| Neverwinter Nights 2 Expansion Pack: Mask of the Betrayer | 
| From: Atari
Category: Video Games
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $10.88
as of 3/19/2010 23:52 CET details
You Save: $9.11 (46%)
New (28) Used (10) from $4.46
Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  47 reviews
Sales Rank: 1,072
Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Genre: Role Playing Games
ESRB: Teen
Media: DVD-ROM
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows 2000
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5 x 0.8
MPN: 27559
UPC: 742725275591
EAN: 0742725275591
ASIN: B000R2WIE2
Release Date: October 9, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | Mask of the Betrayer - Challenging 25 hour adventure complete with strategic action, rich story and deep characters | | • | Advance to Epic levels (above level 20) and choose from over 100 new spells and feats | | • | New toolset features and improvements make creating your own adventures easier than ever | | • | Includes new monsters, weapons, items, classes, races and environments |
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Product Description
Neverwinter Nights 2 Expansion Pack (PC DVD-ROM), Product #27559
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 47
 Very disappointing February 23, 2010
Cyber Shopper (Georgia)
*Potential spoiler*
I gave this a low rating for one reason only; the way they implemented the plot/story. I enjoyed this game very much, up until the point where I became a spirit eater. I enjoy a slow pace to RPG's, so I can be somewhat free to explore and do different things. Once I became a spirit eater, I found that I was spending most of my time just dealing with devouring/exorcizing spirits... and that just got too frustrating. That, by itself, made the game unenjoyable for me.
 Don't waste your money! February 14, 2010
Koveh Tavakkol
My friends and I play all kinds of games, and we saw this for $20 and decided to continue our NWN2 characters. Wow, what a mistake that was. This game is horrible.. even worst than the original NWN2. The plot is just downright ridiculous, and they put some incredibly annoying things into the group play. For example they infect one of the characters with this annoying disease where you have to consume souls to stay alive. You end up spending the entire game just trying to keep that party member alive. Horrific game. We played it for 2-3 sessions and got so frustrated, we moved on to better things.
Fun, good improvements, not for sentimental types February 4, 2010
W. Turner (USA)
This expansion definatly had some improvements over the original when considering basic gameplay, it also does referance the first storyline and explains what happened to everyone loosely based on how you answer a few questions regarding your path of playing. That being said I didn't much care for the whole soul eating concept... but maybe that was just because it conflicted with the way I like to play, making it more of a henderance than an "ah cool" concept. All that being said, definatly worth playing if you liked the original, and I would definatly reccomend this title over the other official expansion.
 A worthy expansion that in many ways exceeds the original January 13, 2010
Arthur O. Niven
After finishing Neverwinter Nights 2 I was eager to move on to its expansion pack, Mask of the Betrayer, which I heard was, if anything, superior. New classes (base and prestige alike), feats, spells, and races along with new toolset features make this expansion a true expansion in every sense of the world, giving more without cheapening or taking away from the original. This is what I expect when I get an expansion... indeed, in many ways its what I look for in a straight-up game, expansion or no and MotB easily beats some "real" games, even though it's just an expansion.
MotB is a direct sequel to the plotline of NWN2 vanilla's official campaign, which ends with the player and his/her party becoming trapped in a collapsing fortress ruled over by the King of Shadows, who the player had just killed. When the site is later excavated the player's body is nowhere to be found and s/he is presumed dead by many and searched for endlessly by those who care too much to believe so. MotB opens with the Kalach-Cha/Knight Captain awakening inside of a dark crypt, surrounded by glowing pedestals etched with strange markings. Shortly thereafter, they are greeted by a mysterious figure - a woman clothed in the garb of the fabled and reputably villainous Red Wizards of Thay. But instead of providing an enemy she instead joins you, and helps you back onto your feet, revealing her name to be Safiya. Shortly thereafter, you're attacked by magical beasts reminiscent of the forest gods from Mononoke and are forced to flee, though not before you learn that you are now dependent upon a vampiric life of feeding on the lifeforce of others to survive.
Much of the rest of the game is spent trying to determine what exactly happened to you, though depending on how thorough you are on following up on quests and collecting clues you may determine the answer to this riddle long before your avatar actually does (roughly two thirds of the way through the game). On your journey and quest for answers you gather once again an entourage of allies, though mysteriously none of your companions from the first campaign (except one) are able to join you (though the game answers the question as to why later on).
One of the main issues with NWN2 that people had was that it's story, while brilliantly written and with excellent dialogue, was fairly generic. MotB avoids this for the most part. Not only does it set itself apart simply by choosing an entirely different, less generic, and more personal tale (though like in all stories, not one that hasn't been told before) but it also manages to make the Forgotten Realms seem large and majestic again. Rashemen, the setting of MotB, is strikingly different than the Sword Coast, the setting of so many previous Realms RPGs, evoking images of Dark Age Scandinavia, Medieval Russia, or modern day Wicca more than High Middle Ages Western Europe or Tolkienesque fantasy. As such, MotB easily sets itself apart from other, similar RPGs in terms of its story.
For the most part this works out splendidly and the story of MotB is probably its single strongest point. However, it is not without its flaws. Much of middle third of the game, for instance, leads you into believing the story is about something which it is very much and most passionately not about. This wouldn't actually be so bad (since Jade Empire and The Sith Lords both did this sort of thing rather well) except for the fact that the game's revelation that this is not what it is about comes rather anticlimactically... and about five minutes before you actually beat the game. The result is that the player goes in which expectations, only to have them crushed at the last possible minute. The ending is also, at least in my eyes, somewhat disappointing. While NWN2 ended with a somewhat unsatisfying cliffhanger, this ending has a rather gaping problem that is exactly the opposite of the first game's. It wraps everything up very neatly, with little room left for the imagination.
Like NWN2, MotB has a rich cast of characters. However, unlike NWN2 none of them could ever be mistaken for being generic. Between a giant ghost bear, a Red Wizard who is haunted by strange voices, a composite undead being made of dozens of spirits, a hagspawn shaman who is both determinedly atheistic and incredibly spiritual, and a half-celestial thrown out of heaven you have a party that, on the scale of weirdness, hits a big red 10. It's obvious that Obsidian was aiming for some of the strangeness that speckled through, Planescape: Torment, a game that their predecessor company, Black Isle, developed. In that, I think they probably succeeded.
Each of the characters is richly designed, with wonderful dialogue and intriguing backstories that are revealed to you bit by bit, both in the main storyline and through conversation as you gain more influence. None of them I found useless, though some I liked less than others (primarily Kaelyn, who seemed a bit empty to me).
Perhaps one of my biggest disappointments with MotB was how little the characters of the original campaign played into it. Out of all the companions from your character's adventures along the Sword Coast, only one actually appears in the game, though you discover the fate of all of them. Albeit, the character who does join you was on my favorites from the first game but in the end even they do little more than serve as a proxy in battle for a few hours before disappearing again.
And then there are the romances. NWN2 vanilla made a fair attempt but both Casavir and Elanee evoked the worst of BioWare's romances by being emotionally dependent and unwavering (even if you knock them around and play against their alignment) lovers. In MotB, once again there's really only one choice for each gender - Gann for females, Safiya for males. While both characters are interesting - much more interesting than either Casavir or Elanee - they end up less than wholly satisfactory. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the romance has the opposite problem of Casavir and Elanee... instead of being clingy and emotionally dependent Safiya seemed disinterested up until the point when my character said yes, at which point she began punctuating every other sentence with "my love." For his part, Gann seems much better, though this may simply be since he's an open and eager womanizer.
As for performance, MotB is an improvement over the original NWN2, while remaining solidly flawed. MotB is still slightly buggy and it demands more than it gives, although this is in part because that it is merely an expansion pack and not a new game. Overall, MotB looks somewhat better and crashes less frequently, so it's an overall improvement.
MotB also has one of the most wonderful soundtracks ever released for a fantasy RPG. Like many gamers I'm sure I've found that Jeremy Soule's appeal has begun to wane over time, much like his cinematic equivalent, John Williams. Both composers' work often sounds remarkably similar to both one another and from record to record. While this was kind of nice since it meant KotOR sounded a lot like the Star Wars films it got kind of tiring when Oblivion sounds like KotOR which sounds like Star Wars which sounds like Minority Report.
Rik W. Schaffer should be applauded for his work on MotB's soundtrack, which is pretty much just awesome. While some of the tunes from NWN2 are still favorites (such as Ammon Jerro's theme) overall the expansion has a better soundtrack than its predecessor. With haunting tunes and tribal drumbeats the soundtrack also fits the rather dark and forbidding feel of MotB's story.
Voice acting is also of fairly high quality, including the voices of a few deities that show up in the game, who sound properly powerful and foreboding from the sadistic, cruel Myrkul to the fair but cold-hearted Kelemvor. However, probably the best voice acting has to go to Juliane Grossman, who played Safiya, managing to capture a variety of emotions while sticking with Safiya's overall distant and cooled demeanor.
The game mechanics of the game work rather well, with one exception. While the new classes, spells, and feats are implemented rather well the spirit eater mechanic, which shows up later in the game, is a little bit flawed. On the one hand, if the player is evil the mechanic becomes more of a threat to their well being than most enemies. On the other hand, if the player is good, than the mechanic is little more than a toy you have to tinker with every so often and is effectively meaningless. Fortunately, this is a mechanic that applies only to the story and won't likely be seen again. It's a shame though, because it could have been much more interesting.
MotB's influence is also something I'm divided on. While I think the idea of giving you boons from influence gains isn't a bad one and I like how it also reflects the boon in the companion you have influence with (which was a nice feature in TSL for some reason removed in NWN2) I'm not very fond of the fact you can see exactly how much influence you have with your companion. It makes the influence system something very easy "to game" if you're not a strict roleplayer (though I myself am). I prefer the idea, one that was implemented in both of Obsidian's previous games, that influence remains a hidden mechanic and that the only way you know how much influence you have with a companion is based on how they interact with you.
Overall, MotB is an impressive sequel to NWN2 that is really quite good enough that it could have been released as a full-priced sequel. At expansion pricing, it's a fine deal.
Neverwinter nights 2 December 17, 2009
Michael J. Cherochak (Bellingham, WA)
AD&D RPG.
If your a gamer then this is a must have for the collection.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 47
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