Neverwinter Nights Hands-On @ GameSpot

The guys at GameSpot were lucky enough to receive a finished copy of Neverwinter Nights and have posted up their initial impressions. Here’s something to get you started:

We also took a closer look at Neverwinter Nights’ character generation process, which includes a handy “choose recommended option” button for every one of your character’s attributes. Just like in BioWare’s Baldur’s Gate games, you can create a character of male or female gender and make a character that belongs to one of seven races (human, dwarf, elf, half-elf, orc, gnome, and half-orc). You then choose from a sizeable selection of portraits, most of which resemble the artwork of the Baldur’s Gate games, then choose your character’s class (including the returning 3rd Edition professions of sorcerer and barbarian). The “recommended option” button comes in especially handy for choosing your character’s ability scores (strength, dexterity, wisdom, and so on) and your character’s skills and heroic feats. Each basic character class offers prepackaged kits (which are nothing more than a prearranged set of skills) that you can choose to quickly and easily begin the game. You can also choose your character’s voice from a list of characterized choices (such as “male, violent fighter” and “male, mature swashbuckler”)–once you play the game, you’ll find that your character and the characters and enemies you meet in the game use speech about as often as they did in the Baldur’s Gate games.