Even though it might be an expansion pack, Shadows of Undrentide has nothing to do with the town of Neverwinter or the previous game’s storyline. Undrentide begins within the frozen wilds of the Silver Marches, where you and a few other students seek out the wisdom of a wise and revered Master Drogan. When the school you attend is attacked, your dear master left for dead, and some precious and powerful artifacts stolen from the school, it becomes your appointed task to find the savages and retrieve the artifacts.

Undrentide plays exactly like its brethren and those familiar with the first title will have no problem picking up and getting right into the story. The basic premise with Undrentide, as it was in Neverwinter, is to follow one main quest and letting the side quests trickle down beside it. Even though Undrentide isn’t nearly as long as Neverwinter, you still get a strong story that will pick you up right from the start and not let go until the end. New characters and places fill the story of Undrentide and it’s a story that almost exceeds Neverwinter. The script is well written and there’s a ton of written text within the game. Each character has her/her own wit and even some humor added into the text which offers a bit of change from Neverwinter. Choosing between good and evil, lawful or chaotic, becomes a true blast. Going throughout the game being able to choose different decisions and deciding whether or not your character might suffer the consequences through his actions. It’s what us RPG’ers live and die for.

Before in Neverwinter you had to seek out help by way of henchmen. This time around you are graced with a couple of students (or online players if you prefer) who join along side you during your quest. While you can only pick one at a time you have your choice of a dwarf by the name Dorna Trapspringer, who can pick locks and traps (nice name) and Xanos Messarmos, who’s cocky egotistical attitude is only matched by his desire to become something renown throughout the Realms. Each character has his/her own special abilities and might work better in certain situations. Dorna is part cleric who can help with some healing/blessing spells and Xanos is a mage fighter capable of unleashing some strong attacks. Since I was a mage, I felt that is was more beneficial to take along Dorna more often then Xanos. Personally I liked that character more as Xanos just seemed full of himself most of the time.

When fighting along side your companion you’ll be happy to know that you now get the chance to mess with their inventory. Now you can change their weapons, armor, and even give them potions to use. It adds a little bit of strategy as I wouldn’t recommend ignoring this feature. Giving extra armor or a stronger weapon to your colleges might not be a bad idea as they might have to save your butt later.

There are also new spells, skills, feats, and even two new familiars to summon in Undrentide. While there might only be three new skills (tumble, appraise and craft trap) there are a slew of new feats available for your characters. The amount of feats really give players a more diverse selection in molding their characters to have the certain strengths that they want. Even the new spells added in Undrentide gives players more of choice, and let’s remember children, choices are a good thing.

Unfortunately, Undrentide suffers from some silly little AI issues that you need to know how to work around. Your partners won’t always heal themselves or use the potions you give them. Sometimes they’ll lag behind you and take some time to catch up. Other times they’ll just sit there and look at the enemy while you do battle. You need to keep an eye out for occasions like these or you might end up outnumbered by the enemy. It’s the worst when you die from the hand of a retarded AI issue. Thankfully you can always save the game wherever you are and keep the loss to a minimum.

Even after done with the main player campaign, which should take around 20-25 hours, you still have the Aurora toolset to sift through. Even if creating isn’t your motif I would still recommend trying it out. It isn’t very hard and BioWare offers some pretty good resources on how to start out. If you’re still a pansy and refuse to try the toolset out, you can always hop online and explore what other people have to offer. While there are many mods being created ever day, you can probably find the top ones by asking a few people in the online chat rooms. Regardless you’ll have plenty of sleepless nights with Undrentide, just as you did with Neverwinter.

While not much as changed in the graphics department since Neverwinter it still manages to impress me on occasion. The different light sourcing and colors still dazzle my eyes and the spells still leave a tingle on the back of my spine. There are even a few new magical effects that really made my eyes open! I didn’t expect to see some of the cool effects in Undrentide and the best part is that I can go recreate it later on in my own world. The only problem I have is that the character models are starting to show age. I would of liked to seen some more detailed characters (not monsters) and maybe a more diverse selection when creating your own.

The new monsters of Undrentide are done very well and it was fun seeing the new animations of each. I was particularly happy with my Pseudodragon serving as my familiar and grew quite attached to the little guy. Fortunately not all of Undrentides’ monsters are so cute and cuddly. The stingers, for example, are scorpion looking (good looking mind you) bastards who I would rather burn then pet. It was also still fun to see the combat animations as you do battle with each enemy. Watching your mage cast a spell or your barbarian dodge an attack is still very cool looking and it beats watching a turn based battle between two people that move rather sluggish like in other RPG’s.

Added to Undrentide are three new tilesets that add new life to the expansion pack. The three sets, desert, ruins, and rural winter are all done well and I can’t wait to start creating my own winter wonderland. Combine with the already lushes looking tilesets from Neverwinter, the textures of the new ones fit right in. Even though the ruins tileset might look a bit repetitive it still manages to create the perfect atmosphere as do all three tilesets.

Though a little outdated but still fighting the good fight, Undrentide still has what it takes to put on a good graphical show.

The voice acting, music, and sound in Neverwinter was one of the best I had heard. Undrentide follows the trend but seems to lack new content. I know I can’t expect a totally new musical score, but I guess I’m just getting a little tired of some of the music that is played. Neverwinter’s soundtrack really blew me away and I can’t expect an expansion pack to do the same. This isn’t saying that I’m not happy with the new music, that couldn’t be more false. When treated to some new content you’re given some of the better music in any game period. Whether it’s the ambiance of the winter land of Hillside or the Persian theme in the desert your ears will be happy.

The voice acting is just as good and although it can’t compare to the grand scheme of Neverwinter, it does well on it’s own as an expansion. Each voice actor does a good job of his/her role and the story moves along smoothly as it should. When you’re playing Undrentide, the point is to immerse yourself in the story, the music and voice acting do their job with precision.

Nothing has changed from the interface of Neverwinter, which is a good thing. BioWare did a good job of creating an easy to navigate interface that allows players to quickly get around and allow them full accessibility. The quick slot on the bottom of the screen allows for an easy one button press command that will trigger the proper response. Best used for spells and potions so you don’t have to sort through your inventory and spell book. There was no need to change the interface and doing so would have raised a few eyebrows.

I’ve really become a fan of the Neverwinter Nights universe. Even though I know diddly squat about D and D rules I’m still in love with it. I have to thank BioWare for opening up such a grand experience to my imagination. Although almost an impossible task of exceeding Neverwinter, Undrentide does a good job of rekindling the light that was there a year ago. Though definitely not as long or grand as its predecessor, Undrentide gives players a well done, and engrossing campaign well worth the money. After that it’s up for you to decide how much your imagination can create with all the new goodies you can play with.