Epic Levels, NWN2 OC
I've been out of the scene for quite some time now which is hardly surprising since I finished NWN2. Yes, it's official, finished in around 4 and a half days I think. This was one of the harder games I've had the pleasure of playing. Micro-management is king here and doing that in a party of 5/6 is quite difficult at times especially with the wonky AI (which I had to turn off most times to get the most). I prevailed though, yes indeed I did and at the end it was more like whew, that was tough but so, so worth it.
Playing as a pure mage was one of the reasons why it was as tough as it was but then again one needs more strategy that way so I can't really fault the game for that, it's more fun with more strategy but once that's done, any other run through will seem like child's play. To me this version seemed like a hybrid of Baldur's gate and some fallout inspired things like the backgrounds which is not a bad thing of course, I was surprised at the depth that most people are lamenting the lack of. To me, it had plenty and has replay value as well, what with all the mods coming out.
The annoying negatives I noticed were the inventory icons. There was a reason I didn't like them in BG, why bring it back? One has to squint for around 5 min before identifying what's what. Maybe I shall adjust in time. The other thing I disliked was that there was no 'lil bar on top of the enemy characters to let us know how close to doom they are. One has to manually right click on them before it shows up and that's not good enough, especially with hordes of them.
The music is AWESOME. I really mean it, I have it in my head now and it just doesn't get out. It's that good. Very well done here, I hope they put the score out, I would buy it in a sec. The fight and the intro/splash screen score is particularly memorable. I think they did the scores for a couple other games but I can't remember the name of the house now, they have quite a nice website too, the introductions were hilarious. The Keep thing was quite a lot of fun. I enjoyed building my own place but I want it back in the sequel dammit. There's a lot of blood, sweat and tears there. I liked the cut scene convo's. Makes it look epic and well, kotory2 for lack of a better term. Influence is also kotory2 but makes it more interesting.
The characters were quite cool though one would wish they could've had romances with two in particular, Sand and Bishop (not at the same time of course though that might not have been so bad!). Casavir was a typical Paladin but not as bad as I expected, as I said the others would have been more to my taste. Bishop had an awesome story arc ending/dialogue if one romanced Casavir…it could've been better no doubt if there were multiple endings with that particular dude. I think unrequited love is cool at times but I would've hoped one could have changed that in RP heaven. Ah well this was unrequited from both our sides if that is at all possible and not completely contradictory as well.
Lot's of people complaining that their game doesn't run/crashes/glitches/bad camera control etc. I found it was easy to get used to the cam controls, though it took a day, if one doesn't expect it to be like NWN. This definitely had improved graphics, the mountains with the Fire Giants and that hill where one meets the Shaman is amazing. Good atmosphere. I had no performance/frame rate issues etc on my PC which is 2 and a half years old with the settings turned down low, I never used the higher ones so don't know if it would make a difference. To put things in perspective though, my PC does have the 6800 ultra, which is a really good card and is a 3.4. It has a gig of ram, so maybe that balances out the good card 
I wanted to play with 2 but couldn't wait to buy more.
Story was great and one can tell the quality writing and the attention to detail/subtle references that can be easily overlooked by the teenage player and/or it does seem like something the mature players would get a different reaction out of. An example would be the motivations that aren't mentioned but can be easily imagined based on dialogue clues. This is an inherent experience based feat that can't be unlocked by the younglings so all is how it should be. Additionally, to make it accessible universally some things have to be left vague/toned down which is a double edged sword I suppose; or I could just be imagining it and it's all in my head, heh. Either way it worked to get me immersed. The ending was like Witch Hunter Robin somewhat, quite awesome I thought. Well done Obsidian; now we're all set for a planar sequel. Can't wait.
