Video Game Thoughts

In the past few weeks, I've replayed Deus Ex 2, Deus Ex, and restarted Neverwinter Nights 2.

DE2 reminded me how "meh" it is. The levels between loading screens are annoying small. The "choice" you get in which factions you support is weak at best, as it still comes down to what you do at the very end to decide the epilogue. The graphics are certainly improved over the first one, but that's about the only good point to it, really.

Deus Ex on the other hand, remains a friggin' masterpiece. The graphics are looking very dated, but don't distract (me anyway) as much as I would have thought. The game plays well. The levels are interesting for the most part. And while there isn't much branching to the plot, the storyline is good.

It's also a heck of a lot longer than I remembered. I recalled the locations you visit and roughly the order, but I had forgotten some of the small "in between" parts and the times you revisit places. It all adds up. At first, I was frustrated by how slowly upgrades were coming, but then I realized I was really a long way from the end of the game, so the pacing made sense. Still one of my favorite games ever, and it leaves me... cautiously optimistic about Deus Ex 3, prequel though it is to be, probably due out next year.

Looking for something else to spend time on, I did a little research and reinstalled Neverwinter Nights 2. Initially, I was put off by the controls and barely struggled my way through a third of act 1 before moving on to something else. With help of a little button-remapping program someone worked out, I find the controls much more bearable, so I'm getting through more of the game. But... it's still got some problems.

I believe the companion AI is editable, and perhaps I should look into that. But so far, if I leave my characters alone for more than a few seconds, I start seeing high level spells and effects going off, and potions being consumed at an alarming rate. "Eek! A bug! Icestorm!" "Uhh... you know this is the first room of the stronghold, right?" This bothers me. And yet, as long as you're sufficiently far from any enemies, you can rest and regain your spells. Five seconds real time, and I haven't seen any detrimental time lapse in the game. Resting after every pack or two of enemies seems most practical, but it's not very exciting/interesting.

The game also suffers from feeling very... "construction setty." I had this problem with City of Heroes, too. You start to see the repetition in the rooms/terrain, and it just becomes a question of how many enemies are going to be around the next corner. It gives a bland, lifeless feel to the world, where few locations and encounters actually feel unique. That design is sort of connected to...

I hate obvious enemy spawns. Haaate. I think the first game that I can recall that really bugged me with this was System Shock 2. There, it was meant to instill the sense of danger and dread that something might pop up behind you in the hall you just cleared. In NWN2, it seems fairly obvious that there are trigger points that cause a certain group of enemies to spawn. It sort of makes sense with how the game is built, but they fail to do it well when you can clearly see the ghouls appearing halfway in your line of sight down a clear hallway. Getting into orc caves, I also ran into situations where the same groups of orcs seemed to spawn twice - once when I approached from one side, once after I passed the fading corpses of the first group. And that just strikes me as sloppy. If the groups could only spawn once and you put the triggers far enough away that you wouldn't see them, at least there would be the illusion that they were there all along.

The story is, at least, interesting enough that I want to learn more. I can't really render a verdict overall without knowing the whole thing. There's clearly a mystery over a broken githyanki sword (that's pretty obvious after the intro scene and early talk of "silver shards"), but exactly how it all pieces together is unclear. There seems conflicting information of whether their forces were after it or not to start with. And there's a baddy necromancer with his eyes set on Neverwinter that seems... involved, but opposed to the githyanki. So it seems there might be two totally different "bad guy" factions.

The ability to craft/enchant things is neat, though I haven't been able to get into it much at lower levels. Need some mithril chain shirts. ... Need more skill points.

Enough rambling for now...