Shadows of Undrentride (Neverwinter Nights Expansion)

For a long time before its release Neverwinter Nights (NWN) was generally regarded as the next greatest thing in CRPGs. A lot of people were disappointed by the time the game actually hit the store shelves. Some people did not like all that was left out of the game: no flying, no horseback riding, no jumping, no swimming, etc. Others, who appreciated a 3d CRPG and accepted the limitations, were disappointed in the official campaign that shipped with the game. The story seemed dull, unimaginative, or simply did not capture the spirit and excitement of the original Baldur's Gate games. Personally, I fully accepted the limitations of the game but was left somewhat unsatisfied by the official campaign. I cannot put my finger on the problem but I do know there is a problem because I have never actually finished the original campaign. On the other hand, I have thoroughly enjoyed playing some of the fan-created content.

Therefore, when Bioware announced that they would be releasing Shadows of Undrentide (SoU) as an expansion to NWN, I was both interested and leery at the same time. I recently finished playing through the SoU campaign - which is not a continuation of the official campaign from NWN - and am here to report that it was a whole lot of fun.

New Features

SoU has several new features which have been exhaustively detailed elsewhere (including at the official site), so I will just mention a couple of them here. In addition to these, expect dozens of new spells, a handful of new creatures, and a number of new feats to turn your favorite characters into uebercharacters. All of these additions are, of course, now usable by the community in making their own modules, so expect to see a lot of them getting overused in the next couple of months.

There are three new tilesets. The campaign begins in the mountains of the Silver Marches area. This means snow. The "rural winter" tileset is probably the least interesting of the three, although it is extremely useful considering the original NWN had snowfall effects, but no snow-on-the-ground official tilesets (though fan-created sets exist). The "rural winter" appears to be simply the rural tileset from the original game with snow and ice painted over the grass, buildings and most of the placeables. For whatever reason, the roads don't have snow on them.

There is also a "ruins" tileset. This is a very nice addition, with a slight Middle Eastern (Egyptian? Babylonian?) feel to it. It is essentially another dungeon tileset, however, as it was clearly intended for underground locations.

My favorite is the desert tileset. This was another addition which was also sorely needed in the game and it looks fantastic. There are canyon walls, Bedouin tents, oasis placeables, and just about everything you need to create a desert-oriented module.

Like all of the NWN tilesets, it could use more placeables and variations in some of the more dramatic placeables. The "giant stone heads stuck in the sand," for example, look really cool but because there is only one of them, placing too many would look silly. It would have been nice if there had been 2 or 3 different heads, in varying stages of ruin, or tilted at different angles, or buried to different depths in the sand. The whole premise of NWN, however, is geared towards providing simple tools and let members of the community pick up the slack so I expect to see new desert placeables hit the fansites before too long.

For those of you more interested in playing than in creating, the biggest change is the addition of five prestige classes. They are Arcane Archer, Assassin, Blackguard, Shadowdancer, Harper Scout. While the addition of prestige classes, just as in the pen-n-paper version of D&D, was probably not necessary, it does add some fun and extra playability to a CRPG to have these powerful options available. I have only played as an Arcane Archer - and then only reached 5th level as an Arcane Archer - but the classes do seem to be very powerful. Perhaps too powerful to make the later stages of the campaign a real challenge.

Play

The only spoilers in this review are in the following paragraph, but they are minor. I mention only overarching plot threads and no specifics about enemies, quests, etc.

**SPOILERS** The story itself will be familiar to any RPGer, with a hokey Forgotten Realms twist to it. The hokey part is that you are a student at a school for adventurers - quintessential FR, but not for the more dramatic-minded. The familiar part is that your school is attacked, your master is gravely injured, and something important has been stolen. For those who do not like the Forgotten Realms, you will be annoyed by the hokey premise of the campaign start but you will quickly get past it as the game unfolds. You are, of course, tasked with recovering the stolen artifacts, lest they fall into the wrong hands. The first act leads you through a winter wilderness, tracking the thieves, dealing with backstabbing villains, and engaging in some small dungeon crawls. After the recovery of the stolen goods, a more devious plot is partially revealed. Your quest to overcome the hidden enemy leads you into the desert. In the desert, you spend some time dealing with sidetreks, including a fairly long dungeon delve required to assist your caravan in crossing the desert. Upon reaching your destination, you discover much more about the main enemy and chase them into the ruins of an ancient city, buried beneath the sands. The last half of the game takes place within dungeon-like areas, before you face the final battle. **SPOILERS END**

Probably what most impressed me as I played through the official SoU campaign were the ways the developers used scripting to good effect. The cutscenes were not only effective in progressing the story but were generally cinematically entertaining. In other places, they managed to get the game to do things I did not expect to see because I did not know they could be done. For example, in one area, a gigantic creature rises out of a pit and breathes fire into the surrounding corridors. This is not a monster to fight but looks incredible and shows how the game engine can be pushed for unique effects. There are several tricks used to push the story throughout the campaign. For example, to defeat one of the early enemies (you do have the option to resolve things peacefully, but I failed to) you are given a special item without which you could not possibly defeat him.

A brief caveat. I played the campaign only once and as a good-aligned elven archer (at the end 5 levels Fighter, 2 levels Wizard, 5 levels Arcane Archer), and have not made any effort to play it using any of the other prestige classes, regular classes, or as an evil character. Comments about difficulty and the experience are made with this in mind.

Early in the campaign, it becomes clear that an effort was made to make the experience unique for different kinds of characters. For example, there are some early quests that cannot be solved happily without being able to effectively persuade NPCs. Likewise, it appears that class skills like Animal Empathy and Tracking could be put to good use in some cases. It seems that evil characters have some different choices as well. My perception is, however, that as the game progresses less and less of this is apparent.

Another limiting factor is in the henchmen available to travel with you. There appear to be only three or possibly four. Some new official features make the henchmen experience more enjoyable than in the original NWN campaign, however. You can manipulate the henchmen's inventory to outfit them as you see fit. Another great addition is that you can tell them how you want them to level up. For example, my henchmen throughout was a dwarven rogue/cleric. I had the option of telling her to gain levels only as a rogue, only as a cleric, or to do both evenly. You can change your mind later, too.

I played on a normal difficulty setting and found the climactic encounters of the first chapter to be extremely difficult to defeat. I had to reload the game several times in order to defeat the "level bosses." In the middle levels there were some real challenges but I mostly found myself reloading only because my henchmen was getting killed and not because my character was dying. By the end of the game, however, my Arcane Archer was gunning down legions of opponents in a matter of rounds. Even the final battle was relatively easy, once I discovered the trick (which was fairly obvious).

It took me around 45 hours to complete the campaign, a fair amount for an expansion. More importantly, I enjoyed the experience throughout and I actually finished it this time. Sadly, I find myself wondering if it was not the fairly rapid rate of level advancement that made SoU more enjoyable than NWN.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed playing through the official campaign. If you are just looking for a fun CRPG diversion, then the official SoU campaign alone is worth the $30 price of admission.

The various added features - new tilesets, new feats, new spells, prestige classes - definitely add to the game's replay value and are well worth the $30 investment if you play NWN regularly.

So, if you are looking forward to the new features AND the new official campaign, then SoU is a bargain at $30.

I give SoU high marks for style because I felt the developers really found unique ways to make the story much more than a hack-n-slash adventure. They also used scripting to create several memorable and unique effects, gimmicks and eye candy. In terms of substance, I think the length of the new campaign is more than adequate.

Style: 4.0 Substance: 4.0

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