverwinter Nights 2 Toolset to create your own adventures share them with friends or run them through your adventure directly as the Dungeon Master; Play online with other gamers and enjoy limitless adventure; Explore the Forgotten Realms in greater graphical splendor than ever before with a completely new cutting-edge graphics system and an overland map; Employ new spells feats and advanced prestige classes based on the exciting Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Edition rules; Engage new subraces including Tiefling and Aasimar Recruit up to three companions to assist in your adventures. Improved party control allo
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 197
nice graphics, awful story August 20, 2010
D. Nelson (New England)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
My wife and I are middle aged old school gamers. We started out playing table top games like T&T and D&D, and played just about every generation of RPG ever since. So when we both agree that a game stinks, you can take our word for it. This review is from both of us.
#1 Complaint... How come using diplomacy makes you chaotic? Followed closely by the strict linearity of the story. It looks like one of BA's maps from KODT: on the left... mountains impassable... on the right... forest impassable... My recommendation for the developers is to, a) see a psychologist... you guys need to get over your father / torture / woman issues... not for your own good, but because it's getting really OLD guys. It's no longer fun. And b) try to find your sense of humor, maybe attend a local Improv event and participate. The story is too heavy and forced. Lighten up.
The rest of the complaints are a grab-bag. For example, the graphics will crash if you try to run it at maximum. Even with the patches. The only companion that provides any amusement is the dwarf, but because they've dragged out the storyline so long, even he begins to sound like such a broken record that you're ready to beat him sense-full yourself after a while. I'm wondering why the developers thought it would be fun to hear the same dialog over and over again dozens of times? Oh, did I mention that they turned Deekin into a shop and provided a non-amusing windbag bard in his place? That's the cruelest cut of all.
Or maybe the cruelest cut is the arbitrary way that they've taken away the relevance of things like stealth mode. For example, if you play the "evil side" of the game, you'll have to "assassinate" an informant. To sneak past his guards you use a disguise and don't even need to be in stealth mode. Furthermore, being in stealth mode doesn't do a fig of good. Even after your cover is blown, you can't use stealth mode effectively at all. So what's the point of bringing the thief and putting all those points into move silently, etc? Might as well just hack and slash your way up then. At that point, I realized, this isn't a D&D rules simulator, this is a video game. Sad, really.
There are some good points. The graphics are very nice and there are tons of options for fiddling with it. As long as you don't try to set it too high, it will probably not crash on you. I'm using Windows XP and an LCD screen. Plus my PC/video card are overpowered for the game. I did have to upgrade/patch my direct X 9 via the Microsoft download site, though. I recently reinstalled my software on my PC, and I guess I was out of date.
Another good point is that there is a lot of opportunity for character development. Since for example, lightning bolt and fireball both do the same damage, you can decide that since your character is a sun elf, he'd probably use fireball. Or whatever. They've trivialized a lot of decisions, so if you play a spellcaster, you can choose whatever appeals to you aesthetically. And there's an advantage to controlling the dwarf/fighter: all your spellcasters will just cast without your intervention... faster and smarter than you probably could. So playing a spellcaster has never been more worry-free. Just remember to memorize spells and rest often.
Eventually, you get a castle/keep of your own in this game. I don't count the keep as a good point because there's essentially little difference between that and going to the Sunken Dragon Inn. It still forces you to wait through loading screens. That's another of the beauties in this game. Endless, repetitive, repetitive and endless loading screens, followed by loading screens. And then another loading screen. But wait another loading screen... oh yes, another loading screen... just another minute while we have another loading screen... loading area 1 of 13... 2 of 13... 3 of 13...
Overall: It's not much fun, but if you're just looking to waste time mindlessly, then it's not completely without value. It's a very long game so you'll get your money's worth, and there are great walkthroughs and cheats online if you're into that. Since the game is old, the patches are out and all the secrets have been found. So if you get stuck, you can find help. Just don't expect too much from it.
 Stellar game! August 11, 2010
Darren
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Neverwinter Nights 2 is an absolutely fantastic game that I am happy to own. The game mechanics are smooth and completely in the user's control. The story itself is engaging and thrilling, and the characters are very convincing. The look and sound are great. I have recommended this game to every one of my friends.
Capable of great things, but needs a bit more work February 20, 2010
J. Zinski (New York)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
First of all, I'm a huge fan of the whole Forgotten Realms series. I loved the Baldur's Gate series and I really enjoyed the original NWN. Therefore, I was eager to play this game and I had high hopes that it would be as good as its predecessors.
Overall, I enjoyed this game, but there are some major flaws that detracted from its potential. First, the good:
-- I thought that the graphics were quite nice. Weapons with elemental enchantments display the characteristics by dripping acid, flashing with fire or ice, or pulsing with sonic energy. Likewise, the armor and equipment is well done. The environment is well designed, and if your system can handle it, you can extend the "view" to really gain a 3D feel. I have surround sound speakers, so that, combined with the graphics, really made it feel like I was in the game. Lastly, I was particularly impressed with some of the higher level spells. If you zoom back after casting massive area spells like Meteor Showers, you can enjoy watching a wide swath of terrain get absolutely pummeled.
-- The storyline for the first 85% of the game was fantastic. You start with the typical humble origins and progress through the game acquiring fame and prestige (I was a paladin). By the third act, you can really feel as if your character has accomplished great things, and that those efforts are acknowledged by NPCs in the game.
-- The music is simply great. Not only do they recycle some of the great music from NWN, but they also incorporate new tunes that really add to the ambiance of the game, whether you are fighting, exploring, or in a city/town. It's a bit irritating to have to convert the music files from .bmu to .mp3, but if you can manage it, you can add some of the better tracks to iTunes for when you're lounging around in your room.
-- The item database is quite impressive. There is plenty of gear for each and every type of character. Although I was a bit depressed by the huge costs for some of the epic weapons/armor at the merchant shops, I found that if you're thorough in exploring each area you explore, you will often find items that surpass anything that you could buy. Likewise, by the latter part of the game, you can simply sell the elite-gear that you can't use and buy those few expensive items that complete your team. Just remember to keep a rogue with you so that you can open locked chests. If you simply bash them open, you risk destroying the powerful items inside.
-- Some of the cut-scenes, particularly mid-game are fantastic. In Act II, there is a long, drawn-out trial sequence (it gets longer if you do the subquests associated with it), that I really enjoyed. Make sure your character has some skills with either diplomacy / bluff / taunt / intimidate, so that you can really take advantage of situations like this. The dialogues were often very diverse and well scripted.
To the Bad:
-- I found the game play in the larger battles to be quite chaotic. There is a computer AI that you can configure to run your other party members, but you're far better off micromanaging them (particularly your casters). Additionally, there will be times when you want/need to focus on particular enemies and avoid others. I often found myself having to click on renegade team-members who would randomly stop what they were doing and go attack/do something that I did not want them to do. Much to my chagrin, after changing their course, they would often automatically go back to doing what I didn't want them to do. You can limit this to a degree by modifying their behavior settings, but I still found it frustrating.
-- The ending was an epic disappointment. I realize the need to set the stage for sequels, but the ending for this game was atrocious. The narrator sounded like he could care less what he was reading and I didn't like what the programmers did to my party at the end.
-- I bought this game years after the original release date, so there was plenty of patching to be done before starting the campaign. Yet, there were still plenty of bugs. The last few areas, in particular, caused havoc for my party member's movement, as they would often times just pace back and forth in the same spot unless I personally re-directed them. Likewise, I found times when I wanted my mages to cast stoneskin, or a similar buff, on multiple party members, but discovered that they would only try casting it on my main character. I found these problems went away if I reloaded the game, but when you're in the middle of a battle, sometimes firing an appropriate buff spell can make the difference between life and death for a particular character.
-- I couldn't find any way to get any characters besides my own to receive a prestige/multi class. I recognize that some classes (particularly Monks) don't generally multi-class until very, very high levels, but I would have enjoyed diversifying the abilities of my party members.
-- I found the game to be magic heavy. Under the "normal" rules, area spells won't harm your team-mates, and the higher-level spells will often end a battle in about 10 seconds. Some of the major battles can be quite tough if you don't have any mages / sorcerers. However, if you have two in your party and you keep them out of the melee, they will flatten everything in your path. I'm a particular fan of hack-and-slash fighting, so I prefer getting things done up close and personal. The enormous capabilities of the mages just do not fit with my style, and perhaps I just wasn't using my fighters correctly.
So all in all, I give this game three stars. I detracted 1 star for the abysmal ending, and one more for the bugs and difficulties concerning the party AI. You can resolve this by pausing round by round to micromanage your team-members, or trying to set up a spell queue, but I found this to be distracting. If you're a fan of the NWN series, I still recommend you buy this game just so you can enjoy the many things it has to offer. However, Obsidian could have made this a fantastic game if only they had a bit more time to develop it. I don't know if this is their fault, or Atari's, but that's my two-cents.
 A flawed but fun adventure January 13, 2010
Arthur O. Niven
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Let's get one thing out of the way. I never played the first one though I am planning now on going back and revisiting it along with other "classic" RPGs such as Baldur's Gate. But as soon as I finished The Sith Lords heard that Obsidian was working on another game I wanted to buy it. The problem is, I didn't have a PC that could run it (officially... I still don't - I've been using my brother's). So I didn't get around to playing it until about a year ago and then college came along and drove a big stake through my available playtime.
I wasn't sure what to expect from the game and overall, I'm pleased with the results. However, as earlier, professional reviews have pointed out the game is not without flaws - big, gaping flaws that you could drive a small car through. All the same, I think the game is still one of the best playing experiences I've had in a long time. But maybe that's just because I'm weird and was able to withstand the technical difficulties associated with this game.
NWN2 takes place on the world of Toril, in the region known as the Sword Coast along the western edge of Faerun. This has also been the setting of several other video games - notably the Baldur's Gate series and the previous Neverwinter Nights game. As such, NWN2, by virtue of its very setting, is a bit of a familiar story. However, it manages to differentiate itself at some spots.
As is typical in most RPGs (including to an extent KotOR and Mass Effect) the game starts off with a bang - that is to say, the sound of your village burning into an utter ruin. Unlike in a few other RPGs your village isn't completely destroyed, though that does little to dispel the cliche surrounding the beginning which sees you sent off by your foster father with a silver shard that may have caused the village's destruction. Along the way you pick up allies to aid you in your quest and you learn more about the shards (you learn quickly there's more than one) and what relationship they have with your character and their quest. All the while, a dark threat brews.
Sound generic? Well, it is to an extent and many of the old archetypes common to fantasy stories are there. As the story progresses however things become gradually more interesting, although there's a never a big "whoa" moment like in many BioWare games (though this might be a good thing, as twists can become a crutch) Probably the most interesting aspects of the game are the ways in which it manages to flesh out and make interesting again old archetypes, as in the characters. The main problem is not so much that NWN2 feels generic, but rather that it takes some patience on the player's part for the story to really get going (around mid-Act II) and the story is plagued early on in the game by a very slow and torturous series of quests that are unavoidable.
Like the story Neverwinter Nights 2's characters are in many ways something we've all seen before. Almost all the characters introduced in Act I are archetypes common to fantasy fiction since the days of Tolkien: the battle-crazed dwarf, the mischievous tiefling, the serene elf, the austere paladin, and so many other characters typical to an RPG - particularly one using the D&D license. However, again, like the story, if one is patient enough the characters turn out to more interesting than they may first appear and find ways to differentiate themselves.
Take Khelgar Ironfist, who, in spite of initial appearances, turns out not just to be another dwarven fighter. Neither truly honorable or reasonable when you first meet him, Ironfist develops over the course of the game into an interesting protagonist. Instead of the typical proud warrior guy who must redeem his race, Ironfist, in fact, must learn that it is he that has been in the wrong. Oh, and he wants to be a monk. How's that for a nice character twist?
This is just one example and it's the case for more or less all of the Act I characters with the possible exception of Elanee who, unfortunately, I really couldn't get very interested in (she's nice I know, but other than that...). However, other characters in Act II are more interesting from the start and begin to no longer fit narrow stereotypes at all. The last two characters of the game to join your party are probably some of the most interesting, though both are something of a surprise, one in particular posing a semi-interesting look into moral philosophy.
Unfortunately, many of the villains are blanketly evil (including one character whose name starts with the word "black"). The main exception is the chief adversary, the King of Shadows, who is actually quite interesting, though you never see him until the very end of the game. He's the mysterious threat, NWN2's Sauron or Voldemort but unlike either of those two characters he's deeply sympathetic (at least to me - but then again I think alot of villains are sympathetic), with an interesting and unusual origin story.
Perhaps the best thing about NWN2's characters is the improved influence system (which I understand is even further improved in MOTB, which I recently began playing). Though this is almost a gameplay issue I think it's very relevant to the discussion of characters and it is markably better than the version in TSL, which I enjoyed but went nowhere story-wise. I liked in TSL how you needed to do things the characters liked in order to get more out of them but because of time restraints on the game the influence gained or loss never had a significant outcome. This is not the case in NWN2 which changes the character's development arcs and even the ending of the game (slightly - it's not like a different overall outcome) based on the influence you have with your party members. That's just an example of one of the small touches that makes NWN2 worth playing.
Unfortunately, NWN2's presentation is less than totally up to the task. RPGs have never been known for strong performance but NWN2 is one of the buggiest games ever released, right up there with Obsidian's first game: TSL. My guess is that this is partially due to the fact Obsidian was a young company with a shortage of experienced developers and that NWN2 put an undue amount of pressure on an antique engine (the same engine that was used for the first NWN!) that caused the game to become such a buggy mess. I encountered the blue screen of death several times playing the game, probably about six or seven times the whole way through. Granted, the game is about 50-60 hours through but in most games I encounter the blue screen once or twice at the most.
Not to mention that the game, in spite of having graphics that are slightly worse than Oblivion, required a high-spec computer and even then would often run into framerate issues, most often in crowded areas or high-intensity battles. While I was interested enough in the story and characters to put this to the side and numerous patches have helped to clear up the game this was trying even to me - and most of everybody I know considers me unusually patient with this kind of thing. From Obsidian's website it seems they're looking for gameplay programmers. It's a good thing too - they need to solve these issues if they're to reach the same kind of clout as BioWare or Bethesda.
And the game had your typical "BioWare loading screens" - x2.
In other areas of performance the game was more acceptable. The music ranged from bland to exciting, with the former usually being imported music files from NWN1 and its composer Jeremy Soule whose work I have gradually begun to grow tired of (though his work in Oblivion was more inspiring than I'd expected). The more exciting music was actually from two composers I'd hitherto never even heard of (David Fraser and Neil Goldberg) but who I thought were actually able to give an interesting and dark flair to NWN2. Voice work was also generally good, though not spectacular with the highlights being NPCs and central characters to the story while minor characters suffered.
The graphics, as in many RPGs (though not Mass Effect) are pretty dated, though not unreasonably so and they still stand shoulder to shoulder with several games though not the newest releases. However, the graphics, in spite of their relatively mid-tier quality, are a huge strain on the game's performance due to the primitive engine powering them.
In the end, NWN2 is a game you'll probably either love or loathe, with a few falling in-between. Myself, I loved it. So take my opinion for what you will.
 Not the complete game! January 5, 2010
sinister wolf
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This purchase was misleading and fraudulent. The picture shows the boxed game, while the product I received was a vacuumed-sealed cd and cdkey. I have what is needed to play the game, but not the entire product I purchased. If I buy a physical game, it's because I want the actual box for my shelf, otherwise I would get a digital download. All I got was an easily-lost cd with no place to keep it. I am very dissatisfied with this and would not purchase from this seller again.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 197
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