Bioware have almost single handedly thrust the role playing game back into the forefront of PC games, at least as far as I am concerned. They have produced most of the top rated RPG's to appear over the last few years. Once again they have struck gold with this one.
This one however is completely different from anything else that they have done so far. There is a game here but the main reason for buying this is for the toolset with which the game was created. It fully implements the 3rd edition D&D rules and allows you either on your own or with friends play the D&D game graphically. You can either play a stand alone module or one of the players can act as the DM and direct things in a god like manner just like the paper and pencil version.
The toolkit has many parts to it, the first being an excellent graphics editor. Here you select tiles from various tilesets (such as rural, city, dungeon etc) and place them wherever you want to form a map of the area you are creating. You can then alter things like the clour of the tiles and the colour and density of the fog. This can be done for both day and night in any area. Sounds and music can then be added, from the host of those available. Several of these areas can then be linked together so that players can move around the different parts of your world. To give the areas life you can add placeables like chests, scenery items like trees and even decorative magical effects.
Monsters can then be added either as individuals or as encounters. Encounters consist of a number of monsters and you can edit the difficulty, the number and the type which the players will find in the game. Encounters can also be set to respawn any number of times at specified intervals. The monsters themselves are also fully editable and you can create a half dragon zombie if you really want. Placeables like chests etc can also be edited giving them locks and traps of varying kinds as well as determining what their contents are.
You can create NPC's using the same tools and give them conversations enabling them to react with PC's. They can also be given animations and voices and equipment. All of their stats are fully editable just like the monsters.
The real power behind all this however is the scripting language based on C++ which you can use to put all this together. It allows for puzzles to be created, actions to take place following something the player does or does not do, things to be taken from or given to players, in fact anything you can think of really. Scripts can be attached to conversations to make things happen and set variables allowing something else to happen later on. They can also be attached to areas, certain placeables and even the module itself. You can use them to create special effects, cast spells, trigger traps, hide and reveal doors or alter the behaviour of players, monsters and NPC's. With the power of the scripts you can alter just about any fundemental within the game.
The possibilities here are endless and emulates the paper and pen game perfectly. There is a steep learning curve however especially if you have never done any programming before. However Bioware have a superb community site where you can find scripting courses and advice as well as download modules created by other users. The best way to learn is actually to look at the scripts used by the game creaters themselves, all of which you can view and many of which are fully commented allowing you to follow the code.
I cannot commend this game highly enough. The toolset alone is worth the price and there is a game in there too which you'll take at least 100 hours to play. For any fan of D&D this is a must buy.
You can download the module I created here.