Hilltop wilds, get used to snow.

Shadows of Undrentide does address a few of these issues but it's primary focus is on providing a fun single player experience using the Neverwinter Nights engine as it's basis. So what's new? For starters new specialised prestige classes including Arcane Archer (magic infused bowman), Harper Scout (ranger well versed in lore amongst other things), Assassin (guess what they do), Blackguard (the antithesis of a Paladin) and Shadowdancer (steathy spy of sorts). All of these specialisations are open to a fairly wide range of base classes but only when you have the requisite minimum skill set - all of which is nicely laid out in the manual. Following on are new monsters including dread basilisks, medusa, pit fiends and similarly unfriendly creatures. New terrain sets including snow, desert and a new ruin set. To round it out we also have new spells, most famously including the Bigby's hand series of spells - giant green magical hands are us!

Of course snow doesn't mean people
aren't out in this.

Most of these are embelishments on the core engine. This is Neverwinter Nights and anyone familiar with the game will find the expansions extremely familiar to play. Indeed till the new skills and beasties kick in the opening stages of the expansion pack neccessarily feel very like the original campaign. The story begins in a remote village called Hilltop where you are an apprentice to Master Drogan. When his laboratory is raided, Drogan himself poisoned and four powerful magical artifacts stolen you are charged with getting them back. It seems those four items were hidden in such a remote place precisely because they were so dangerous and it was hoped no one power hungry would find them.

An Ancient forgotten Elvish tomb.
People need to stop leaving these things lying around.

The opening chapter is the questing required to retrieve the four artifacts and while it is very familiar territory the effort Floodgate have put into matters shows here. Nearly every person you encounter has dialogue or an optional subquest you can take. Even buried deep within an ancient Elvish tomb there were creatures there that wanted to talk. Perhaps even more remarkable is the level to which these reponses change based on the kind of character you are playing. When playing as a charasmatic paladin you get very different responses from the somewhat sullen and terse ones that a more rogue-like character gets. It means two major things for players - firstly, you don't have to hack and slash much. For every problem there is a dialogue or errand you can perform that will satisfy matters or make the fighting itself much easier. Secondly care has been taken to give evil a darn good chance to shine, something slightly lacking in the original campaign. Here a blackguard can really stick the knife in, twist it and laugh. If you so wish - the choice is yours.

Armor detail.
Take some time to look closely, the detail work is often
quite impressive and easy to forget at times.