I own the original boxed NWN from 2002, and boxed Diamond later after, and Diamond on GoG. I have always loved NWN. This is still NWN, and includes Diamond, and still worthy of a decent rating. Hence 4 stars. But if you already have Diamond Edition, and it works on your computer, this is 2 stars, it's really not an upgrade. The new lighting effects typically look worse, and if you have an old/weak computer, will destroy performance. Really they are tacky, and overdone, and the don't enhance, they just exaggerate what is already there. Visuals enhancements: -1 star. There are surprisingly no real UI fixes. Not even a new font for higher resolutions. All there is an option to do an integer multiple upscale on the UI, which makes it better but soft and blurry anyway, and too big for 1080p. Desperately needs a 1.5 scale. How hard would that have been? How hard would a new higher resolution font have been? UI enhancements: -1 star. Bottom Line: If you don't have NWN. It's worth it. You get EE and Diamond Edition. If you already have the Diamond Edition and it's working fine, there is pretty much nothing here for you.
I won't claim this is the best RTS ever. I haven't played them all. But it is my favorite. I played more than any other. It was way ahead of it's time. The 3D units, terrain with elevation that matters, and the ballistic modelling of shot trajectory made it a big leap over bitmap and sprite games. Battles are just a chaotic blast with rounds exploding everywhere. Also ahead of it's time for higher resolution support. This supports my widescreen at native resolution, while contemporaries like the original Starcraft are stuck at 640x480. The campaign isn't the best. I played it once. The real fun was multiplayer, where I spent a lot of time with friends. These days I still fire up an occasional skirmish against the computer. It holds up.
I really wanted to like this one, being a fantasy fan. But it felt like a clumsy fantasy mod for the original TA, which is a much better game. For some unknown reason, unit control seems much more clumsy in the newer game, than in the original TA. Also most units are smaller and harder to distinguish on screen. Also TA has better resolution support. Attempting to change renderer for TAK to do widescreen resolutions, the game will just freeze within a minute, so I end up having to play in a 4:3 resolution on TAK, when I can play widescreen on TA. Ultimately, original TA is just much more fun. The firepower of all the guns/lasers/missiles/emgs is just more thrilling than arrows and swords at this scale. If trying to decide between TA and TAK, get TA without question. TAK is easily skipped.
This is the last RPG Bioware did before EA took over. In many ways this is the last Bioware CRPG. It's great win for GoG to get the ultimate edition, of the best Dragon Age (IMO). After this it is a lot more like console games, and a lot more EA like behavior. You play DAO for the story. Which is engrossing. You get 6 unique origin stories. Play them all. They are the best way to get background on this new setting. I have never seen a game give this kind of heavily scripted/voiced with so many unique origins. Playing all the origins was one of my favorite parts of the game. After about the first hour, the stories all converge, but there will be interactions that relate back to witch origin you played through, but not enough IMO, to give it much replay value, to repeat play unless you have a lot of time on your hands. Still Between just doing the 6 origins, and just one play through, I was over 100 hours. That didn't even include all the DLC adventures in the ultimate pkg. Really I consider this a must buy for Bioware and most RPG fans. Now some issues: The New RPG system: Feels thrown together. There is no balance, it's kind of simplistic, no multi-classing, few classes. There really isn't much variation. In NWN/NWN2 I was forever trying out new build combos. Here there really doesn't feel like a point. Buggy: There are day one mechanical/story bugs that are well documented. Since being taken over by EA, Bug fixing shipped products is very much deprecated. Save often. Old Bioware was quite a bit better at this. CD Projekt Red is better yet. No Third Party Adventures: While I might spend >100 hours on DAO, I have spent over 1000 hours on NWN, and somewhat lesser, but still hundreds on NWN2. They have rich communities of third party adventures. It's not perfect, But at this price for the DRM free, Ultimate package, it is a Must Buy for just about any RPG fan IMO.
I was a long time Bioware fan. I played BG1/BG2/NWN1/NWN2/DAO/DA2 and thought they were the pinnacle of RPGs. But my thoughts after playing The Witcher are: Biowho? This game just has much better sense of world realism than any Bioware RPG. The story is just so much better than anything I have played before. The degree to which they sweated the small details boggles my mind. Other RPGs have choices that affect gameplay, but they are often lightweight and superficial. Here I often had to stop as I was on the horns of dilemma. Like in real life, many decisions had no win-win, and each choice had potential negative outcomes. Must play for fans of gritty realism in an RPG.
