Rating: 
Summary: what's up with these other reviews?
Review: Okay, I'm going to seriously disagree with the other reviews that have been posted (or most of them anyway). I got NWN because I was tired of playing Diablo 2 all the time. After about 15 minutes of learning the gameplay, I was hooked. This is one of those games where I would sit down to play for a few minutes only to find that 2 or more hours had passed without me knowing about it. I played it nonstop; and yes, I played the single player campaign. I beat it the first time with a dual-classed elven ranger/rogue and now I'm playing it again with a human druid (gonna keep this one pure). Overall, I have to say that this is a great game to play; ignore most of these other reviews.
Rating:
Summary: Enough user-created content to make it a worthwhile purchase
Review: It would be fairer to compare this story to the original Baldur's Gate, instead of the sequel Baldur's Gate 2. The storyline to NWN is not as strong as Baldur's Gate, as your own character is another "nameless adventurer", and therefore has very little personal stake in the story's events. It's best to think of the single-player campaign as a showcase for the Bioware developers, to show what the game-engine is capable of doing.The graphics engine is much more advanced than the Infinity Engine used in Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. Everything is portrayed in a 3D-environment. This is especially evident in the flame effects from objects as mundane as torches, to the flames emanating from an approaching demon. Spell effects are spectacular - the best being area effect spells. Even spells as mundane as "Hold Undead" display a mighty impressive light show. The interface is also much less cluttered than the older Bioware games. Some of the commands come from a radial interface, which can be activated by right-clicking the mouse. The rest (eg. Journal, Inventory, Spellbook) come from a small menu on the right-hand side of the screen. The other 90% of the screen is clear, which makes it possible to watch the rest of the action without being distracted. It is possible to switch between different camera view modes from within the game menu. You can also zoom in and out using the mousewheel (if your mouse has one). This feature is particularly useful when fighting foes, and you want to examine the battle up close. One of the most glaring differences between NWN and Baldur's Gate, is the lack of multiple characters in your party. In Baldur's Gate 2, there was space for up to five extra characters. This made for some interesting moments, especially if some of your characters had different alignments. I think the reason for this may have been the difficulty of implementing this "multiple-character" feature in the Aurora toolset, and making it user-friendly enough for the casual mod-creator. Hopefully, NWN will implement this feature in a sequel to NWN. I would strongly recommend this game to newcomers to the RPG genre of PC gaming. NWN's interpretation of the 3rd Edition rules is incredibly easy to master, as so many of the mechanics (eg saving throws, attacks of opportunity) are calculated behind the scenes without any intervention from the player. A new player can quite literally hack and slash their way through this game ala' Diablo, if they chose to. However, for experienced players of D&D there is enough depth in the single-player game to keep them amused for a few hours. However, Neverwinter Night's greatest strength has only become self-evident over the few years since it's release - and this it's customisable tools. The Aurora toolset gives users the power to create their own adventures and distribute them to other players on the internet. I strongly recommmend Penultima series (created by Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne's) as a terrific jump-off point. Penultima can best be thought of as a send-up of the RPG games that Bioware are famous for. Every single convention of RPG-gaming is skewered mercilessly. It's very much inspired by the Discworld-series of Terry Pratchett novels, and is well worth the download. And Penultima is only the tip of the iceberg. There are countless other examples on the internet, of adventures that have been created by devoted fans of NWN. In some cases, like Penultima, the originality and flair of the storylines outshine the original campaign created by Bioware. Please note, that a tutorial and detailed documentation on the Aurora toolset, is available for free download on the Bioware website. There is no need to purchase the strategy guide. In addition, the NWN internet community has posted many articles and tutorials on the Aurora toolset. When NWN was first released, many players were complaining of the "lack of content" in the game. They felt that there wasn't enough depth to the single-player campaign to warrant its purchase. It's now obvious that Bioware were taking a huge gamble, hoping that whatever "depth" was lacking in the campaign, would be more than compensated for by the huge numbers of fan-created modules that would follow. In the end, it paid off, as any visit to Bioware's NWN website would so effectively attest to. NWN has a thriving internet community, and in the end, it is this that makes the game such a worthwhile purchase. One final note, for those with older PC's. The game is best viewed and played on a relatively fast PC. This game was reviewed on an AMD Athlon 2000+ XP with 512MB RAM and GEForce 4 videocard. Sound effects (and there are plenty) are best experienced on a 3D-effects capable soundcard, such as a Soundblaster Live!
Rating: 
Summary: Comparison: Morrowind to Neverwinter Nights
Review: Graphics: NWN-Decent, but Morrowind and even Dungeon siege graphics are better. Morrowind: Like I said the graphics are much better. Hard to compare, though, Morrowind has the best graphics I've ever seen. Gameplay: NWN- simple, but I don't like the radial menu or interface. Morrowind: The inventory is much better compared to NWN. Also, there is so much more replay value. Editor: The 'editor' feature is only cool if the game has suberb graphics to back it up. For this reason, Morrowind by a long shot. I found that both editors were far to complicated for the average PC user to use. Sound: Not much to say here, but Morrowind wins this category also. Additional: I found that magic was much easier to use in Morrowind. Also, in NWN, some of the bosses are immune to physical attacks. This is a real pain, especially since all the henchman seem incompetent and weak. Overall, Morrowind is a much better game, and it has 2 expansions compared with NWN's 1.
Rating:
Summary: No RPG experience? Try another game first.
Review: I've never played D&D. My best friends brother was into it for a while in highschool, but he and his friends would never let us play. Something about being girls I guess. Anyway... I picked up a copy of Neverwinter because everyone at work was playing. The game is simply beautiful to look at. The tutorial does a fairly good job of explaing how to move around and use the menus, but I found my first experience frustrating. Not knowing anything about D&D was a definate disadvantage. That coupled with complicated interation menus (looking at it now, it was probably the best way to get as many options in as they could, but it was hard to get used to in the beginning and seemed to slow everything down) and limited camera views sometimes made it hard to get things to work the way you wanted, or expected them too. I found myself more intersted in the map creator than actually playing the game. So, I put it away for a while and played Dungeon Siege instead. DS is very easy to play for RPG newbies like myself and still seems to be interesting enough to hold the attention of more seasoned D&D gaming fans. I highly recommend playing it before Neverwinter if you are new to RPG's. I just tried NWN again a few weeks ago after several months off. I found it much easier and more enjoyable now that I know a little more from playing DS.
Rating:
Summary: A multiplayer revolution... but takes some work
Review: First off, I must admit that I share the views of those who are critical of the included campaign, and I also find most of the "public servers" that one connnects to via the included GameSpy browser to be widely variable in terms of quality. There are legions of poor roleplayers, "munchkin" players (i.e. folks who are interested only in increasing the power of their characters, whether or not they have to play by the rules to get it), and "griefers" (i.e. folks who deliberately try to ruin the gaming experience for others). So how can I justify giving this game 5 stars? Simply put, if you can manage to play the game as it was intended, in multiplayer with a small group of friends, the experience is simply fantastic. Via a site called Neverwinter Connections, which is a matching service for setting up games, I have been happily playing custom NWN campaigns (created entirely through the included Aurora Toolset) for almost a year now, since the game came out. NWC allows you to find like-minded people to play regular games with (some of my players have been with me since last July). The hak system, which allows you to add custom content, is cumbersome and not without its faults, but allows an incredible amount of new content to be added to the game (just check out what's available now at Neverwinter Vault: literally thousands of user-created modules and custom content downloads). Most of the criticisms of the game (and I've read many) expect things from NWN that it is not. This isn't a Baldur's Gate style of game, nor is it Everquest. The single-player component is limited and dependent largely on the quality of the module you've downloaded (as the included "official" campaign is seriously flawed). But for people who want the style of the old tabletop D&D game, this is the closest we've gotten in the computer format.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring for the single player campaign
Review: Many of the reviewers have mentioned that the Campaign Editor is a powerful and fun tool, but I have to get into a game before I can use it's advanced tools. I couldn't get into NWN. I just get bored dungeon crawling and finding tons of cool items that neither I or any henchman can use. NWN is a little more than Dungeon Siege, but that's not saying much. At least games like Diablo knew what they where and perfected it. NWN lacks direction. I really enjoyed Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. This game is not nearly as enjoyable.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating.
Review: Neverwinter Nights, in my opinion, represents a new type of game. Mainly, a large world complete with it's own unique dynamics and quests, that can exist for only one person, or for any amount of people. Taken almost directly from the pages of AD&D guidebooks, Neverwinter Nights exposes us to a world unlike any other. You start the game by choosing what you want to be, and how you want to be it. Several races (including Elves and Gnomes), and several classes, along with a point distribution system ensures that you play the game you want to play. The UI is at first a little hard to get used to, but so are any games in this genre. You are faced with a lot of options, but they are all explained rather well by the quick introduction series that you go through before the game REALLY starts. Once you understand the combat system, the magic system, and the henchman system, it's simply a matter of going out into the world and discovering things. The single player game takes the form of a series of quests, with branching subquests, which full out gives around 60 hours of gameplay to the casual gamer. After you have finished, you may find yourself wanting to play online. You can set up your own server, or find one to play on. It's all free, because it's all player made! With multiplayer, a person can take the role of the dungeon master, just like pen and paper game, and build a world and a story for you to solve. This game lacks in the graphics department (characters aren't well fleshed out, textures are monotonous) but on the flip side it doesn't require much to run. The graphical deficiencies are made up in the intriguing gameplay, and the ability to make a world to suit you, and have others participate.
Rating:
Summary: This game is only what YOU make of it.
Review: NWN is the kind of game that you can't decide if you love or hate from time to time as you play it. There are so many innovative and exciting features that make you want to play all day and then there are a bunh of stupid limitations and undeveloped bits of potential that make you want to throw it out the window. The worst feature is likely the offical campaign that shipped with the game. without a doubt, it is the most boring CRPG experience I have ever attempted to suffer through. It consists of endless dungeon crawls and meandering fed ex quests through a ho-hum group of overused tilesets and lifeless NPCs. ther eis no one worth talking to outside of recieving quests, and everyone seems very long winded with their person bit of boring information. Lack of good camera controls, abyssmal implementation of a henchman system (you cannot control their inventory or equip them with new items) and a storyline that leaves you wondering why you are helping all of these mighty paladins, clerics and kings as a 1st level character all drag the game down from the get - go.
I doubt I am the only person who ever wondered why the town guards are not undertaking these quests since they seem to be 10 levels higher than my character.
Within this horrid campaign, the gems of the system do shine. The 3rd edition rules have been adpated as well as one might expect in a CRPG. Feats and skills are reasonably well done and all of the core classes are available to you. Wizards get afamiliar worth using, Druids and Rangers get their animal companions, and there are enough spells at your disposal to make spell casters fun. that said, you can get on NWVault or a similar sight and start hunting for a good mod to download. the community has done what Bioware seems to have missed out on and created some challenging and engaging mods for this game. God bless them, because the toolset used for mod creation is no picnic. The little caption on the back of the box that reads 'just drag, drop and play your way into a vast, richly detailed world of your own design' is about as accurate as Bill Clintons Impeachment Testimony. Unless you want to create a boring dungeon crawl filled with lifeless characters, dust off you C programming books, boys and girls. Events worth creating must be scripted, and there is precious little help to the novice here. The game manual is best used as a coaster when researching the toolset, as you will find less help there than you would praying for a miracle. the Versus books guide which is a seperate 20 dollar purchase can help, but it is no bible on the subject. You will instead be at the mercy of the army of devoted fans who offer their aid on various fan sites. Luckily for you, they are an ARMY. The fan support is phenomenal, maybe more than the game deserves. In the end, if you work at making the game good, enough material has been provided for you to make a solid single or multiplayer game out of this yourself, or you can download the mod of your choice. as an out of the box game and toolset, this game did NOT deliver what was promisedf at all.
Rating:
Summary: Was just ok for me
Review: The game is put together very well, I just could not stay interested in it since it had no 1st person view on it.
Rating:
Summary: love it - worth every penny
Review: I rarely buy games on day 1. I was there for this one, and paid full price for it. It was worth every penny. I pretty much blew right past the single player game and dove right into the campaign editor. I now host a small (but fun!) persistent world and it's a lot of fun. Looking forward to the expansion.
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