The bugs

One of the things that need Obsidian's attention is the inventory system. Each character has 128 item slots into their inventory, split in four pages. This means a lot of weapons, armor, potions, scrolls and various items which in time will create a mess sometimes. Let's say that you want to find a particular item into your inventory or in one of your party members. Good luck on that, because it will take some time to find it. Maybe Obsidian will address this problem and implement a sorting feature to ease the inventory structure. There are bags which offers you 24 slots so you can sort your items while making the items weighting less (there's always the encumbrance problem) but they could do more.

Sometimes, your characters will be struck by stupidity. They will rush into battle even if they have 5 hitpoints and you try to keep them alive or your wizard will cast the most powerful spell when the enemy has like 10 hitpoints left. The good thing is that you can issue commands to each or all characters, easing the party management. You can even put your characters into a puppet mode, which will force them to do nothing and just follow you. While in this state, they won't engage in combat, wont' use spells and won't drink the potions that they have into their inventory. You can customize each character from the behavior panel to force them to behave as you want. You won't get a very realistic behavior but it's better than nothing.

Also, there are scripting problems. While playing the game I found some plot stoppers while translates into not being able to complete some quests. It's true that I reviewed the original version of the game with no patch installed so I strongly suggest to install them because Obsidian released patches that solve many problems.

The keep

An interesting feature added to the game is the keep that will be given to you. This feature made many players happy as it gives you full control over a stronghold. You will have to repair it, improve it, recruit and train soldiers, secure the roads and the surrounding areas, take care of peasants and merchants needs and of course collect the taxes.

You will have to complete quests for the keep, find ore to improve your soldiers weapon and armor, and at some point defend your keep.

Technical stuff

Regarding the graphics, NWN2 moved from the Aurora engine to a 3D engine. I don't know if this was a good thing because the graphics look like the ones in 2003. Maybe they didn't want to use a powerful engine or this one offered them what they needed but to be onest, the only thing that looks amazing are the spell effects. They are the coolest looking things in the game. The models used for the party members are good with your own being the worse. I must say that Obsidian could of worked a little more on the graphics because NWN2 is not just a game, it's a sequel to a very popular series and you can't just come up with the game as it is now and hope for the best.

I reckon that in the RPG genre the most important thing is the story and the gameplay which in this case are excellent but sometimes you must pay attention to the other things as well.

The music is very good with the ambient sound sometimes a little repetitive but what's present it's very good. The effects are well done as always and manage to get you in  right mood. The game has that specific D&D atmosphere which the old fans love.

Despite average graphics, NWN2 has some pretty high minimum requirements. According to the game box, you'll need at least 128MB of video RAM, 512MB of system RAM, and at least a Pentium 4. Even if you meet these requirements, the game has not been as optimized as well as it should have, and you'll encounter some stuttering, mostly when walking around a town, casting spells, or on large scale battles. Even on a high-end computer you won't be able to play it as you should which translates in frustrating moments sometimes and hurts the players who probably upgraded the computer in the hope that they will be able to play the game smoothly.

Bundled with the game, also comes a toolset which allows the fans to create their own campaigns and scenarios. This ensures the game a big longevity and replayability because the NWN community is big and additional content is being created every day. Considering that the first episode was released by BioWare in 2002 and that two expansions were released (Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide was released in June 2003, and a subsequent expansion pack, Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark was released in December 2003) I believe that NWN 2 will benefit from the same attention and longevity as its predecessor.