Rating: 
Summary: NWN has renewed my faith in D&D video games
Review: I enjoyed Baldur's Gate at first, but the level limitations and controlling multiple players was a pian. Neverwinter Nights has made significant strides since then. Highly enjoyable game, there is a lot of customization to your character as he/she progresses up in level (just like playing the real game). I only wish I bought the platinum edition instead so I could get both expansion packs rather than just the one. If you like D&D and video games, this is the game to get!!
Rating: 
Summary: Overwhelming
Review: All right, I've tried to get into this one about as much as a fan of the Forgotten Realms can, but, I just don't like it. Here's why: the game is overwhelmingly cluttered with... stuff! Normally, I'd never knock that in such a title. Morrowind, Warcraft, and some other older turned based titles had as much, if not more "stuff" to contend with while playing. Yet, Neverwinter lacks something in its delivery. There were too many times where I got disoriented by some column or building crossing between my character and my eyes that resulted in some minor attack catching me entirely off guard. The ability to modify/personalize your character and his equipment is too limited. Interactions between you and NPCs are frequently tedious and unrewarding. And for those who claim that the expansion packs or tool sets make-up for these frustrations; please note that I didn't give the game 1-star. Oh yeah, the music wasn't that bad either.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the money and the time spent on it.
Review: Delightful gameplay with a lot of challenges, sidequests, alignment baited conversations and even touches of humor. Interesting characters, creatures, spellcasting and music. I have been playing the game solid for about two weeks and I am still only in chapter 2. It has a lot of possible campaign hours and of course, the more sidequests you take on, the more experiences you will gain.
This is the first computer based RPG I have ever played, usually finding myself more of a hack 'n' slash, first person shooter type, but Neverwinter Nights has won its place in my heart as No 1 game of all time.
I was nervous purchasing the game initially because the demo crashed repeatedly, as I see happening with a lot of other potential players. While waiting for the game to arrive in my hands, I ended up having a computer crash which, at the time seemed a curse, but I see now as a blessing. I had to reinstall Windows, and not being able to find my XP Professional cd, I had to use my backup XP Home. Neverwinter arrived two days later, I installed the game and the included expansion pack and I have been playing for hours since. I have not had a single problem with errors or game loads what so ever.
I have spoken to several other people who were having identical problems as myself, and we all had one common platform. Window XP Professional.
So, if you have purchased the game, and are having crashing problems or are afraid to purchase due to word of mouth, know that there is a way around it.
Rating:
Summary: This Rocks!
Review: For some reason, this was sitting on my shelf unopened for months. I recently installed it and started to play it and realized how much fun I was missing. I loved the Dungeon Siege and Diablo games and was looking for something like those and here it was sitting on the shelf all this time. Installation took a few CDs but was fairly quick and error-free. The graphics are great, the music is appropriate and sets the mood, and the sound effects are good too. Controlling your character needs a little getting used to but its fun seeing your hero battle it out especially if you choose a "short" character like a gnome. RPG and D&D fans should delight at all the possible customizations available. I would have liked to be able to control a larger party of say 6 characters for more firepower and seeing their different abilities side by side but this is just a small quibble. Until Dungeon Siege 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 arrive, Neverwinter Nights Gold should suffice til then. If not, I guess I'll get the expansion pack, Hordes of Underdark, too.
Rating:
Summary: Very in-dept game
Review: I haven't actually gotten to play this game because my computer is very old and slow so it doesn't work well, but I have created a characrer, and even by that I caould tell it would be a good game. This isnt like other games like Baldur's Gate, or Diablo where you just pick a character, and go. Here you pick class, race, look's, skill's, stat's, attitude (like good, neutral, or evil), and even voice. I have also read a lot about it and it seem's like a lot of fun. I especially want to try the toolset and make my own level to play in. The online play also sounds great. All in all this sound's like a very fun game and I can't wait to try it.
Rating: 
Summary: Looking for Help
Review: I just bought this game recently in Iraq; it seems to have problems with my laptop. My laptop is an averatec, and only a couple months old; but while the graphics themselves are awesome, the text on the menus and item descriptions are so blurry as to be entirely unreadable. The game looks wonderful, and I'm really disappointed that I cannot get it to work. I hope that someone will be able to give me the advice I need to get the ball rolling. My biggest roadblock is that I can't hook my laptop to the internet to download the 72 meg patch. Help!!
Rating:
Summary: hack-n-slash maybe, but still great fun!
Review: I like this game a lot. Forgive the length of this review - this is a long game, which has a lot of elements.
For starters, the sounds are excellent. The voice-overs are a little goofy; I get a little tired of Tomi's "hokey-dokie!", but the sound effects are very nice. The music is simply outstanding, and very well written. I especially like the musical trigger, which changes the soundtrack when you are going into battle.
Visuals are outstanding as well. There should be enough eye-candy to satisfy most critics (weather effects, shadows, and a wide range of item art).
Game control is generally straight-forward. There is a tutorial which walks you thru the basic game mechanics. But really, most RPGs have the same generic features - character development, inventory management, maps and notebooks, and so on. It's not too hard to figure out to press "i" to bring up your inventory screen, or to click on an NPC to talk to them.
Camera control is a bit tricky. There are three modes - chase, top down and driving mode. The game defaults to chase mode, which automatically rotates the screen. I found myself getting a little queazy, as the screen would rotate, so changed it to top down mode. All that means is that I have to spin the screen manually.
You might need to spend some time in screen rotation and zooming, due to the way the game sometimes puts plot items right underneath another object. I often end up clicking on an avatar and getting a dialogue box, rather than examining the item I want.
As a small side note, there are WAY too many crates/barrels/boxes in the game, in places you don't expect to see them. A lot of them are locked, and a lot of those are trapped. It gets to be tedious, because you really want to search all the areas, in case there is a signficant plot item.
The campaign is pretty big. It's divided into four "chapters", but they're fairly longish. I've finished the OC (official, or original campaign) and the SoU expansion pack. I really don't know how long it took me to finish. I found the SoU expansion to be a little more fun in some areas, even tho it was a lot shorter. The SoU adds visual effects to plot items, and henchie inventory control, among other things.
It is kind of linear in play, and personally, I like that. In most non-linear games, I have a tendency to dawdle around or simply get lost without knowing what to do. The main storyline is fairly straight forward, but there are still a lot of side-quests you can tackle along the way, if you get bored of the story.
Others have said the game is too much hack-n-slash, but I like that. In all my RPGing, I always select the generic fighter type. So in this game, I chose a half-orc barbarian. I don't choose my character types based on lazyness. I know a lot of people would say choosing the big dumb brute is the easy way. But when you think about it, if you have to wade into five or six mobs with just your brute force, taking direct blows, it's just another style of strategy, which is the style I've been playing since the old C-64 Bards Tale games.
In any event, there are a huge number of items to find in the game - weapons, armor, magic items. Gold abounds. I was a little worried at the start of the game, trying to hire a henchman for 250gp, when all I had was 50gp in my pocket. But as soon as I started adventuring, that turned into a non-issue. The game-world is big enough that it does take a bit of time moving around from place to place.
I haven't played online yet, and am franky probably not going to even try. My online gaming experience was spoiled years ago thanks to Diablo, Battle.Net and wide-spread cheating. I know these newer games have methods to control stuff, but honestly, quite a lot of people I meet online are just plain jerks. I guess anonyminity tends to make people less polite to strangers which they'll never meet personally.
Rating:
Summary: What is this?
Review: I recently bought NWN Gold because I had heard so much good about. People I know who had been in love with Diablo 2/Warcraft/Starcraft quit it to play this. After a little over 12 hours of gameplay, I've concluded that this game overall, sucks. Why? A couple of major issues. First off, it's run online by gamespy network. Talk about a poor setup. The friends list takes 15+ minutes to actual find anyone on there that's online, and the overall feel is just...sloppy. Finally (yes only two flaws managed to make me hate this game) is the gameplay. Everyone seems to love BioWare, but this game honestly isn't much different from their other games. Their D&D 3 edition rules setup isn't that bad, but after playing KotoR and Baldur's Gate, etc. it felt like BioWare just changed a couple of textures and spell names, and then packaged it with a new game name. The real problem I found was how slow this was. The biggest advantage this game was "supposed" to have was being above and beyond the hacknslash. Hah, pure deception. It just runs like a much much slower Diablo 2, and does all the attacking automatically. Not to mention how sluggish the characters move. The graphics are great however, and the music is top knotch. The problem is, alot of reviews are trying to make this game sound like something it is not. It is hacknslash, except it does all the hacking and slashing at a snails pace. Commendable effort, but it amounted to nothing to this gamer.
Rating: 
Summary: It's a Niche Game, Not Everyone Will Enjoy It Like I Did
Review: If I could think of a way to best describe Neverwinter Nights, it would be Diablo meets Baldur's Gate. The game is made by the same people that designed Baldur's Gate but it's more of a mainstream "hack and slash" adventure than an epic RPG. Don't get me wrong, the in-game story is great but it just doesn't feel like a classic RPG. One reason for this might be because of the easy Aurora Toolset. If you've ever messed around with PC gaming toolsets, this one will probably be the easiest custom content editor you'll ever see in a game. It was designed that way so that D&D fans everywhere could quickly create their own adventures. (The game even allows you to act as a Dungeon Master.) Unfortunately, the official adventure included with Neverwinter Nights also uses the same toolset that was designed for "Joe Schmoe" and something probably gets lost in the process because each map is designed by a toolset that allows you to simply click and drag houses and farms to build your own D&D adventure. Frankly, most maps just feel the same. Keep in mind too that while it's very easy to place items and creatures with the toolset, you'll need a basic knowledge of programming to script actions in your module. Luckily, NWN Gold is included with the expansion Shadows of Undrentide which adds more custom content to the toolset and another official and lengthy campaign. Make sure you check the official Bioware website so that you can download one of the many custom adventures designed by gamers. There is also a fairly large online community and many gamers have set up their own servers that are up and running 24/7 for online D&D fun. I had a good time with Neverwinter Nights, but not everyone may find the game as enjoyable, especially if they don't like online play or the easy-to-use toolset.
Rating:
Summary: NWN-The REAL DEAL
Review: If you have a 10 year old computer then DO NOT BUY THIS GAME! But if you have a fairly new computer with a decent video card-(in other words, your system is set up to PLAY video games) and you loved playing the old Pen and paer Dungeons and Dragons-THEN BUY THIS GAME NO MATTER WHAT THE COST!!!!! BUY A FEW COPIES FOR YOUR FRIENDS TOO!!! This game is the ULTIMATE in D&D roleplaying adventure, and here's why: The Original Campaign is incredibly detailed and long to play--even if you "hack-N-slash your way through it. The second campaign is truly awesome as a stand alone adventure in its own right. I found the first Campaign somewhat slow to start out and skipped ahead to the second "Shadows of Undrentide" and it totally blew me away! A masterpiece in story-writing-plot. Now lets just suppose that you buy the game but neither plot appeals to you--there is an EDITOR that comes with it so you can make your own adventures for you and your friends to play! You can even move your Pen-N-Paper game into NWN and just play online! What's that? You don't know anything about computers--just how to play computer games?--Well you are still in luck!-There is a massive online gaming community with dare I say "Thousands" of talented people releasing quality modules all the time. I believe there are about 2300 modules available for download currently--but that number changes daily give or take a few--the point is, there are so many adventures to partake in that you will be playing this game for YEARS!!! There does not seem to be any slowing down this gaming community! It is comprable to say (please no one take this the wrong way) a medievil-fantasy "Sims" game! We ALL know how big the "Sims" has got over the years and how it has stayed big for so long--the gaming community that has created mods/haks/items/models etc. etc. This new edition of NWN GOLD is well worth the price! The original OC PLUS the first Expansion for the price of 1 and a half cd's!!! that is an offer you cant refuse! Take the chance, if you have problems with the game at first search the "Forums" and the community will have no doubt already have listed the solution to the problem--I've never really had many problems with the game--but then again I dont have a computer from "Bob's Basement Bargain Blowout"
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