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Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir PC

This is our first experience with an open ended RPG PC game. NWN2 has been linear storylines up to this expansion. Our group has trouble self motivating to drive the story. Feels a little like Diablo - wonder around fighting until you come across a new place. Strangely enough, we loved Diablo for what it was. Maybe because everyone new what to expect. SoZ was a surprise. The debate over how fun it is to play continues.

My personal rating is 5 star for an NWN2 expansion. Building four party members your way is great. The overland map is fun in single player but bores the LAN party non-leader characters to death. Good time to grab a snack. For the first time you can walk into a total world of hurt unexpectedly your party is not even close to capable of handling. Give it a shot but be ready to bolt before everyone dies. Live to fight another day against nemesis opponents who have bested you once and all you need is an edge to face them again. You will like the new death and dying system on this expansion.

For the first time, Atari has utilized the conversation capabilities of the game for multiplayer. Overall this is the best LAN game RPG. If you just want to game with a few friends and not the world of AH's with level 80 mega characters, this is the best.

If you gave up on NWN2 before this expansion, I recommend you at least hit this in single player. SoZ is the realization of a vision for RPG on the PC.

I found this expansion to be very boring, and had no reason to keep playing, meaning I did not get my money's worth from it. To much time spent looking at the loading screens, and ,in my humble opition, it had a very poor excuse for a storyline. All that being said, this expansion should appeal to the people that enjoyed playing games like IceWind Dale, with its multiple main character concept. While you can load previously played characters (as in the character you run through the other two expansions) the game is designed and made to be a chanllenge when played with low level (its starts newly created characters at lvl 4) leaving the character you have grown to love and guided through the other NWN2 stories, extremely overpowered early in the game. Buy it only if you like having full control over multiple heros, and if you plan on starting a whole new party with this expansion, again I state the fact that importing your old leveled characters will ruin it for you.

As for the new theme (the trading/merchant system)... I found it dull and lacking of true purpose.

The improvements that come with this expansion really do breathe some new life into NWN 2. Many of the character skills which were not utilized in the original campaign now have new usefulness. Having the opportunity to build a trading empire is a nice diversion from combat. The storyline is interesting and, in the usual NWN fashion, has a few twists and turns. I would say that one could expect around 20 hours of play from this expansion, maybe more. I think that NWN2: Storm of Zehir is a good value.

In the latest installment of the Neverwinter Nights series Obsidian brings something new to the table... or should I say something very old. The overland map takes me back to the old crawls of Ultima or Phantasy Star, though with better graphics. I have nothing against random battles and exploring maps from an overhead 2D view, but it feels like Obsidian thought these random events would take the place of a strong plot and strong characters in this installment. I loved the original Neverwinter Nights 2... it was huge with multiple storylines and huge towns and mazes that you could return to time and again and still find something new. And the Characters were so good, you really grew to like them or hate them. It really got hard to choose who to take out in my party at times. In The Mask of the Betrayer the epic went on with a very tight storyline. The towns and mazes grew smaller, with fewer choices and less to explore... but the shadow realm and the soul eater were imaginative, if sometimes frustrating additions. And the story grew from the original, joining something old with something new. In the Storm of Zehir the story feels shallow with little to pull you in emotionally. The scenery is gorgeous, but I'm getting bored quickly. I continued with my favorite Arcane Archer and found it very sad when I finally got to see Kelgor and he didn't know who I was. There is no continuity with the characters, though there is an attempt at continuity with the locations of the story. So far I'm finding the characters in the story to be very bland and it's causing me to detach from the story. I'm only a third or so of the way through the game and I find myself avoiding it because I'm finding it boring. That's a big change for me as I've always loved this series. Some people will probably enjoy this one, but if the characters and story are what draw you to a game Storm of Zehir might disappoint you. It has for me... I'm not sure if I'll even try to finish it.

Storm of Zehir is sure much different from all the other NWN campaigns (NWN1 and NWN2). Though MOTB still is my favourite one SOZ is absolutely a great game:
The overland map forces you to skill your characters in a way that most people usually wouldn't do: you need to skill one party member to work as your "guide" to move fast and to avoid encounters. You don't have to, but than you do not need to complain, if you have to fight every two steps. Trading and crafting is not bad, though I did not use crafting very much, there was still enough equipment around, so I ddi'nt need to craft. The team skills were also no bad Idea: I only used the one, which shortens the rest time to 4 hours, which was very usefull, as resting is only allowed on the overland maps or in taverns. The limitted resting is also forcing you to be carefull with your spells. The new dialogue system is very nice: depending on your skill another character might have to say something that others can not (e.g. if one party member has a high diplomacy skill).
There are also some minor things that I liked about the other games more: in SOZ are no ingame video sequenzes and video dialogues, which is kind of a step back from the original campaign and MOTB. There is also not really team interaction like in MOTB. I liked the principle of the influence points very much. The story is a bit short: directly to the story related quests are rare.

I just hope that games like NWN are continued to be produced as I prefer more round base role playing much more than realtime like in Oblivion (though it was a great game too).