Oh my, my life is over as I know it.

I’m a big fan of Bioware games. The Baldur’s Gate games are some of my favorite games, especially the second one. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a bad game come out of Bioware, and that’s just not something you usually see. Every game company has their steaming pile of rush-this-out-and-make-some-quick-cash game that makes you shake your head in wonder at the fact that it managed to get out the door.

So I had big hopes for Neverwinter Nights. This game has been in development for what seems to be forever, and I’d been waiting anxiously for its release. That said, I can honestly say I was initially disappointed slightly when I started playing the game. But oh my, was I to become absolutely amazed with this game, by the add-on Aurora Toolset that gives you all the power in the world! Or at least in my little head it does..

Single Player

First off, I haven’t really played the Multiplayer game yet, so I’m not going to comment on that in this review. I’m really not a big fan of online gaming, so I sure wasn’t buying this game for that feature. If that’s what you’re looking to read up on, you’re in the wrong place laddie.

So onto the single player enjoyment. The first thing you notice about this game is that the graphics are upgraded from the Baldur’s Gate games, being as they are fully 3-d rather than the top down 2-D backgrounds of the earlier games.

Character

The setup of the character is different as well, seeing as how Neverwinter Nights closely follows the 3rd edition D&D rules, with minor modifications and omissions necessary for gameplay.

The initial setup of the characters is very much like the usual Bioware games, with the main difference being the fact that you don't roll dice to determine your stats, rather you get to choose the allocation of a set number of stats. The main difference is that when you level up, you don't just automatically go up in the class you chose to start off with. You can choose to level up in any class, choosing the feats and skills that go with it. I love this, as it allows full control of how your character progresses throughout the game.

Storyline

The game starts off with your character being near the end of his training at the Academy, which is basically a big tutorial that you go through, allowing you to get the hang of everything in the game, which is good for both beginners, and those familiar with Bioware games as it allows you to get the hang of the camera system.

The underlying story is there is a mysterious plague devastating the city, and then the Academy is attacked. The local authorities see something "special" in you, and you're then giving the tasks of discovering who attacked the academy, and at the same time help find the cure for the plague.

Graphics

Being their first real effort as a 3d RPG, the graphics are rather well done. I've noticed very little fidgets in the graphics, with the main culprits being the occasional problem with collision detection and I've also noticed that when you zoom the camera in close, sometimes people's hair seems like it's going to slide right off of their heads as they move around.

Sounds

They aren't great, and they aren't bad. They're just sort of there for the most part. They do have some good environmental sound effects that you get more familiar with when you wind up using the Toolset.

Camera

Ah, the bane of many a 3d game. A good camera should bsically be unnoticeable in a game, while a bad camera can make a great game into a steaming pile of crap. There's nothing worse than being in a major battle and suddenly having the camera swing around behind a wall so you can't see a damn thing. Those make you want to throw the game out the window.

That being said, the camera in Nevewinter Nights is pretty well done. It's really easy to move the camera around using the keys on the keyboard to swing it around, and zoom in and out. The best way to do it is if you have a mouse with a scroll button. If you hold down the scroll button, and move the mouse around it controls the camera, allowing you to basically put it anywhere you want. If you scroll the button, it zooms in and out. I've never come across any real problems with the camera at all.

Combat

Aside from the fact that it's 3d, the combat system is bsically the same as the one from the Baldur's Gate games. The default for the fighting is realtime, but you can press the spacebar to pause it at any time to set up future commands. You click on guys to hack away at them, and you can do things like cast spells and use items at will. They really have changed a whole much from their other games.

Party Play

You know what one of the best things about the Baldur's Gate games was? The fact that you could completely control an entire party of 6 people, deciding everything they can do and having control over how they level up, and which characters are actually in your party.

You know what you can't do in Neverwinter Nights? That's right, you only get control over a single character. The best you can do is "hire" a henchman, who you have no real control over other than generic commands that you set and then they do whatever they want. It can get annoying when if you're trying to sneak around, and if you don't have the settings right, your henchman will run off and fight anything that moves. The game would have been a lot better if you could control a large party like the Baldur's Gate games.

Enough of that...

Onto the real reason I use the game, and that I'm writing this review. The unbelievable, fantastic, straight-from-God Aurora Toolset. Basically, it allows you to completely make your own games in the Neverwinter Nights world.

You get total control over the module you create. You can edit scenery, encounters, NPC's, conversations, journal entries, treasure, and basically everything else you can think of. For the most part, it's simply click and drop just about anything that they have in the actual game. You can edit pretty much everything too, and create your own custom items, NPC's, enemies, etc.

The real meat of customization in the Toolset is the scripting. Now, this is what divides the basic users, and those willing to go deeper into it and learn some programming. Because that's basically what the scripting is, a specialized subset of C++, with specific function calls created by the Bioware geniuses (that's my new name for them). The scripting language allows you even greater control over your module, allowing you to dynamically control things that happen within your game.

The main reason I bought this game was the fact that it included the Toolset, but I didn't even open the thing for the first month I had the game. I didn't think I had time to learn everything ot use it, as I figured that it was going to be pretty difficult to learn. Stupid, stupid me!

For basic modules, you can whip something up with out a whole lot of effort. You could have a simple room, with really nothing in it that you run around in, in like 5 minutes. I mean, you won't have anything to do, but you can run around in a circle, yelling "Look what I made!" to yourself. Sounds like fun.

The best part about this Toolset, is that it basically makes your game infinite. There are already over 1000 modules that you can download off of the official Neverwinter Nights site that have been created by people. This means that for the price of the game, you have unlimited RPG games to play. You can even create your own and gaze in amazement at your own genius.

This Toolset has basically ruined my life. All I want to do is work on the game I'm creating, and I have to fight to do anything else. I suck, I know, but so what? This thing is that amazing. Now that's enough reviewing, I have some scripting to do!