I remember as I was finishing Throne of Baal there was a trailer on the CD. The trailer of Neverwinter Nights. It promises vast world, new dimension (3D duh), new ruleset, DM mode. And best of all — character transition from ToB! Well.. As the game came out I've searched the menus and the CD through and through to find a way to import my character. To no avail. But the reason that I don't like this game so much is its inconsistency. As I understand now it is a trademark of Trent Oster, who simply doesn't have even a slightliest bit of taste. He was a director and producer of NWN and he is a man behind Beamdog now. And by inconsistency I mean that the game world is falling apart constantly. In Baldur's Gate for example all the portraits were made in common style, the ambient and character sounds were adequate and in place, the UI was immersive. In NWN there was (and still is) an assortment of portraits in different styles and scale. The UI was (and still is) blunt and kinda beta looking. The ambient sounds are set in short loop and it is quite annoying. Voice is unreasonably overacted in some parts. Some characters with child model and portrait speaks with grown man voice and so on... Yeah. The ugly 3D graphics of that era is really not the worst thing in this game. The game got a feel of an alpha. Like Andromeda came after ME trilogy and was a disappointment to many, the same way NWN was for me after BG series — a huge disappontment. Alpha-like cheap trash. If you can't stand the font size, line height and other small things in BG:EE you know what I'm talking about. And it's a pity. Because the game got some really great things. You can actually build your own stories in it and play them through with your friends. And the vast amount of mods proves that it could be really fun and interesting. Fun and interesting alpha-like tasteless cheap trash. Still is.
