Not since saturday have I done so much D&D blogging So Neverwinter Nights 2 totally works on my computer. As someone who was interested in that game back when it initially came out, but was intimidated by the specs, I find it somewhat ironic that I tried installing it on a whim and found it entirely playable. "But this isn't an (especially) old game!" you may ask. Well, sure. It came out in 2006, so it's only like 4-5 years old. However, because of the recent influx of bloggers trying to take some of my cred, I've decided to step up my game by shamelessly detailing my pointless exploits in this CRPG for all to see. At least, that's the plan, assuming I don't get lazy or the game gets stupid, but maybe this will keep me honest (it probably won't)
 
So anyways, for some context allow me to say right off the bat that I really didn't like the original Neverwinter Nights. Yeah, I understand that it was more about the fan made stuff and the Hordes of the Underdark expansion was apparently alright, but as far as I cared to play the original campaign sucked in multiple ways. Maybe it was the fact that you only controlled one character with a CPU hireling of questionable intelligence. Maybe it was the super generic Bioware-ness that permeated every single fiber of the story and dialog. Or maybe it was because it was boring. That might be a reason too. I've also made my opinion on Obsidian fairly clear, in that they are clearly capable of brilliance, but they are also capable of being every other RPG developer's bitch and releasing games that are astoundingly broken at launch. So consider my initial expectations somewhat... ambivalent. 
 
 Not pictured: Bad Camera And that ambivalence was sort of justified.  I decided to make a human warlock as my main dude, because I could and because for as tempting as some of the subraces are, we all know that Humans are the best. Always. In every video game. I was tempted to make a deep gnome rouge, because of how stupid that would be (for those out of the know, deep gnomes have a +3 level adjustment, meaning that the experience to level up is 3 levels higher than the actual) I started in generic peaceful village of west harbor with my generic RPG friends Bevil and Aimie. But, instead of going through the lengthy tutorial sequence that I had been through on a friend's copy (so yeah, I've played the first hour or so of this game, but that was a while ago), I skipped it. Oh noes. West Harbor is under attack. Showing the Obsidian touch right out of the gate, a scripted event that would've led to Aimie kicking the bucket didn't trigger and she weirdly stayed in my party even as I bothered to round up all the militia while also murdering the occasional grey dwarf. Then, I killed some more dudes.  
 
Immediately of note to me was the atrocious camera, which is kind of bad regardless of what mode you're in. I eventually made it so the camera only changes when I hold down the mouse button, which fixes some of the problem but it's still not good. Already making me miss the isometric perspective of the Infinity Engine and Temple of Elemental Evil. On another note, as far as I can tell right now the way to play a warlock is to just use eldrich blast over and over again. Unfortunately, that provokes an attack of opportunity, and your party AI isn't smart enough to make sure they don't get to me. Nonetheless, more interesting than being a fighter, I guess.
 
So Bevil and I were asked by my lame elf foster father to go retrieve a silver shard from the ruins, because that's what the bad guys wanted. If this ends with me being the chosen one or a sith lord brainwashed by the jedi, I'm going to be kind of bummed. So we did that. Killed some dudes. Aimie disappeared, leaving a blank portrait in the party screen. Then I bluffed the lizardmen that I was the stone god or something, because if I've learned anything its that conversation skills are always worth putting points into. Came back to town, foster father says I have to go to Neverwinter to get the other silver shard, Bevil stays and I go off to a tavern. But, lo and behold Aimie re appears in my party, only being level 1 and not gaining any experience as far as I can tell. Awesome. Free meatshield. So then I encounter a dwarf named Khelgar who couldn't be any more of a dwarf and we kill some dudes. Speaking of that, I'm having trouble adjusting to how easy this game is. You can rest anywhere, if you die in combat you get up afterwards no penalty, and dudes usually don't one shot you. 
 
And that's pretty much where I stopped. Hopefully my later blogs will be a little shorter, but this game doesn't seem awful, as far as I can tell. We'll see. It's only been around an hour but this game hasn't done much to wow me yet. Probably more tomorrow.