Neverwinter Nights 2: Worthplaying Review: 9/10

As far as the single-player module goes, NWN2 is a right fun quest that gets started very quickly and does some of the things I came to love in KOTOR, such as a large cache of support characters and abstract stats like Character Influence (how much a character likes or hates you) and flexible character alignments, which do bear some pretty heavy significance on the plot and conversations. There's a substantial amount of play here, and enough challenge to keep folks interested. I have more qualms about the engine that powers it than the actual module; this engine seems to be puffed up a touch, without enough gunpowder for the sort of cannon it requires to work properly. (Now if that isn't a strained analogy....)

There's something inherent about Neverwinter Nights 2 that makes it more difficult to review. At the basic level, this is not a game you get in the box. Sure, it comes with an excellent module, but you are purchasing the engine, assets, and toolkit, thereby granting you, the player and more importantly the adventurer, access to what may well be an nearly infinite buffet of sessions, both online and off. It's hard to deny the value of a kit of that nature, particular given its wide range of future possibilities. That's also a hard product to sell at the concept level: You're paying for a framework and tools and a sample of what this thing can do in the hands of a professional team of designers.

Based simply on the pack-in module, I can't recommend Neverwinter Nights 2 enough to RPG fans and those who follow the table-top gaming systems. Many other players will want to wait patiently for the mod scene to develop, but unless you're a complete no-RPG kind of guy or still enamored of your MMORPG of the week, you'll want to snag NWN2 eventually.