Jonny Austin fools the people of Neverwinter into thinking he's a hero in the most important PC release in years.
Neverwinter Nights, from the team behind the acclaimed Baldur's Gate series, is an epic RPG that has been five years in the making. What's so exciting about the title is that it has the ability to really shake up the current RPG landscape. Not only do you get an enthralling and thoroughly replayable 60+ hour single-player quest to complete, you also get extra bang for your buck with an online / LAN experience with limitless possibilities, the chance to show that you too can create exciting adventures using probably the most accessible and in-depth level-building toolset we've yet seen, and even the ability to DM games (to act as Dungeon Master) in real-time.
The City of Neverwinter is dying. A horrible plague known as The Wailing Death is decimating the population. Those still alive are left having to deal not only with building funeral pyres for their friends and family in the street, but with a government on shaky political ground, bands of armed thugs desperate to take advantage of the confusion, and outside forces who want the once-proud City destroyed. As a promising young guard at the academy, you are plucked from obscurity to have the hopes of thousands placed on your shoulders. The high ranking Aribeth (a classy Elven Lady with an impressive breastplate) sets you upon your task and off you go.
First of all though you must create your character, which is as simple/comprehensive as you want it to be and in itself an impressive experience. Choose a race, an appearance, a gender, an alignment, even a tattoo or two. Choose a name, a deity, a character class. Choose skills, choose attributes, choose feats. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage (well, your clothes anyway). You can even choose a voice type. At every stage there's a handy 'recommended' button to set novices on the way, and this is indicative of the rest of the game - compared to many RPGs its very accessible so if you're a newbie thinking of taking the plunge this is the one for you. A great in-game tutorial and a brilliantly accessible interface means that you won't have to read the hefty manual or struggle with controls.
'Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition Rules' says the box, and indeed, to many it does. And while I won't deride the rule-set (or those that enjoy it) that forms the foundations of Neverwinter Nights, I must admit to not having the foggiest. If you don't know what it means, it shouldn't hinder you (especially since D&D is so prevalent in our fantasy and games that you're probably aware of it anyway without even realising it). From what I can gather it mainly means far more freedom in creating and developing your character - wizards for example can now deck themselves in plate armour (although this affects your spellcasting to a degree). You can even change class with only minor penalty, so if you're a half-orc barbarian and realise you could do with some magic to back you up you can learn some sorcerer skills. Every character is unique to you and therefore players can approach the same problem in a variety of different manners.
Once you enter the bright world of Neverwinter Nights, the freedom is yours to choose how you go about completing the set tasks, although obviously later quests only open once others are completed. The game world is huge with a variety of impressive environments to explore and along the way you'll get the chance to take side-quests from friendly folk or known subversives that you meet. If you take them you'll no doubt receive a monetary reward to buy new weapons, spells, armour etc. (you can even haggle, or threaten for more) and experience points for doing so, so it's usually a good idea.
First off you'll probably need to find a henchman/woman. Of course you don't have to, but the game itself even says the difficulty is based on the assumption that you will. These tend to be interesting characters with their own agendas, and they're handy to have around, whether you hire a Cleric to unleash a divine ass-kicking upon the undead, a Rogue to pick locks and slash throats for you or a giant orc Barbarian who swings his double-ended axe to send your foes' heads rolling. You don't have direct control so it's a shame you can't equip them better, or get them to lug items around for you, but they will follow simple orders and in some respects it's interesting to play with a partner who is autonomous to an extent.
It's a shame you can't control a party of six, as in Baldur's Gate, but there may be more than just you and your henchperson in the team as one particular great feature allows you to control animals and even summon them to do your bidding. You can also pick a familiar from such beasts as Panther, Hawk, Wolf and Badger (!). Note to American game developers: we don't know what you think they are, but we have badgers here, and while they're quite vicious when cornered they're also rather small. You could kick one out of the nearest window if it ran at you. So don't be silly - would you set a gopher on a band of angry orcs?
Speaking to Non-Player Characters is handled simply, with the player choosing from a series of context-sensitive responses to each line of dialogue. This can be quite fun as the range of answers you give show a range of character traits, meaning you can go around being rude or threatening to everyone you meet or polite and inquisitive. You can also use the 'Persuade' talent to get people to open up and reveal things they might not otherwise mention. Many NPCs don't have much to say, but there are plenty who are at the very least interesting and at the most packed with important info about the quest you're undertaking.
Of course there is one main storyline that runs through the entire game. The plot, as you'd expect from Bioware, is top-notch, and split into five massive chapters (plus a Prelude) with each having a beginning, middle and end, while tying in nicely with the major plotline. NPC conversation carries this along, as well as the odd bit of narrative and it's all very nicely done.
Games like this and Morrowind are really starting to make me worry about my own morality. It seems that without real-life punishment for committing an offence, my natural instinct is to be a rascal. Near authority figures I'm well behaved, listening intently to how much good I'm doing and how the bards are singing of my exploits. Out of earshot though I spend most of my time using my authority as a guard to threaten beggars for their one gold piece, beating up prostitutes and robbing plague victims at knifepoint (well, I was saving up for a classy magical gauntlet at the time). While in Morrowind this type of behaviour is usually punished, in Neverwinter Nights my only punishment was a priest mentioning in an offhand way that I should discontinue my 'wholesale slaughter' of innocents (I don't think he realised I'd just killed and robbed a holy man who was collecting for charity). Neverwinter seems to be a civilised land so this requires quite a suspension of disbelief - not ideal in an RPG.
Graphically Neverwinter Nights is a mixed bag. The pre-rendered and static environs of Bioware's Infinity Engine (as showcased in the Baldur's Gate series) are gone, replaced with the real-time 3D Aurora Engine, and mostly to good effect. Lighting and shadows are particularly impressive, with real-time shadows from every lightsource in the vicinity behaving exactly how you'd expect them to (the shadows of skeletons even have the necessary gaps in the ribcage). Spell effects are also pleasingly spectacular, and generally the level of detail, the textures and backgrounds and the quality of the animation are mighty good. Some of the environments are a little repetitive and generic and character models are a bit blocky when viewed close up but the chances are you won't be viewing the action from that close very regularly. Even the effective camera behaves itself most of the time.
Likewise the sound impresses and disappoints at the same time. The music is pretty good, although exactly what you'd expect, and it's dynamic too, which is great apart from the times it humorously comes in late - too late for action it was supposed to accompany. Voice acting is mostly great (though occasionally dire). Just about anything you do, no matter how small, makes the required sound, and it sounds great through a surround setup. Unfortunately there seems to only be one, maybe two death-screams per type of enemy, which, while always humorous, does get extremely grating if you're doing a lot of fighting.
Combat is handled with considerable panache. Simply click on a foe to attack him and from there it's just a matter of using the extremely simple right-click radial menus and your quickbar to drink healing potions, cast spells, unleash special attacks or whatever you have in mind. The fights are better to watch than in any other RPG of this type too as you see fighters dodging blows, parrying and letting loose with their own attacks. If things get dodgy, hitting the spacebar will allow you to pause the game and make tactical decisions before un-pausing it and letting them have it. Sounds like a bit of a cheat but it's an invaluable help and if anything adds to the fight.
There's plenty of enemies to hack down of course. From members of the seven main races to all kinds of horrid monsters, skeletons, vampires and just about anything else you can think of, they're all begging for an axe-assisted bitch slap across the face.
One thing that really grates is the reliance on traditional RPG elements. By 2002 you'd have hoped certain things would have moved on, yet in both Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights it's possible to find stacks of gold, weapons and jewels stashed cunningly in random barrels and crates that litter the streets, while walking into a citizen's home and stealing their belongings doesn't seem to upset them or induce any kind of moral penalty.
I have noticed a few bugs in the title (alarmingly, there's already a patch out). For example, in the first chapter there are four gates leading out of the main core of the city into peripheral areas, and each gate is guarded. You are told you can't go through these gates without the proper clearance - however, just try it, and it works - they'll open for you and you can pass through without any trouble. It seems the developers just forgot to lock them. Sometimes just going through a door into a new area can prove frustrating unless you're in exactly the right position. And annoyingly, after I completed what had been an arduous quest, the person who had provided me with it didn't realise it was done - and the dialogue tree didn't give me any way to tell him it had been. Interestingly I read another review of the game which picked up on the exact same issue.
The AI can occasionally be a bit ropey too. One particular fellow guard just stood his ground patiently while I fired arrow after arrow into his armour. He even greeted me with a 'Well met!' when I chatted to him directly afterwards. Henchman AI is frustrating too, when they don't stay with you as you order and run off to do battle and get themselves killed, or when their dodgy pathfinding means they get stuck behind a tree. Or when my cockney Halfling says 'Oh I could pick that open easy!' and proceeds to do nothing about it.
The funniest example was when the same Halfling was halfway between a lock he could pick open and a trap he could disarm. Instead of going to one or the other the AI couldn't make its mind up and instead walked from one to the other and back again, and like Buridan's Ass (French Philosopher Buridan apparently proved that a donkey, faced with equdistant and equal sized bales of hay, didn't know which to go for and eventually starved to death) would have possibly done so for all eternity.
It's not going to be possible to talk much about the multiplayer aspect of the game. This is because it's mainly community focussed and it'll be a short while until we see the fan-developed mods which will shape the online experience. Having said that the potential is huge and it would be crazy to suggest that once the homebrew missions start appearing that the results would be anything less than spectacular.
Initial play online suggests that there is some lag to contend with, but it all depends on your connection and computer to an extent. LAN play with friends is great but if you aren't on a LAN, well, regardless, it's really time to start thinking about broadband anyway. Online or on a LAN you could choose to engage in a massive all-in rumble, complete the single-player quest co-operatively, or play one of many custom mods which are currently in the pipeline, with or without a DM to oversee the action.
The DM client works extremely well - within a simple framework the Dungeon Master is granted godlike powers to referee games and to make any changes [s]he sees fit, adding enemies, rewarding players with treasure - any decision related to the game at all can be made on the fly. Of course this isn't something just anyone can start doing immediately, as being a DM requires that you provide a good enough experience to interest players in the first place, but anyone with any experience of being a DM in pen-and-paper D&D, and anyone in general who thinks they'd be good at it should be able to pick it up after a while with no major worries. And yes, this feature is implemented far more successfully than in the much-ballyhooed but ultimately crap Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption.
Anyone who's adept in a Windows environment and who's learned to use programs such as PhotoShop or Dreamweaver to any proficiency shouldn't be too stumped by the Aurora toolset. Before long you'll be building and painting environments with ease, populating them with NPCs (complete with voices and custom dialog trees) and monsters and sending your mates to their death in search of treasure and glory. I'm pretty sure there's nothing in the main game you couldn't recreate yourself with a bit of patience. If you want to script your own events you may have to get down and dirty with a bit of coding, but it's not really that much tougher to get to grips with than HTML and if you can't be arsed there's plenty of preset scripted events to choose from. If you've ever wanted to get into game design but don't have the necessary experience or tech know-how, designing interesting maps with Aurora and punting them round development houses would possibly give you a leg up.
This combination of features and options is simply staggering. The single-player game alone is worth the asking price but the addition of the other modules allow for a complete customisation of your gaming experience. I have no doubt that Neverwinter Nights will soon boast the biggest and healthiest community in gaming, and that it's a title many of us will still be playing in years to come. Yes, there are teething problems at the moment, especially with the single-player quest, but Bioware are obviously committed to resolving these, and importantly, none of the bugs I experienced were enough to dampen my enthusiasm for my continuing quest and for the title as a whole.
Neverwinter Nights is staggering on so many levels. Five years in the making, and for once we're not wondering where all the time went. Yes, there are issues, but every fault is accompanied by a thousand reasons to overlook it. As an RPG (a western-style one at least) it has no equal and won't have for the considerable future.