Neverwinter Nights 2: NWN 2 Review at Gaming Nexus: 8.5

Gaming Nexus brings today's first review. Handing out an 8.5, a rather typical and very fair assessment, the reviewer said:

This isn't your average grocery list of fantasy adventure tropes to rummage through. This isn't just some been-there-slain-that-got-the-princess set of tasks, perpetuated by a traffic circle of hollow side quests. In your travels across the land you'll engage in morally perplexing scenarios: You'll encounter a misunderstood enemy, displaced from their own homelands and desperately seeking new roots; you'll mitigate or provoke police corruption within gray areas that make it hard to throw the first stone; and you'll struggle to keep your particular fellowship of the ring intact, as every decision you make will spur their loyalty, or spurn their trust -- and this is all just the warm up round in the game's opening chapter. Remember, these are the makers of KOTOR 2 that you're dealing with here. Sometimes, figuring out how to decisively tackle a chamber full of lizardkin is the least of your worries. And discovering more of who you are through your character's decisions become the meat and drink of the experience. They make no apology in forcing your to think your way through some too-close-to-call decisions.

Don't be afraid to enjoy the sights along the way, though. The textures are enthralling, but the art direction and overall architectural designs are disturbingly unimaginative and unwilling to take the "go big or go home" risks that have made other RPGs more of a visual feast. So while it doesn't fall victim to the siren's call of oversaturated graphics, it grants it a 'realistic fantasy' aesthetic that instills a sense of bland, but shines more limelight on character development and sharp, intelligent writing (two RPG fundamentals that are hardly ever brewed with this much vim and vigor). In a land where the "dungeons" can be the thug-ridden streets of Neverwinter, and the "dragons" can be the coin-extorting city watchmen, NWN2 is as much about ethics and integrity and it is about swords and sorcery (don't worry, evil geniuses ... there's plenty of opportunities to use the Force for the Dark Side, too).

If that's not enough, Obsidian hired on a cast of superlative voice actors that have worked on everything from Oz to Chappelle's Show. They particularly scoured the halls of Law & Order and NYPD Blue to fill up the casting couch, and then dog-eared another set of resumes with Red Dead Revolver and Grand Theft Auto to their credit. In what is doubtless an Oblivion tribute, NWN2's Lord Nasher is voiced by a bonafide Patrick Stewart impersonator; no harm, no foul, and the experience is only enriched from the decision.