Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter Review and Impressions

There hasn’t been much coverage to round up about Atari and Liquid Entertainment’s Facebook RPG based on the D&D-license, Heroes of Neverwinter, this review from GameSpy and impressions article from Wired being the only notable exceptions. Here’s a sampling from the review, the score of which is a solid 3.5/5.

In short, you gather a well-balanced party and charge through battle-heavy dungeons turn-by-turn. All the while, your characters level up, gain new abilities, and maybe just maybe learn a little something about themselves in the process. It’s standard albeit simple tactical RPG fare. But what it lacks in originality it makes up for with sheer compulsiveness. And it’s always just a browser tab away.

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Then there’s dungeon creation, which allows for a surprising amount of variation. Tile sets, structure, storyline it’s all up to you. Your friends can take your sadistic creations for a spin, theoretically giving the game absurd amounts of replay value. Perplexingly, however, that feature possibly the game’s coolest is walled off until you hit the level cap. Rough spots and all, though, Neverwinter succeeds in establishing itself as a big fish in an ocean-sized pond. It’s a smart, quick RPG with some actual depth that’ll slyly hook you before you even notice. So yes, Heroes of Neverwinter is a Facebook game. And I’m just fine with that.

And a particularly interesting excerpt from the impressions piece:

DB: What do you think? If I hop on Facebook next week or next month, will I see an update that you’ve been playing?

MH: Honestly, it probably depends on how often you and other friends bug me via in-game messages to join in. For a social network, Facebook games don’t seem very social to me, and I always start to see them more as obligations and less as something I do for fun.

DB: Yes. And the (Michael Harrison sent you a request) messages start to feel a lot like a To-Do list.

MH: Those requests are the most social aspect of the game, and that’s pretty weak. Without any social element, D&D is just a leveling treadmill. Of course, many, many other games are too, but they have something that hooks you in. World of Warcraft has guildmates and epic storylines. Bethesda’s games have immersive, lifelike worlds full of realistic characters. This has . nagging.

DB: It’s unfortunate. I really enjoy D&D. But there’s never been a really good D&D video game. I think Heroes of Neverwinter does an admirable job and gets close, but, without the social aspect, it’s not quite close enough.