Neverwinter Nights™ 2 Goes Gold

[Apophis]

NEW YORK, October 17, 2006 – Atari, Inc (Nasdaq: ATAR) and Obsidian Entertainment today announced that the highly-anticipated Neverwinter Nights™ 2 has gone gold and is on schedule to ship to stores nationwide on October 31 in North America and on November 3 in Europe. Neverwinter Nights 2,the sequel to BioWare Corp.’s best-selling and genre-defining role-playing game, is set in the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® Forgotten Realms® universe created by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS), and will transport players back to the embattled city of Neverwinter. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is under license from the Hasbro Properties Group, the intellectual property development arm of Hasbro. Neverwinter Nights 2 will be released for the Windows platform.

Developed by Obsidian Entertainment, Neverwinter Nights 2 features a new, extensive single-player game with deep character development and a powerful new toolset that provides players with unprecedented ability to create their own universes, quests and storylines

“Neverwinter Nights 2 has been an incredible game to produce, as we have aimed from the beginning to develop an immersive gaming experience that will satisfy both the RPG and modding communities,” said Feargus Urquhart, Obsidian Entertainment’s CEO. “Now that Neverwinter Nights 2 has gone gold, we are proud to say we are delivering a game that should exceed fans’ expectations.”

The Neverwinter Nights franchise has sold more than two million copies worldwide, is translated into 10 languages, sold in more than 40 countries and features one of the largest and most active fan communities in all of gaming. To date, fans of the franchise, which includes Neverwinter Nights, Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide™ and Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark™, have created nearly 4,000 modifications to the original game using the original, award-winning Aurora Toolset. A more robust toolset will be included with the release of Neverwinter Nights 2.

More information about Neverwinter Nights 2 can be found at www.nwn2.com, which includes user forums, project news, development updates and more.

[Vulcan]

Very nice, can't wait to get my hands on it!

[Makarov]

Any chance a portal will be made for NWN2? Would be nice to play online with some fellow TGers.

[Rincewind]

Wow, seems like almost yesterday NWN was coming out. I think I may just have to pick this up

[eGoatBoy]

Cool. Got my money's worth out of the first series...looking forward to checking this out.

Cheers,

[Dirt013]

Friend bought it, but his rig can't handle it, so until he upgrades i got me a free copy.

[Fuzzy]

Just finished this game last night and I fully recommend it to any serious RPGer out there. The single player adventure is truly excellent in terms of both the story and the gameplay (true D&D goodness), and if NWN 1 is any guide, future community modules will make this game a gift that keeps on giving.

With that said, it unfortunately has it's share of technical issues. Graphics, Camera Control, and frame rates are far from being optimized and the overall viewpoint control mechanism is fairly clunky. Luckily it only takes about 30 minutes to an hour to adapt and after that it isn't much of an issue. Hopefully, most of these problems will be fixed in future patches.

Also, the ending was obviously rushed for shipment. While not wholly unsatisfying, the story is wrapped up with a montage of about 10 still-shot art frames depicting the aftermath events while a voice over is conducted by a guy who sounds like someone from the accounting department whom the devlopers grabbed at the last minute because they didn't have time to hire a real voice actor. ("Ted! Get your butt up here! You're the only here who doesn't stutter or have a lisp and we need a narrator pronto!!")

Other then that though, I highly recommend that game. It was a great experience and, most importantly, tons of fun.

Fuzzy

[Clodhopper]

Man, all I need is a laptop to run it with and I can stay up in the oil fields all winter! Love this game!