Voodoo
01-26-2009, 07:52 AM
Article by Valisk
Recently I picked up a copy of Storm of Zehir, the new Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion.
As a big fan of old-style CRPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, I hoped the new "Overworld" style gameplay and party system in SoZ would be more faithful to the old games and less of a mediocre action-RPG like NWN2 itself. From what I have played so far of the game, my hopes were not completely unwarranted....
The story begins well, with about an hour devoted to starting you out with some strong NPC characterization and interesting events. After this, you are let out into the overworld with a mission to accomplish, but complete freedom in where to go and what other missions to accept. This combination of freedom and linear storytelling was always the strong point of the classic CRPG, and it comes through very well in Storm of Zehir.
As I progressed through the first few hours of story, outfitting my characters and conversing with NPCs using every one of my characters and all of their skills, I realized I was having more fun playing this game than I had since I completed Baldur's Gate 2, years ago. The story wasn't quite as strong as that previous game, but the gameplay was if anything more polished and entertaining. I soon had enough experience to level my characters, and proceeded to get down to min/maxing...
Until I got a curious message on the text screen - "[Server] Character level disallowed by server restrictions." Evidently my Favored Soul character was bugged to be unable to level. I searched Google and the SoZ forums for solutions to no avail, so I was forced to remove that character from the party and add a Cleric. "No big deal, annoying, but the game is worth the trouble so far..." I thought.
About an hour after that, though, the game froze. I had to restart my computer, and I had lost some progress, but I kept playing, until an hour after that, when it froze again. I gave up, but the next day the problem was still there - the game had become unstable for some reason. At this point I decided I was going to wait for a couple of weeks for a patch to come out to finish the game - I can't recommend paying to be a beta tester, but the game may well be worth playing after a patch or two. I'll report back then.
Recently I picked up a copy of Storm of Zehir, the new Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion.
As a big fan of old-style CRPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, I hoped the new "Overworld" style gameplay and party system in SoZ would be more faithful to the old games and less of a mediocre action-RPG like NWN2 itself. From what I have played so far of the game, my hopes were not completely unwarranted....
The story begins well, with about an hour devoted to starting you out with some strong NPC characterization and interesting events. After this, you are let out into the overworld with a mission to accomplish, but complete freedom in where to go and what other missions to accept. This combination of freedom and linear storytelling was always the strong point of the classic CRPG, and it comes through very well in Storm of Zehir.
As I progressed through the first few hours of story, outfitting my characters and conversing with NPCs using every one of my characters and all of their skills, I realized I was having more fun playing this game than I had since I completed Baldur's Gate 2, years ago. The story wasn't quite as strong as that previous game, but the gameplay was if anything more polished and entertaining. I soon had enough experience to level my characters, and proceeded to get down to min/maxing...
Until I got a curious message on the text screen - "[Server] Character level disallowed by server restrictions." Evidently my Favored Soul character was bugged to be unable to level. I searched Google and the SoZ forums for solutions to no avail, so I was forced to remove that character from the party and add a Cleric. "No big deal, annoying, but the game is worth the trouble so far..." I thought.
About an hour after that, though, the game froze. I had to restart my computer, and I had lost some progress, but I kept playing, until an hour after that, when it froze again. I gave up, but the next day the problem was still there - the game had become unstable for some reason. At this point I decided I was going to wait for a couple of weeks for a patch to come out to finish the game - I can't recommend paying to be a beta tester, but the game may well be worth playing after a patch or two. I'll report back then.