duh huh-NO</font>[/QUOTE]What I ment was, is it as linear as IWD was. Is it as hack n slash as IWD or is there a little bit more story involved in it.

It's still as linear as IWD. I haven't had a single A or B choice to make in the first 2 chapters. Oh! no, sorry! I forgot the time i had to choose between the path leading north or the path leading east. That was a tough decision! [img]smile.gif[/img]

On the bright side, i find the battles to be harder than in IWD. So there's more challenge.

Theres a far greater challenge. The ole lure the bad guys away and kill them one by one doesnt work anymore ;) Expect the horde lol! Linear? Yes. And so is BG, BG2, and NWN. But its fun..... [img]smile.gif[/img]

But it wasnt as linear. I am not bashing IWD here, it is a good gamet he first time you play it, but its just not as entertaining as BG and some other games are.

Better than IWD. Not as linear as IWD. Not as flexible as BG:II. Gamershell gave it a 6.5. I complained and the editor said "we stand by our review. If you don't like our review, write your own review. If we can, we'll publish it."

So I wrote a "second look" review (not yet posted) and gave it an 7.5 (8.0 if you drop the mulit-player aspect as I indicated in my conclusion). If it were for PCGamer, it would have been an 85-88% rating. But Gamer's Hell has a very strict editorial policy about "ratings inflation."

My core areas ratings were as follows:

SOUND = 8 (Summary) "Positives: Great, great sound without a lot of NPC voice repitition (as Morrowind). Negatives: If your ear is two years old, you'll recognize that some PC voice-sets have been re-used from other Infinity Engine releases."

GRAPHICS = 7 (Summary) "Positives: Great looking 2D graphics, appropriate scale. Negatives: The same ol', same ol' 2D problems - fixed scales, 2D sprites & no rotation."

GAMEPLAY = 9 (Summary) "Positives: Incredibly stable game. Some of the best non-combatant interactions and enemy combatant AI in CRPG history. These enemies act like they are directly controlled by a person. Negatives: Path finding is poor."

MULTIPLAYER = 6 (Summary) "Positives: It's there. Negatives: So what."

And my conclusion:

"An over-all rating of 7.5 bumped to an 8.0 if you toss-out multi-player (as I do). A solid game and a fitting end to the infinity engine. Had this game been released three years ago, or this engine incorporated into BG or BG:II, they would have been the three highest rated games of all time. If your budget is limited, go with the rather unfinished looking and acting NWN as it is the future. But if you have the cash, and you're a CRPG player, this is a must buy."

I didn't particularly like IWD. It was fun enough because I like these type of games, but I found it to be too repedative.

I love IWD2 though. Its a very similar game, the main reason I love this one is the 3rd edition rules. Micromanaging your party is fun now, so I continiously look forward to the new variety and abilities I get with each level. And the increased options allow more strategy. The endless combat is a lot more fun this time around.

Is it better than NWN?

Its a very different game.

The environment isn't better... I liked the look, the mechanics, the story, and the NPCs better from NWN (seeing as IWD2 doesn't really have any...).

But I missed micro-managing a party, and I like the setting of IWD2 better.

'eh, enough time and money to play them both, who cares which is better.

Yeah I found that out the hard way. Was trying my lure them one at a time and got pummeled by about 20 goblins all at once. So much for fishing them out of the hole!!

In one word: yes.

...almost every D&D computer game i've played was better than NWN.

I've only played a few chapters of NWN. The training, cleaning NWN and a few places after this, so take my opinion for what it's worth. I hadn't the will to play further because a) i was bored and b) i have an underspecked computer.

IM not so humble O, NWN pretends to be a RP g when it's only a D&D bashthrough.
Or at best a rpg with a very poor scenario (think Gary Gigax first aventures) and cheesy quests you'd want to have finished already. Problem is, combats can get a bit boring in single-player. Not much possible strategy patterns apart from the best one for your only char. Also, combats were absolutly not challenging (even with my halfling 50%/50% druid-rogue). My hope for NWN rests on the shoulders of the modmakers who might built something with a story scope similar to fallout/BG1-2.

IWD2 is designed to be a bashthrough, it doesn't pretend to be something else. All the challenge rests on combat balance and, as stated in the other posts, the devs have done a good job on this aspect. Almost every fight is a tough one, and this comes from a hardcore IE fan.

Basically, if you enjoyed IWD with its scores of monsters and infinite snowfields, and if NWN let you down, you'll prefer IWD2 over the overhyped, overpriced RP-wanabe g.