Actually, there's the advantage of possibility of direct control of your character that I love for exploring. ... Well it would be, if camera worked.

I used to get this bug in NWN2 when the overhead camera literally fell out of the sky to the ground, so it became literally stuck to the ground, it was probably the most annoying issue I've ever had in a video game, worse than a CTD because it basically made the game unplayable when it happened, the only way to "fix" it was to reload a previous save and hope it didn't happen again.

This was back when NWN2 was new though, it probably got patch out (haven't played my GOG version yet).

I tried to get into pre-Ravenloft/Menzobarrenzan D&D games, but couldn't get beyond the abysmal GUI and graphics, Eye of the Beholder excepted.

Otherwise, I found the above games had a decent story, decent dialogue and were highly atmospheric (probably worth playing at least a bit for the feel of it... I got into the AD&D Ravenloft campaign setting based on those games and am an avid fan of that setting to this day), but had incredibly dull and repetitive gameplay. I'm trying to think off the top of my head of any memorable gameplay moment not directly tied to the story or some pre-scripted even from the Ravenloft games and can't.

The most memorably battle sequence from Menzoberranzan was when Drizzt tumbled off a wall to kill a gnoll in his initial intro and that was a pre-scripted sequence. I also remember fondly the pre-scripted event where an elf that joined your party polymorphs into Aboleth form and attacks you.

When did it hit that spot though?. It sold a ton of copies during the last two major GOG sales remember...

No, as in it's the #2 Top Seller RIGHT NOW, not overall.

They were more of a mixed bag. There were plenty of great ones, but also a lot of not so good ones. Eye of the Beholder still holds up really well.

I've seen it too, graphics and sound are better, but I can't help but think the controls would be pretty annoying without a keyboard.

I actually played through the NES version of Bard's Tale last year, out of boredom.

I installed NWN2 recently, and I couldn't get past the interface. No matter what I tried I couldn't get into it. Then I tried Jade Empire, a game that screams console from every bit it has, and I was able to play (and enjoy) it.

I think I'm going crazy.

The only thing that annoyed me about the NWN2 interface was that it was obviously designed for 720p resolutions, not 1080p. Apart from that it's pretty good, stuff like tooltips for spell and ability descriptions were great, much better than having to reference a manual. Aesthetically though it's pretty ugly.