Neverwinter Nights

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The game's a little over two years old at this point, and I'm only now getting into it with any seriousness. This is what happens when a person spends years of their life away from Western culture and Best Buy stores.

I just picked up the Platinum edition of the game at the Yongsan Electronics Market in Seoul, having chanced to run across it at the place that sells the import games. It was pretty reasonable in price, and since I'd been wanting it since before it was released, I picked it up.

Now, to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the graphics. Really, I'd hoped that it would have been a lot more like Baldur's Gate, Fallout and Planescape in terms of atmospheric moodiness, but then again, I played those games quite a lot back in the day. (I still have yet to complete Fallout Tactics all the way through, but that's neither here nor there... I just note it since I'm one of the few that seems to have really liked that game.)

With that in mind, it's pretty neat. It takes some getting used to, as do all games with any sort of learning curve, but what interests me is the potential of what can be done with it. They've tried a lot to be able to replicate the tabletop D&D experience (or Vampire, for that matter, but I think that the efforts made on that front were largely ignored), and I can see where they've succeeded to a greater or lesser degree. While I've only played it for a couple of hours so far (having just killed the main foe in the prison, for those that are familiar with it...), I can see where it would be possible to branch things out to a point where coherent adventures would be not only possible, but really damned interesting.

Admittedly, I'm still waiting for the day when you can host a multi-player game in something more along the lines of Morrowind, but this is a solid start to things. (All right, my dream game would pretty much be multi-player Morrowind, only with a design interface like the Sims and the ability control events from a Gamemaster interface. And while I'm dreaming, I also want a pony. Why do you ask?) The suggestion that I put together a game module has already been floated by one of my old gamer friends back in the States, and I figure that I might as well do some experimentation on that front, just to see what comes of it all. I mean, it's not like I have a hell of a lot of other things that I'm doing in my spare time, since I have yet to establish a solid, weekly gaming group...

We'll see what comes of this. Right now, I'm not taking any bets, but a lot will depend on how much I can initially do with the interface, eh?