Neverwinter Nights By JoadsShovel on Nov 02, 2007 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

Neverwinter Nights is the Dungeons and Dragons-based computer role-playing game from developer Bioware, makers of games like "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic". At the time when it was released in 2002, it promised not only an epic role-playing adventure, but the opportunity to create your own maps, dungeons, and scenarios using the DM client, which is the same toolset which the devlopers used to create the game. This allowed Dungeon Masters to create entire campaigns to be played through, in real time, by an adventuring party. The single player campaign is nothing to be scoffed at- it's about 20-30 hours long, features a decent story and many character customization options. It doesn't age particularly well- the 3d engine, while ambitious and mostly competent even now, is easily outdated by games like Crysis. The inventory system in a slight bit frustrating because you can't rotate or group inventory, forcing you to constantly drop things which are of value in order to make room for the more valuable weapons and armor. Nearly any character you desire can be created and used throughout the game, and the DM client is everything you could possibly desire in a "real life" DnD game. If you're willin gto put hours and hours into the creation of an original campaign, the tools are at your disposal. For it's price, anyone looking for a role-playing adventure which can theoretically occupy you forever (new user-created modules are being uploaded to bioware.com even now), can do no wrong with Neverwinter Nights. Note: it takes some fiddling aruond to get this to wrok on a Windows Vista machine, so be patient. Plenty of help and documentation is available online, however, so don't give up too easily.