Rating: 
Summary: Shadows of Undrentide not meant to be a continuation
Review: Just wanted to make a note on some of the comments of the posters below. Shadows of Undrentide, the expansion that comes with NWN Gold, is not meant to be a continuation of the original campaign. In other words, it's designed for you to start out at 1st level again. Much like real D&D, if you take a 17th level character and put him/her through an adventure designed for a 1st level character, it will be a cakewalk.
Rating: 
Summary: It's not Pencil and Paper gaming, but...
Review: Many of the reviews have carped about the linear progression, the lack of depth, and other issues that are indemnic to computer role playing games. NWN:G is a pretty good computer game, and a mediocre (out of the box) role playing game. The graphics are good, the Aurora toolset is quite easy to master (I actually was able to rebuild some pencil/paper DandD campaigns that I created in the early 80's using Aurora - what a retro-blast!), and the music is well rendered. This game, however, truly shines when the purchaser immerses themself into the on-line gaming community. There one is faced with limitless opportunity to hone their skill in a role-playing environment. NWN:G out of the box is a mediocre product if one only plays the packaged game. The numerous servers accesable through Gamespy allow one to focus on role-play, hacknslash, or a combination. Access the on-line gaming, and look for references to Nordock, to get the closest thing to Mr. Gygax's intended role playing out of this product. Just the opinions of an old pencil n' paper gamer.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent game, excellent value.
Review: Neverwinter Nights Gold is the original NWN game and the Shadows of Undrentide Expansion pack. If you already own NWN, then just purchase Shadows of Undrentide. If you already own both, then there's nothing new here at all. The 'extra modules' included are the free ones from Bioware which, if you've patched the game, you already have anyway. If you don't have either of those already, this is the version to get.Out of the box, this is arguably one of the best RPG's ever made for the PC. Both the original module, and the expansion module are excellent RPG's in their own right. But the real reason to get the game is the huge quantity of excellent fan-made content available. Many, many, many excellent fan-made modules are already available. Specifically, the Dreamcatcher series, the Shadowlords series, the Lone Wolf series, and 'Midwinter Festival' are far more interesting than the included modules and completely free. Two very noteworthy projects are nearing completion as well. One is a conversion of the classic Dragonlance book series into NWN modules, and the other is a huge Planescape project called CODI (City of Doors Inititative.) Many modules modules include original graphics, sounds, and 3d models that add awesome variety to the game, and look nothing short of professional. This game is also almost entirely free of bugs. Earlier reviews correctly reported that the game was barely playable. The code is now very mature, and runs near perfectly on almost any hardware that meets the minimum requirements. NWN was made primarily as an engine for fan-made content, and has spawned one of the most interesting RPG communities to be found. If you like RPG's at all, you must buy this game!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent game with a cool toolset feature
Review: Neverwinter Nights has been around for a couple of years now with the two expansion packs merely extending and expanding the life of an already excellent genre-best game.
My biggest complaints with this game have always been only being able to create a single character, and relatively weak henchmen. You could not upgrade the NPC hireling's equipment, nor could you form a true party of guys and gals you created.
In Shadows Of Unrentide you don't have this problem. It's ridiculously easy if you use your character from the original game. I've played it for a few hours and have been fighting Kobolds, wolves, skeletons, and a few bears. Not much challenge for a level 12 Rogue/3 Fighter/ 5 Harper Scout, really. My henchman is the Half Orc Barbarian/Wizard and he's got almost 200 hit points. I expect that although I'll enjoy the quest side of this expansion, that I'll have to wait until Hordes of the Underdark before I get challenging combat again.
The graphics are nice and the music is excellent, you really can't find anything that's not outstanding in the presentation aspect of this game.
The toolset is also an interesting feature. You can make a basic little fun game without to much fuss, but if you want to make your own hirelings, make portals work, etc. you'll need a good grasp of programming language. Cutting and pasting scripts from other modules may not work, especially if they are made to work with a hak pack that you downloaded specifically for the aforementioned game. You can easily make hacked equipment. I had a 1st-level fighter taking out Ancient dragons with one or two hits because he had armor/items that made him immune to everything, and weapons that did all sorts of crazy fire/ice/electrical/acid/negative energy/positive energy/sonic, etc. damage to enemies. Cheating like that normally ruins a game, but it was funny to watch when I tried it out.
Yeah.
Now if only it had Drizzt Do'Urden or a few of the Forgotten Realms heroes or villains in it...
Rating:
Summary: A game that will stay in the hearts of true gamers forever
Review: Now I am a big time gaming person, especialy when it comes to computer games, its my hobby and dream job. And I can say this is one of the best games created for both Single Player and Multiplayer, its character creation is amazing, its storyline very interesting, and the expansions *grins widely* definently impressed, and I can definently tell one of the top games of its Genre. If you love Roleplaying games then this is for you, the game play is never ending when it comes to how many modules and the expansions.
I myself play on many servers and partisipate in many roleplay events on the servers cause the fun never seems to cease. I have had this game for years and haven't lost interest in it in the slightest.
Matt "Game Head" B.
Rating:
Summary: Neverwinter Nights Gold
Review: Now, first off I'd like to say that this game is too incredible for any non-D&D player to experience. If you don't play D&D, go kill monsters in diablo or something...
I was once told that D&D was created after Diablo. I almost cried in my computer chair...well...not really, but I was getting angry. Now, this game is indeed incredible, and they did indeed do an outstanding job at turning D&D into a computer game. I was satisfied with their skill system, their feat system, the combat system, the controls, the monsters, and the character creation. It felt like I was playing D&D, except that I couldn't roleplay.
Using spells and skills is really easy, and you can assign them to hotkeys which make accessing them much easier. You can attack, use skills, and do many other actions by right-clicking on the target, such as pick-pocketing (Which I thought they did a marvelous job at), and you can even use the Hide in Shadows skill to hide from NPC's, and other players online.
The gameplay is really nice, making everything about the game really fun. They really stayed true to the D&D rules (Which I did NOT expect), monsters, and magic items. Moving around is easy, combat is easy, and everything else is just great. Really the only thing that I could find bad about the game is that everytime you enter a new area you have to wait for it to load.
You start the game by creating a character (and you can customize every bit of it too), and then immediatley entering the game.
The only real downside to the game is that you can only have one character, although you can hire a henchman.
Alright, I know that this review isn't professional, and it wasn't very clear, but what I'm trying to say through it all is-If you are a D&D table-top player, and you're looking for a D&D game, you won't find any better than this.
It'll probably be tricky for Non-D&D players to learn (but you shouldn't be playing this game unless you table top), but if you know the 3rd edition rules, then there's nothing else to know :)
So, once again, if you are a tabler-topper, then this is YOUR game.
ROCK AND ROLL D&D!!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Too Linear, Too Slow, Not Immersive
Review: The game is well-done, and the ability for anyone to set up a game server for online play, with custom content, is what really makes this game interesting. The single-player game, however, has some qualities that didn't appeal to me: (a) The game is pretty linear. At certain points, you will find that you have a single line of advancement open to you. This happened to me at the end of Chapter One, for example, where I was having a hard time defeating a key enemy, but literally had nothing else I could do other than keep trying until I succeeded. I much prefer the free-form type of gaming (such as you would get from Morrowind), where you can wander off and level up once more before retackling a hard opponent. (b) I found the game to be tedious at times. Part of this was the UI, which is actually "ok" or even "pretty good." But there are still minor annoyances, like having to buy one healing potion at a time when you really want to get, say, 10. Also, the need to click on "End Dialog" after every conversation is a pain. But the D&D rules are the main source of tedium. As a spell-caster, you have to "memorize" spells in order to cast them. This means that even though you know a spell, you can't cast it unless it's memorized. So you constantly find yourself needing to rearrange your memorized spells for a specific situation, rest, cast the spells, rearrange the spells back to "normal combat" configuration, rest again, then proceed. This would be less painful if there was a way to save spell configurations and swap them out as a group, rather than having to swap out spells one at a time. But a much better approach is the "if you know the spell and you have the mana you can cast it" approach that most other RPGs use. This is one reason why I wish Bioware would create a non-D&D game. The D&D rules are just too rooted in the paper-and-dice world, and simply don't support a free-flowing, fast-paced game. (c) The camera controls can be annoying. I constantly find myself having to twist the camera around so I can pick up something, open a chest or door, or try to talk to someone. Too often I wind up clicking on a hireling, summoned creature, or my familiar. Playing with the camera keeps me from playing with the game, and adds to the feeling that the pace of the game is slow and tedious. Really, why should it take 15 seconds to pick up some treasure that's on the floor?
Rating: 
Summary: It Will not work on AGP Cards
Review: the VisiontTek Xtasy 9800 PRO 256 MB DDR AGP will not work for it.
Rating:
Summary: Great concept poorly executed
Review: When this game works, it works well. However, I never got through the first campaign due to game breaking bugs. These were persistant bugs that appeared on 4 different systems, all of which were more than well equipped to handle this game hardware wise, and all of which have had no issues playing other equally demanding titles. This game is hands down the most bug-ridden piece of software I have ever owned in my 20+ years as a consumer of video games. It was buggy on release, and subsequent patching has introduced more bugs (while making some fixes). The bottom line is this: No game, period, that has been on the market for this long should be as riddled with bugs as this one is. I would be ashamed to have been involved in a project like this. As for the publisher, Atari has a big nostalgia factor as a company (for those of us old enough), but they have really shamed themselves as a producer of this game due to two factors. First, they introduced a copy protection scheme to the disk (securom, I think) that has caused game breaking issues for many users (a simple google search or a visit to Bioware's forums will bear this out). Secondly, their support is the worst I have ever experienced. I was given the same basic troubleshooting steps (all of which I had tried before even contacting them) by a half dozen different techs who got rid of me after their steps didn't work. These were the very basic things that even an idiot should know to try. Whenever I initiated another support contact (after being ditched by the previous tech), the process repeated itself. It was as if they don't read their own case notes. Truly the poorest support in the business and quite shameful. Buy this game if you like D&D, but don't expect to play it for long. After so many bugs and issues, you will tire quickly.
Rating:
Summary: Typical RPG problems, disappointing toolset.
Review: While the game itself is fairly entertaining, it still has those typical design flaws programmers just can't seem to see. Inspite of being told to stay put, characters with you magicly show up next to you as you pass through some doorways, often right into a scene best handled alone. More often, very imaginative strategies will gather fewer experience than rushing blindly into battle. "Scripted events" (where your character is magicly thrown into a new situation or plot line which he or she has the power to control, but can not) can make thinking gamers feel cheated.
The much hyped toolset is a disaster for imaginative Dungeon Masters as the vast majority of "monsters" are of the humanoid type. If as game creator, you don't mind using the same basic type of creaures over and over, the toolset will work for you. Anyone very creative however, will see that most of those fantastic creations from the Monster Manuals can not be included in their game. Professional graphic artists may (in a conciderable amount of time) be able to create unique creatures. Anyone else however, is out of luck. Even if one would be satisfied using the provided monsters, they will be bombarded with the program language "scripting" needed to make events happen within their world. NWN with the expansion contained here had the potential to be great, but falls victim to typical computer RPG problems and unproductive tools for one's own imagination.
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