#oneaday Day 686: The Times, They Have Changed

Been playing a selection of games recently. Besides the bullet hell joy I mentioned yesterday, I’ve also been playing L.A. Noire on PC and Neverwinter Nights 2 along with a bunch of emulated games that were absolutely totally positively legal to download. Between these games, I’ve been getting a pretty diverse gaming experience, and it’s also allowed me to reflect on how much gaming has changed over the years.

Let’s focus specifically on Neverwinter Nights 2 for a moment. Structurally, it’s relatively similar to the RPGs we see BioWare coming out with today (despite being developed by Obsidian) but the pacing is completely different to what we see in something like Mass Effect or even Dragon Age, its nearest “modern” equivalent.

Remember the fantasy cliche of the lead character starting as a farmhand or something and eventually becoming some sort of godslayer by the end of the game? That’s pretty much what Neverwinter Nights 2 does. You start the game in a small wetlands village in the middle of nowhere, just as their annual Harvest Fair is taking place. And before anything exciting happens at all, you have to go around the fair, complete several mundane tasks and, in collaboration with your party members, complete a number of simple challenges to introduce you to the basics of combat, magic and the like.

It works well mechanically, but in terms of that immediate “BAM!” factor that draws you in to the game, it’s somewhat lacking. Gamers looking for some sort of immediate gratification or heroics will probably find themselves disappointed for at least an hour or two before Plot Starts Happening.

It was the same in the earlier D&D titles like Baldur’s Gate. The first couple of hours of Baldur’s Gate were spent inside the walls of Candlekeep, doing errands for wizards and clearing out basements of rats. RPG cliche stuff — and the sort of thing we don’t tend to find ourselves doing too much these days because people want to get straight to the heroics. And that’s fair enough.

What the snail-like openings for these games do provide, though, is a brilliant sense of unease once you finally get out into the world to embark on your quest. You may have been able to best the local hard men in the Harvest Brawl, but what are you going to do when something that actually wants to kill you comes lurching at you?

The answer, in all likelihood, is die. This particular breed of RPG isn’t afraid to kick your ass right up until about level 5 or so — only then do you start getting to a stage where you can hold your own in a fight. And you level a lot slower than you do in a JRPG.

This is something of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, early combats become an exercise in managing your very limited capabilities, and simple victories over wild creatures feel like you’ve achieved something. This is realistic. Imagine if a wolf attacked you right now. Would you be able to handle it? If you did manage to survive the encounter without your throat being torn out, you’d feel pretty badass, right? That’s what happens in Neverwinter Nights 2.

The flip-side to this is that the second your curiosity gets the better of you and you wander blindly through a door you perhaps shouldn’t, you’re immediately confronted by a dude who shouts “I AM AN EVIL WIZARD!” and promptly proceeds to obliterate you with spells you won’t be using for a good 40 hours yet. This, too, is realistic (leaving aside the whole “magic isn’t real” thing) but is also immensely frustrating, particularly as the autosave system in Neverwinter Nights 2 and, indeed, the Baldur’s Gate series is best described as “erratic” and “unpredictable”. It’s very easy to lose lots of progress because of one stupid act if you don’t get into the habit of perpetually whacking that F12 (quicksave) key when things start looking a bit hairy.

Is this good or bad? It’s certainly different. In playing Neverwinter Nights 2, I’ve had to adjust my mindset to a somewhat more “hardcore RPG” configuration. Rather than being able to charge in blindly to a situation, safe in the knowledge that if it all goes horribly wrong, I’ll simply resume from a moment before the fight and try again, I have to think. I have to pause. I have to strategise. I usually have to turn off the Party AI function because the other characters are overly fond of running in to the middle of a large group of enemies before getting their appendages hacked off within a matter of seconds.

It’s certainly a different approach. Frustrating AI aside, it makes you a much more cautious player, which is sort of fun. The Souls series is based on this concept, after all, though executed somewhat differently. It also means that when you do reach the high levels of badassdom, you really feel like you earned them, rather than the more gradual trickle-feed approach which JRPGs’ rapid levelling provides.

It’s an approach that won’t be to everyone’s taste — and those who crave the immediacy of modern games will likely switch off the game the first time they’re downed by a pathetic skeleton minion, never to return. But perseverance and patience are key, and once you get your head around that, there’s a rewarding experience to be had.

Neverwinter Nights 2‘s basic campaign is regarded by some as “not great” — particularly in comparison to its expansion packs, which are supposedly excellent — but I’ve been enjoying it so far. Already we have some strong characterisation in the party members — something Obsidian is always good at — and a few hints of what the Big Plot might be, though no sign of whatever the Big Bad might be as yet. I am still only on the game’s first act, however, so there’s plenty of time for epic stupidity to occur along the way, and I’ll be looking forward to it.

In the meantime, there’s bandits to kill, skeletons to shatter into pieces and zombies to get diseased by.