Customer Reviews

Neverwinter Nights: Shadow of Undrentide Expansion Pack

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Shadows of Undrentide doesn't do much to change the way Neverwinter Nights is played, and this is generally for the best. The main changes in terms of characterization are five new prestige classes, a scattering of new feats and skills, and a few new spells for each spellcaster type. New creatures have been added as well, including two new familiars. Lastly, several new tilesets have been added: snow, desert, and Netherese ruins.

The new campaign isn't as long as BioWare's infinity engine game expansions (Heart of Winter, Throne of Bhaal) but isn't too short either. There's enough new things to see to make it interesting, and the roleplaying aspect is significantly improved over the original NWN campaign. For one, you really have the chance to act evil and still get through the game, which until now- in the general universe of D&D computer gaming- has been difficult at best. The plot is a pretty standard artifact hunt, but it does take some interesting turns. Fans of the Forgotten Realms D&D setting will appreciate this especially, but it's easy enough to follow that those who can't tell Elminster from Gandalf should be able to make sense of it.

As for the campaign difficulty, it is pretty tough. Whether out of some perverse humor or just because the original campaign was too easy, the developers seem to be baiting players to their doom. The prestige classes are the cool new thing about Shadows, but none of them (with the probable exception of Arcane Archer) are spellcasting classes. However, I found it extremely difficult to play single player without a spellcasting character [if it matters, I thought Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and the original NWN were all fun, but too easy]. You will often run into masses of enemies that individually are no match for your combat prowess, but taken in whole will make hay out of your warrior or rogue. When this happens, there's really no substitute for a good fireball. Of course, this can be remedied if you get all your friends online to help you out, which I heartily recommend.

You can bring along one of several potential allies- a dwarf rogue/priest, a half-orc barbarian/sorcerer, or a kobold bard. I found the spellcasting AI to be abysmal- the priest won't heal you when you're almost dead unless you ask her to, and the sorcerer seems to have nothing but ray of frost in his repertoire- and uses it even when he would do far better just meleeing the enemy up. The good news is you can now manage their inventory, so if you have an extra set of armor or weaponry (another plus in not being a warrior) you can give it to them. The pathfinding and trap handling AI seems to be improved as well. NPCs will no longer charge over a trap when they spot another one beyond it, and will finish disarming one before attacking an enemy.

New items in the expansion include grenade-like weapons such as alchemist's fire and acid flasks. These are useful early on, and in large quantities can duplicate that much-needed fireball effect, but are oddly expensive and don't do that much damage individually. New weapons, loot, and armor are of course available, though these generally don't have a new look. Some new potions and assorted artifacts can be found, some of which are quite interesting. For example, there is a bag that summons creatures depending on what ingredients you put inside it.

The new prestige classes available are the Arcane Archer, Assassin, Blackguard, Harper Scout, and Shadowdancer. This is where I have a bit of a gripe with Shadows. Save for Arcane Archer, these classes are, frankly, worthless. They were already pretty bad with the core rules, but some of those rules require things that NWN can't do (e.g. crafting Harper Pins as a Harper Scout). The developers overcame these problems by changing some abilities and, in my opinion, the computerized versions are even worse than the pen and paper ones. Also, as I mentioned earlier, there aren't spellcasting classes (arcane archer is far less arcane than archer). I was hoping they'd add the archmage or loremaster at least, but no luck there so you'll have to settle for the new familiars and spells. The familiars are the pseudodragon and fairy dragon, both of which are very cool. Spells include such notably absent ones as Shield, the Bigby's Hand series, Inflict Wounds spells, and Earthquake.

Of course, perhaps the best thing about Shadows is the potential fan content. The new tilesets look great, and the complex interactions in the new campaign show what can be done with the engine. Once the mod community sinks its teeth into the expansion, there will no doubt be plenty more adventures to share. This has always been the best part of Neverwinter Nights, and will surely be the best part of Shadows of Undrentide.

While it is true that the re-addition of SecuROM has caused some computers some problems, this was also an issue when NWN first shipped. If you were able to play before patching originally, you will be able to play the expansion as well.

The campaign included is not an extension of the original campaign, but is instead a new campaign for new characters. Starting at any level above first is bound to disappoint. It is, however, more challenging than the original campaign if you start with a recommended first level character. The campaign also addresses some of the complaints that those who prefer singelplayer had with the original campaign - more choices for different ways to solve quests, more interactive NPCs and henchmen, some control over how your henchman levels up as well as the ability to have them cast support/"buffing" spells before battle. Although the game advertises 20 hours, this varies according to your playing style, and it isn't unusual for those who enjoy engaging in conversations and exploring to have over 30 hours in a single play through of the game. Not too bad for an expansion.

Also, they have added the ability to control your henchman's inventory and what they have equipped, many new spells and feats, and prestige classes - five new classes that you must level up and qualify for in order to attain.

For builders, there are two brand new tilesets (desert and ruins) as well as a nicely reskinned rural tileset in winter clothes. They've also added several new groups to the existing tilesets, many, many new placeables, and a large amount of scripting commands.

As with the original, although I think the game is worth the money for what it was packaged with, the value really shines when you download the user created modules and/or play online. There are over 2500 modules to download, and growing. Personally, I think only about 5% are worth playing, but that still is about 125 modules and hundreds of additional game hours. This does not take into account the possibilites for playing with friends online that can change the game onthe fly with the DM Client.

It's not that there's anything wrong with SoU, it's just that a lot of the fan made content is way better. The module itself is alright, but it's too short, too small in size and scope, and there were a few really non-intuitive puzzles.

The tilesets are nice enough too, but I don't see why they didn't include several others for fans to use. An outdoor Arabian city tileset, and a corresponding city in the module would have made SoU a lot better.

The Prestige Classes are a mixed bag. Specifically, the Shadowdancer and the Assassin can't do much that a normal rogue can't do.

On the positive side, the new Feats and Skills are very cool, and should allow for more unique characters. The new spells are awesome, probably the best addition to the game.

SoU isn't all bad, but I still recommend saving your money and downloading the fan made Lone Wolf modules and a few others instead.

I'm one of those people who, having loved the Baldur's Gate series, was REALLY excited about NWN. When NWN finally came out, the graphics already looked dated and the official campaign (OC) was, franky, silly. Still, the power of the toolset--and the fact that there are thousands of modules freely available (many of which are MORE entertaining than the OC) kept me playing.

I wasn't expecting too much from SoU and my worst fears appeared to have been realized when the adventure starts with your adventuring school is attacked and you have to recover the four artifacts that were stolen (that sounded a bit TOO close to the OC). After that, though, the story picks up. The henchmen and villains are much better written; Drogan is a more compelling mentor than angst-ridden Aribeth. You have more control over your henchman (including the desperately needed inventory management).

The toolset expansion is welcome as well. While it's still not as easy to use as I would want, they've incorporated a lot of small improvements that make it feel a bit more like (to steal another reviewer's image) Leggos and less like object-oriented programing. The new tilesets are useful as well, though they're only "just as good" as fan-created content available for download.

Really, ultimately, what makes this a 4-star game (and one I keep coming back to) is the fan-created content. While the OC stuff is pretty much hack-and-slash D&D (the kind I liked when I was 13), you can download old-style adventure gaming (full of challenging puzzles--it's like Riven with a sword), PvP deathmatch (Rune with a wizard), and even online social servers (like those MMRPGs without the MM part). There are even scripts to allow players to create full-size parties. It's exciting to have a game where the official releases are only a jumping-off point for users to improve upon.

Am enjoying the added character classes that this enables me to play. Really fun playing this game

The Shadows of Undrentide is the first expansion for Neverwinter Nights. It adds new spells, monsters, tile sets, prestige classes, and skills and feats, all of which enrich the Neverwinter Nights experience. The campaign that comes with this expansion is by far much better than the original Neverwinter Nights. The story has nothing to do with the one in the first game, other than a brief mention of what is going on in Neverwinter. It is still interesting none the less. You have much more flexibility with your character this time around so you can play as good, evil, lawful, or chaotic as you want. You also have more choices on how to handle things. Your character choice also can have more influence on the game, such as Druids and Rangers can actually communicate with animals. This is my favorite expansion. I find the story to be very enjoyable and fun.

Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide adds a little of everything. There is the addition of Prestige Classes that allow your character to specialize in more unique areas. Again, there are new feats that allow a character to more in a very specific or very general direction. Additionally, new skills and spells were added as well (although the skills were focuses primarily on rogues and many will argue that mage classes are still "inferior" to other classes).

Shadows of Undrentide also adds a new set of official modules with the expansion. The plotline is interesting and the game makes use of new tile sets, but ultimately it is quite short and not as challenging as would be expected after finishing the official quest that came with the original Neverwinter Nights.

Shadows of Underntide has maintained the playability of the game while adding the new content. Whether you play single or multiplayer, the new modules and rule set integrates nicely into the game.

If I were to say that Shadows of Underntide has one problem, it would be that it did not add as much content relative to the price of the expansion and that of the original game (or the next expansion in the series). Because all the material that was added was so specific for a single play style, many players will most likely never experience even all the Shadows has to offer.

For players that desire to play the latest play/fan-base mods or just really have enjoyed NWN, Shadows of Underntide is an average expansion for a great game.

i'm going to say it fast: if you thought NWN had potential, but wasn't everything you had hoped - buy this. this expansion is a huge step towards fully realizing the potential of NWN.

the SOU campaign is far, far better than the original NWN OC. the characters you meet are much more realistic, fleshed out, and have a sense of complexity to them. the whole campaign is more challenging - the "normal" fights tend to be tough; the "boss" fights tend to be very, very challenging or impossible (if they are impossible, you have to find a special secret or solution to win); chests in town no longer contain magic items - they contain people's worthless junk; your alignment shifts properly when you steal, and gaurds will attack you if they see you breaking the law.

in addition to the campaign, the new tilesets (specifically desert and ruins) look amazing. there are so many good new feats that SOU makes the game 100 times more complex. the new prestige classes are very popular and everyone is experimenting with them right now - shadowdancers and assassins are very popular. and finally, the new monsters look great, and are fun and challenging to fight.

bioware has done an amazing job of giving the NWN communtiy *exactly* what they asked for: the feats, monsters, spells, and the kind of campaign that everyone wanted.

Overall this is a good game but..lets face it if your a fan of the D&D system it falls short in far too many ways. Lack of attention to detail and lack of variety is the problem here-missing many crucial spells, lack of variety in the tilesets, the player pictures are horridly un-archetypical, cant even put a cloak on your character, bizzare NPC choices. I dont understand why its taking Bioware/Atari so long to really take what they have done with NWN and turbo charge it a bit with more variety and such. Of course I look forward to any new installments they might have but this game leaves me with the feeling that someone who never really loved the original game is in charge of its progress....

well, i got it to run on my computer no problems, so i didn't encounter that problem, but i imagine that others may be having similar problems to what someone else wrote in their review of the game. i thought the game was just ok, only two henchmen to choose from a dwarf rogue/cleric, which is just alright....the rogue portion of that character is not good enough to take care of all the traps or all of the doors....and then a half-orc sorcerer, which is just about the worst race-class design possible, and although i do like the idea for its orriginality, it would have been nicer to have had as many potential henchmen as there were in the original neverwinter nights. the story line is similar to that of neverwinter nights, in that a couple artifacts have been stolen you have to recoup them, and save the day. i found the game to be harder than the original, so it did get a little frustrating at times from that stand point, but it didn't take as long to get to the conclusion. overall, it was alright, nothing to scream about. i thought what it added for the toolset and the ability to now add things to your henchmens inventory and have a little more control over which weapons they use to be very useful. the one thing i would like to see added to a future expansion is the ability to get your henchmen to use their move silently/hide skills, that way you and your henchmen can sneak up on enemies.