Mask of the Betrayer however is a true masterpiece. It is 60 hours long, a bit linear, the story is above average for a video game but unremarkable. I've never played a game that caters to so many different player preferences, but then again I have yet to play Arcanum. You can play in third person (perhaps with a KOTOR/Dragon Age control scheme if you wish), or one of two highly customizable isometric modes.
Mask of the Betrayer is even more responsive to everything. Gameplay can be totally different, dialogue can change drastically as this game provides so many special dialogue options depending on your rank in three dialogue skills, various other skills, and attributes. Your unique character build will have a profound impact on all aspects of the game. The amount of character builds you can make in this game is unrivaled, only the first Neverwinter Nights is in the same realm in this regard. The most content heavy video game RPG everġ2 selectable races, 17 sub-races, 15 classes, 24 prestige classes after you get Storm of Zehir, over 300 spells, over 300 feats, 40 different weapon categories with lots of weapon variety in each, lots of armor variety, very in-depth replication of D&D 3.5. The good qualities outstrip the bad ones, but you will still find yourself missing NWN1 I think when you play it. Is it worth buying and playing? Oh definitely. Even the story when you're starting off, while it has its good points, is rather convoluted and stretches your ability to lose yourself in the game completely. Overall, NWN2 is a good game, and quite fun, but its a bit of a monster to get the hang of and get into. There's less customization options from what I can see in NWN2 than there is with NWN1. I do like the fact that it uses the D&D 3.5 rules instead of the 3.0 rules. Granted, I've only played NWN2 Gold a couple of days so far, but I'm having a much harder time getting the hang of the way the game works. The trade off isn't that great.Īs far as playability goes, the controls for NWN2 Gold aren't quite as intuitive as NWN1's were, and they're clumsier seeming to me. They do, however, require much higher resources on your computer, including processor speed, memory, and drive space. The graphics in NWN2 Gold are better than the graphics in NWN1, but not much, really. So when they announced they were doing Neverwinter Nights 2, I wanted to give it a try as well. I love the game and what it represents, period. I've played D&D since its first inception in April of 1974. I have played the original Neverwinter Nights and its expansions for years. I don't like how the camera was done at all but I don't think it is enough for me to take it off the Excellent ranking. I think it becomes a lot less annoying the more you play because you almost automatically adjust and it becomes semi-intuitive. The second is something a lot of people complain about and that is the camera, it is very sloppy and the perfect angle quickly changes to the veiw of a wall and you have to reposition again. The orignial did and this opened up a whole new market and fan base. If I had to complain I would say there are two problems the first is that NWN2 doesn't run on Linux. Granted the in game settings are at the minimum requirments but this doesn't detract form the game at all. I have a 6 year old computer and my friend is playing on a 2 year old laptop and we are having no problems. However I don't consider these stats all that unreasonable. A lot of people complain that the high computer requirments aren't worth the graphics. A friend and I are playing the main campain together which is a new feature of NWN2 and is a lot of fun. Based on the D&D rules, it does have a high nerd factor but there is a great story and a lot of fun to be had. This is a sequal to one of the best RPG games of all time and it holds up continuing this tradition.