Once More Into the Dungeon…

Posted on November 24, 2006
Filed Under Games |

I have the strangest feeling that I’ve been here before. An eldritch mist hugs the ground and the light can only be described as gloomy. I’m in an overgrown graveyard, which if my pc was slightly better would be extremely pretty. As it is I can see the pixels in every texture, I’m playing Neverwinter Nights 2 and have to admit to being slightly dissapointed. I’ve not even got to Neverwinter yet and I don’t know if I will. You see I’ve been there before, I played the first game through to the end.

The thing about Dungeons and Dragons is that it never changes, not at its core anyway. If you played the original D&D basic set (the one in the red box) you would probably be able to pick up the latest edition (3.5 at last count) and play quite happily, killing the same orcs and kobolds as you did in the original (albeit with greater reference to tables, lists and dice rolls). Neverwinter Nights 2, being based on the same world as the first, doesn’t even give you the pleasure of an original universe to explore and the rules are exactly the same (more or less). Granted there may be subtleties that I am missing out on in the new edition but I find that alot of the fun of playing an RPG is figuring out how to play it. I know how to play Neverwinter Nights. I didn’t know how to play Oblivion, or Dark Messiah.
I played through oblivion more than once just to try out new ways of levelling my character to get the most damage from a certain weapon, and I do plan to go back to Dark Messiah and find out the alternate ending, possibly building my magic skills this time round.
I thought with all the hype surrounding NWN2, they may have played about with the mechanics abit. Made combat more fluid, or the turn system more transparent. But it seems to me to be just the same as its older sibling but with a different story and prettier visuals (if you have the hardware to produce them) I’d like some innovation in my RPGs but D&D doesn’t do innovation. I should have learned that a long time ago.

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