Customer Reviews

Neverwinter Nights Diamond

5 star:		(74)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

Neverwinter Nights (NWN) stands alone amidst a rubble-strewn field of fantasy games. There are too many aspects to NWN to reveal in a simple review, but I must lay out the basics to aid my fellow gamers!

Some general warnings and guidelines for prospective buyers:
- NWN is huge. It is time-consuming. If you want to have fun expect to spend a lot of time doing it. My friend bought the game at my recommendation and he has recently forgotten his girlfriend's name.
- There is a lot of dialogue and reading in NWN. There are books about the history of the world and everything in between. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of characters in the world to interact with. If you don't like reading or story development (i.e. you prefer action) then avoid NWN like the finger of death.
- NWN is Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) in electronic format. If you don't like magic, monsters, and swords then don't bother. Your character in the game will earn points and increase in power, requiring you to manage his skills and abilities - if you don't like managing stats and inventory then don't bother.

The storyline is immersive. This Diamond Edition comes with so much game it's hard to explain. The original campaign alone is vast - I mean VAST. The Diamond edition comes with the original campaign and two expansion packs (both like the original campaign in size and scope); in addition, the Diamond gives you three premium modules (official add-on adventures) and several smaller adventure packs. For the price you CANNOT find a better deal - if this is your style of game.

Technical notes: your computer should exceed the recommendations on the box. The game runs good at those specs, but the engine is beautiful if your hardware can support it. Dynamic lights, environment shadows, surround system, etc - all the technical goodies to make the world of NWN come alive. Update your video and audio drivers for compatibility; and follow the guidelines from the publisher about installing the patches. The patches add some great features to the game.

Take care

This game is almost 4 years old - I got it the day it came out, and I'm still playing and enjoying it a lot. The story here is not quite as good as in Bioware's Baldur's Gate series, but its still better than almost anything else out there. And the real plus is the fan-made content - there are literally hundreds of downloadable adventure "modules" for this game, some of them truly excellent. To the guy who complained about the portraits, I haven't used them in years - there are many very fine ones you can download for free.

There is an issue with this Diamond package - Atari, the producer (not Bioware) altered the main program with some sort of copy protection scheme, which screws it up. But all you have to do is run the update program (included on the DVD), and all is well - the correct file is downloaded and installed. If that worries you, or you don't have a DVD drive, or just want a printed manual, get the Platinum version instead - you can get the "Kingmaker" modules later. But don't miss NWN - this is a really great game!

This game is incredible!

The original game is truely a classic.

Quick story outline: The city of Neverwinter is falling under seige from, not a person, but a disease. You must find the cure by battling your way through the streets of Neverwinter and defeating your foes. Very open-ended game lets you choose which direction you want to take next.

Undrentide Story: Your mentor has had some very important, magical artifacts stolen from him. In your quest to return them safely, a foe has found a way to use one of the artifacts to raise the ancient city of Undrentide back to the skies.

Underdark Story: A seige of the City of Waterdeep has come from below. All manners of ungodly creatures come up from the Underdark and you must stop it all. Amazingly open-ended, you can choose up to 4 different sub-missions once you're there, and you only get to do three before the final battle happens. A great closure to a wonderful epic.

The expansions both are incredible addons to the orginal game, allowing a completely new story to follow, and totally new classes, feats, skills, and levels that act to enhance your control over the character. The replayability of this game is very high, as you can choose hundreds of combinations of classes, feats, weapon specializations, every aspect of the game and character development is in your hands.

Warning: To those hoping to pick up, easily learn a game, and play it will be disappointed. A player must make very precise decisions on character development to get the most out of the character. But if you are; 1) familiar with D&D; 2) have played other D&D games, like Icewind Dale or Baldur's Gate; 3) really want to sit down and learn the vast things to learn about the game, then you are in for a huge treat that will be played over and over.

A true gem!

This is a great game! However Atari managed to send out a whole shipment without install codes. After amazon sent me the second version without codes I contacted Atari and was informed of this mistake. Once I emailed them a photo of the area missing the codes they sent them to me. Since then I have had a lot of fun. I would have given the game five stars but even with the latest patches it still has a tendancy to crash every once in a while. I highly recomend saving frequently.

First, this game has come the closest to my memory of "pencil and paper" D&D implemented on the computer. The NPC scripting and depth of the quests and storylines are excellent in the single-player campaigns. Side quests round out the main adventures.

I'm somewhat astounded at complaints of the game interface and coding. I have a 1.8GHz machine with 1 GB RAM and a 128 MB GeForce FX 5200 card and I can run it at highest quality at 1024x768. The only slowdowns are if I neglect to shut off file sharing software. Beyond that, the interface is good, the gameplay is solid, and most of all fun.

I highly recommend this game, and can't wait to see what NW2 will have to offer.

Some people will tell you to wait for Neverwinter Nights 2 (NVN2) but the on-line community for NVN1 is so robust that it will take a long, long time for NVN2 to catch up. Plus, this Diamond edition is so packed with modules and features (it would cost you over $100 if you were to buy this for the Mac b/c they sell each module separately)that the bargain is hard to pass up. And, while the graphics aren't "cutting edge" they are more than adequate to allow you to immerse yourself.

I have to agree with all of the previous reviews. Great replayability and the community support is unbelievable. The support community is so large on-line that you will find a niche that suits you.

The best part, of course, is that all the extra modules and on-line play time are free. While World of Warcraft (WOW) beats Neverwinter Nights (NVN) on graphics and features, it costs $15 a month to play! Definitely not in the realm of affordability for the casual gamer.

When I was younger, I played the pen and paper D&D game. It was always a chore to get everyone together and find a DM. With NVN, there is ALWAYS a game going on....even PVP!

Another great part of the game is character development. You bring your experience and equipment with you from module to module...there are even some modules that allow you to create any level character with any mix of equipment and skills so you can instantly play some of the tougher modules.

Excellent game, excellent value for the price. Very nice to have it all on a DVD.

They get reduced 1 star for the copy protection: I typically have to launch the game 2-3 times before it will start without a "can't find original disc" complaint.

Update: if you run the v1.66 patch program on the DVD, it will disable the DVD protection-checking, and enable download of a v1.67 patch. This did not seem to fix the "error 110623" messages that prevent me from playing the Kingmaker modules however.

Neverwinter Nights, besides being great under almost all aspects (i.e., gameplay, sound, expansibility, one of the best communities I've ever seen), runs quite well on Linux, provided you have a well-supported (nowadays that means nVidia) video card.

The only thing that is a little let down in NWN is its graphics, it show its age; on the other hand, that means you don't have to have the latest and greatest SLI-capable video card; a GeForce 4 can run it without glitches or hiccups.

Another thing that let me a little down was the packaging. The DVD of the Diamond Edition didn't come in a jewel case, and there is no hardcopy of the game manual (it is a PDF file on the DVD).

Those nits aside, Neverwinter Nights Diamond is a great game, a great purchase.

Many copies of this game were shipped with missing or defective CD keys. Often three copies of the same CD key are in the manual--a combination which does not work. This is an Atari issue not an Amazon issue. Atari tech support is awful but they can be coerced into giving you new keys. Take a photograph of the manual and the disk showing the defective keys. Start a tech support ticket with Atari. They will send you a confirmation (that says do not reply). Reply anyway (as they will likely never write again) and include the photograph of your manual. This may work. If it doesn't, you may have to include the addresses of the Atari board members and other email addresses culled from Atari web pages. This certainly works and I have had to do it twice when the other methods did not work. Good Luck! Be nice: it's not one person's fault.

What a great game. Even better because it will run nicely on older systems! Detailed, involved, and if you are a D&D freak, a good one to have in between gaming sessions. Highly recommended.
One thing to bear in mind with this product, however, is that even though the box says "includes all patches", it doesn't. New patches have come out since Diamond was released. You will have to go to the BioWare website and download the v1.69HotU patch and run it after you install if you want to run it on Windows 7. I ordered 2 copies, one for me and one for my hubby (I'm running XP, he runs 7) and we had quite a bit of "fun" trying to get his to work so we could LAN. The 1.69 patch fixed that problem quite nicely.
All in all, good product, great price.