Most helpful customer reviews
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1.0 out of 5 stars
THE MISSING GAME GUIDE - SOLD AS A...STRATEGY GUIDE!, Mar 24 2008
Do you remember when games were an actual an art-form and were sold with respect to the paying customers? Innovative games that came in beautiful detailed cardboard boxes. Included were a number of artwork items (paper or cloth maps, pewter figurines) and thick, detailed guide booklets. Nowadays, all we get is a cheap plastic case. Usually broken.
Well, now the faceless accountants that run the gaming business decided to take the next shameless step: they are trying to sell the Game Guide as a Strategy Guide! Yes, this is the case here: a weak walkthrough (one can find much more detailed and helpful ones on the internet) and then whatever should have been included in a classic Game Guide: general maps, weapons list (without unique items), and incomplete lists of NPCs & enemies (bestiary).
Check your good old BALDUR's GATE: the above were all included in the Game guide!
My advice: Don't even think about it!
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1.0 out of 5 stars
Agreement in Disappointment, Dec 9 2006
I would have to agree wholeheartedly with the previous evaluation of this book. They must have been in such a hurry to release it that they completely skipped on the 'strategy' part of the guide. Some more specific examples:
1) The Act I portion mentions Neeshka's quest with Leldon, and says they will continue it in Act II. No such luck - they left that out completely.
2) One real strategy point they could suggest would be to mention the pros and cons of the different entities wishing to make use of the church or the tower in your Keep. There's no mention of what they would offer and what drawbacks you could expect in the long run.
3) Same thing with how to place the available sergeants you can recruit throughout the game. I learned more about the bonuses or minuses they give the troops from cracking the modules with the toolset.
4) The list of the class-specific items could have used a "where to find" column. Its nice being told about them (recounting exactly the description you can find on the item when you locate one in the game, by the way. No new interesting info) but the most important thing is "How do I get one of these for my character? Who sells or drops it?" Silence on this issue from the almighty writers...
5) Influence. Again I must agree with the other reviewer on the lack of competence on the writers' parts for ignoring this. SPOILER WARNING: There comes a point in the game when your influence plays a major role on how things turn out, and if you want certain companions to remain as allies instead of go turncoat, you need to know how much influence you need to earn/maintain with them.
I could go on, but the bottom line is you will learn more from using the toolset to sneak around the modules and conversation files, or by going to a walkthrough created by someone who really loves the game (whom they should have hired to write the guide in the first place instead of the CEO's nephew...)
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1.0 out of 5 stars
Nothing you don't already know., Nov 5 2006
Once you get past the shiny cover and the 'Ooo, it's all in colour!' excitement, this strategy guide offers absolutely nothing towards gameplay.
I bought this thinking that it would help me with the side quests involving my party NPCs, and that it might also contain a list of all the possible alchemical, armour, and weapon crafting recipes. I wanted information on how to get influence with my party members, and how to respond to events so that I gained chaos points instead of lawful. No such luck.
The first half of the book deals with character creation: races, and basic and prestige classes. It doesn't really say anything that the manual doesn't... it just says it in colour. The last third of the book is a list of every item in the game, and its merchant price. No mention of where to buy it or where it might be found; just seemingly endless lists. The remainder of the book -- the smallest part, I might add -- is the walkthrough.
I realise that most strategy guides are written before the game is released, so I allow for some errors. This walkthrough, however, is deeply flawed. Having finished the first chapter of the game, I then read through the guide to compare notes. There are many side quests that the book totally ignores (like Khelgar's desire to be a monk, and Neeshka's little 'mistake' with her former business partner). There are also places where it drops quest steps -- after you arrive in Neverwinter, depending on your good/evil path, you are given some tasks to do. This poor excuse for a walkthrough actually skips over some of those tasks! Where does your NPC target live? What should you expect when you find him? Don't ask this book -- it won't tell you.
I am forced to compare this to the Versus strategy guide to Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn. The Versus guide was thorough, comprehensive, and gave you a description of every possible path you could follow -- diplomatic, violent, good, chaotic, lawful, or evil. This BradyGames guide to NWN2 assumes that you will be fighting your way through everything that doesn't look like a human. As a woman who prefers to play RPGs by taking the diplomatic route, I was disgusted by this oversight.
I could go on, but it would be nothing but filler -- just like 80% of this guide. If you've already bought it, I offer my condolences, and hope you kept your receipt. If you are considering buying it in order to get past a difficult spot in the game, I recommend popping in to your nearest EB and flipping through the guide to see if it actually has the information you need. Keep your fingers crossed. It certainly didn't help me.
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by David Hodgson
by BradyGames
