I'm a little strapped for cash, but I've been yearning for an older RPG. I found Neverwinter Nights  and Baldur's Gate on GOG.com, both of which are ten dollars. They're both classics, and I think I would enjoy both of them. Sadly, I can't decide which to get, so I was hoping the GiantBomb Community would lend me a helping hand in my decision making process.

Baldur's Gate

Baldurs Gate 2.

Edit: This is a genuine suggestion, the original Baldur's Gate has a great story but a much less enjoyable system, so I'd recommend just reading up on the plot of the first game and then playing the second. I believe there's also mods to move the first game into the better second game.

From a story and campaign perspective definitely Baldur's Gate. From a value perspective probably Neverwinter Nights because you can play the game and all of the mods. I prefer the game-play of Baldur's Gate though so my final nod goes to Baldur's Gate.

Both are great games but I will let guess which game I think is better.

(hint: <--- )

@DarthOniXVIII said:

@NeverDave: Well, your suggestion does have merit, but it's a personal rule of mine not to play story driven games and the like out of their intended order. It just doesn't feel right.

I'd agree with you usually actually so I would look into playing the original in the updated Baldur's Gate 2 engine.

There's also a sale coming up early next month I think.
 
If you're lucky maybe both games will be up for half price and you can buy both.

Neverwinter Nights.  Baldur's Gate 1 is pretty terrible.

If you want online fun as well go with Neverwinter Nights. Unless you're not talking about diamond edition :\. Neverwinter Nights is still cool though, so unless you're also getting Baldur's Gate 2 I'd go with NWN.

I think BG's art has aged a little better. It's all sprite based, so there are no muddy textures or clipping or anything like that. And while I never got into NWN (although I did try), Baldur's Gate has sucked up so much of my time that it's a little crazy. I'd say go with BG, but make sure you don't need sleep any tiime soon.

I played both BG and NWN and enjoyed each of them so I'm hard pressed to recommend one over the other. If I was forced to choose I would probably go with BG due to the fact that Minsc and Boo are just way too lovable of characters. Throwing in famous fantasy characters like Drizzt Do'Urden doesn't hurt either.

Baldur's Gate is one of the greatest of all time. NWN is just a good rpg.

@MentalDisruption: I have no interest in the online. Heck, I didn't even know NWN had an online mode. What does that even entail?

@DarthOniXVIII said:

@MentalDisruption: I have no interest in the online. Heck, I didn't even know NWN had an online mode. What does that even entail?

Well it's server based. So there are different servers run by people of the online community. You find one you like and play a character on it. The game has a built in toolset that anyone can use, so each server is uniquely created by different people. Meaning each server has it's own world, rules, gear, etc. Most servers run both of the expansion packs though so you'll need the diamond edition which comes with the expansion to play on most servers, if you do choose to play online. I'm not sure, but I'd assume that the diamond edition is extremely cheap by now anyway. Given it's age. Other than that it's fairly standard. You can party up with people who play on the same server as you and run through different areas, or go solo. Kind of like an mmo before mmo's exploded with WoW. Just less tedious since people are make it themselves.

I would choose Neverwinter Nights if you had to choose between that and Baldur's Gate 1. If you moved to BG2, then definitely that one.

Baldur's Gate. If only so that you can play Baldur's Gate 2 in the future. NWN is great but not as great as BG.

@DarthOniXVIII: Basically it's like a real small scale MMO. People make mods and host servers and basically act as the GM for that server. So they determine where you can go, what items you can get ect. From there you can either go it solo, or you can party up with other players. I had some friends that were really into it, though I never had the time to really join them unfortunately. In some cases they decided to drop some of their actual D&D games to just have one of them host a server and then they all play through various modules and such they made. Overall it's was pretty cool. I'd imagine outside of the graphics it would still be a pretty cool experience now.

Theoretically with dragon age one, they were supposed to have been using an updated engine and new mod tools that would basically allow for people to make the same type of stuff that they did in Neverwinter Nights but on a grander scale (more mod support for things like cutscenes for example), though it's been a very long while since I checked in on that, so I have no idea if it's thriving in the same way the Neverwinter Nights mod community thrived.

@MentalDisruption said:

@DarthOniXVIII said:

@MentalDisruption: I have no interest in the online. Heck, I didn't even know NWN had an online mode. What does that even entail?

Well it's server based. So there are different servers run by people of the online community. You find one you like and play a character on it. The game has a built in toolset that anyone can use, so each server is uniquely created by different people. Meaning each server has it's own world, rules, gear, etc. Most servers run both of the expansion packs though so you'll need the diamond edition which comes with the expansion to play on most servers, if you do choose to play online. I'm not sure, but I'd assume that the diamond edition is extremely cheap by now anyway. Given it's age. Other than that it's fairly standard. You can party up with people who play on the same server as you and run through different areas, or go solo. Kind of like an mmo before mmo's exploded with WoW. Just less tedious since people are make it themselves.

Huh. That sounds really cool actually. Also, the NWN that GOG has is indeed the Diamond Version, so all DLC are included.

Buy Planescape: Torment.