Neverwinter Nights 2: NWN 2: MotB Review at NW Vault

A review of Mask of the Betrayer has popped up at Neverwinter Vault. The writer, Dormammu, assigned MotB a score of 8.86 out of a possible 10 with very high marks in role playing, atmosphere and storytelling:

One of the first things gamers will notice is the expansion to playable races, classes, and prestige classes. The Sacred Fist PRC intrigued me and I was quite impressed with how well it worked out in the game. Being able to use the Wisdom score in a multifaceted way for both Monk and Clerics made for an extremely gratifying build that played very sensibly.

The choice of Half-Drow may have been somewhat lackluster on my part, being that there are more attractive offerings in this expansion, like the various Genasi, but I felt I wanted to give a voice to "the little guy". In fact, I feel that monks and half-elves are overlooked a lot (close personal friends notwithstanding). The Half-Drow offers little more than the average half-elf, however, one really neat little function the Half Drow gets is the ability to switch between low-light vision and darkvision. It may not sound like much, but it actually comes in handy for those that like to see in dark places. I thought it was fun that they made the distinction.

With regard to roleplaying:

As usual, there are advantages to having at least one of the three main interaction skills (Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate) maxed out. The chance to use them comes up very frequently and can invariably make a situation turn out a different way. Likewise, my high Wisdom score attributed to conversation options that I would not have normally been able to pull off.

Above all else, the immersive story and character interaction puts one at center stage for an epic tale of love, betrayal, vengeance, and justice. You get the feeling that you are doing real people stuff with real people consequences with computers characters and dialogue. When I was finished and the final credits were rolling, I heard a distinctive, "Wow." in my internal dialogue.

This is a very comprehensive review and well worth the time to go read the entire thing. Thanks NW Vault!