Compromise and Conceit

I booted up NWN 2 for Mac a few weeks ago, and have played through to about 8th level already, at what for my inept level of talent is quite a pace. I am currently being sidetracked by my Dwarf mate, Khelgar, and his quest to become a monk.

My impression of NWN 2 so far is that it is vastly superior to NWN, but nowhere near as good as Baldur’s Gate 2. No surprises there… the graphics are nice, although on the Mac at least it has a few annoying interface issues. Particularly, I can’t seem to slow the window rotation speed, so as soon as my mouse touches the edge of the window the whole scene jumps rapidly, making it difficult to focus on the point you want to see. The first person camera is almost useless, because frequently one is under attack from all sides, or from a long range, and the camera doesn’t give a clear sense of this (not that this matters – I never use first person camera). Also, of course, NWN 2 is right-mouse-button based, and the Mac doesn’t have one… but this is easily circumvented. Amusingly I have had to switch from “Space” for pause to “enter”, because if I mishit my space I strike the kana entry button on my japanese keyboard, and this buggers the software completely…

The plot seems to be better than NWN 1, and the play is more like the original Baldur’s Gate. You have direct control over all your PCs, including all their attacks and spell-casting and movements if you turn on “puppet mode” (which of course I did, because even on its weakest spell-casting setting the AI chews through the sorcerer’s spells too fast). The side-adventures for companions seem to be quite good, and there is a degree of interaction and script quality in this which is much higher than in NWN 1. Neeshka and Khalgur are particularly entertaining.

Unfortunately I have chosen to play a Warlock, which so far is nowhere near as entertaining as I had thought it might be. This is not too bad since I get complete control over my companions, so I can also essentially play a sorcerer, fighter and thief, though I can’t change their character class, but it’s good enough for me. The encounters are not as difficult as I would like, although there was a battle in a warehouse which was actually quite challenging, requiring regular saving and restarts and the use of most of my magic items. One frustrating little aspect of the gameplay is that you can only be defeated if all your PCs die. So if one PC with no healing spells or skills remains alive  at the end of an encounter, you all get resurrected with 1 hp. This is sensible, I suppose, since it assumes a basic familiarity with first aid on the part of all PCs which is reasonable given their profession; but it also means that battles are a tad easier. Though the final battle in the aforementioned warehouse was only won by me after 2 tries, with Neeshka on 1 hp and everyone else “dead”, and bereft of magic items – I think that counts as “challenging”. Nonetheless, I would have spent several more hours on the job if PCs were non-resurrectable…

Overall it is holding my interest well, particularly since the companions are almost entertaining and the battles occasionally challenging. Unless things go drastically awry with the plot, I think I might even see it through to the end…