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 Geralt = well aard July 8, 2008
A. J. Wheadon (Winchester)
As you can see from that awful pun, humour doth flow from me like a river...
Anyway, the witcher.
The first thing that comes to mind for me when playing the witcher was, oddly enough, Oblivion. But not in the way you might think. The Witcher approaches the RPG genre from almost entirely the opposite direction from Bethesda's Classic. Rather than a sprawling, completely open world, we are instead given a handful of enclosed areas to explore through, with invisible walls keeping us on the right path. Instead of a traditional fantasy world of black and white morality and gorgeous scenary, we have a low fantasy setting full of corruption, shades of grey and shadowy, grimy cities (This is the best I've seen the Aurora engine looking) . That's not to say that either approach is bad, it's just that they're different approaches to the genre.
Oblivion had so many side-quests and faction questlines, that the main quest frequently got forgotten, and only picked up occasionally. In The Witcher however, we are given a far more story-led game. Almost all the sidequests focus around the central points of the main one, either being necessary to advance it further, or providing some background information on the current situation, and I really like it. It managed to bestow a sense of purpose to the main character, and feels like you're steadily progressing towards your goal, unlike in Oblivion where the end of the world seemed content to wait until you were ready to combat it.
The 'Witcher' of the title is Geralt; a human mutated by constant ingestion of potions that eventually create a witcher - a proffesional monster hunter with abilities far beyond normal humans, who is immune to disease, highly resistant to poisons etc. Obviously, the secrets to creating a Witcher must be attractive to outsiders, which is why someone attempts to steal them pretty much the moment Geralt wakes up from his coma with no recollection of his past life. As the story progresses, Geralt must hunt down those responsible, and retrieve the mutagens, whilst uncovering more of his past, and steadily re-learning his abilities (leveling up!). From the offset, the plot seems altogether bland and generic, and indeed continues to seem so for the first chapter or so. After that, however, the plot begins to twist and turn like a drunk on a pogo stick.
This is actually a recurring theme, and problem with the witcher, it seems to have the view that fun is something to be unlocked, rather than given to you from the start. A perfect example is the combat, whereby you click to attack an enemy, then click again, when the sword icon turns to a flame to perform the same attack again and again and again. This means that for a good portion of the game, you're stuck with very dull combat, and it was only later, when you level your style skills, that more interesting animations are used. I will admit that by level 5 in each style, you do look awesome, pirouetting through a swarm of enemies, your sword slashing from all directions, but it takes you so long to be able to do this, which is a real shame.
While the combat claims to be tactical, there is really very little to it, other than clicking at the right moment. You have 2 swords, and 3 styles for each, but only 1 sword and style is actually any good at killing each individual monster, so appart from using group style when there's 3 or more, there's generally not much to it. If you can't get past a fight, then the solution is usually simply to drink more potions before entering combat. Having said that, the signs (Aard, Igni, Yrden, Quen, Axii) are very nicely designed, and give the combat an extra dash of flavour. The aard knocks enemies back, the igni is a direct damage flame attack, the yrden creates a magical trap on the ground, the quen creates a magical shield around the player and the axii turns weak-minded enemies to your side, which is why it's so baffling that by the time you actually GET the axii sign, it's completely useless - anything it works on dies in about 3 hits. The other four are brilliant though, each also has an alternative effect caused by holding right mouse to power up the sign before release. Combining them effectively with the potions and general combat makes it interesting, but it's only ever a genuine challenge on the hardest difficulty setting.
Character progression is done rather nicely, at each level up you gain talents, which are required to unlock the next level of a style, sign or attribute, or to add abilities or effects to the styles of signs. Unless you train yourself up outside of the quests, you won't manage to unlock all of them, but you can unlock enough to make tailor Geralt to do pretty much what you want, and it's an incredibly simple and effective system overall.
As I mentioned earlier, the world you find yourself in is full of shades of grey, and quite often it's difficult to make a choice between them. The two main factions are the Scoi'atel and the Order of the Flaming rose, and at several points in the game, you must choose between them. The problem is, there's very little to differentiate them early on, the Scoi'atel are non-human freedom fighters, responding to the horrific racism heaped upon them, but at the same time, their methods are starting to resemble the humans that they fight against. And the order are quinissential good guys, but they've taken a stand against the Scoi'atel. The two factions frequently clash, and you have to make the really hard choice between which you support.
Thankfully, the early skirmishes don't mean as much in the later game, and when it finally does matter, you can do what Geralt would do when given the choice between a greater and a lesser evil, which is not choose. The downside, is theat your neutrality causes them both to turn against you, ah well. I am impressed by the moral choices that the game throws at you, the consequences are often quite far reaching, and there is the odd moment when you have to choose between doing good and doing what is actually profitable to you, which I really respect.
The dark world of the witcher is clearly one geared towards mature players, which presumably is why every character swears constantly, and ever woman in the game uses sex as a way to finish sentances. The sheer amount of sex in the witcher is actually to it's detriment in my opinion. Whilst I have no problems with it in moderation, the fact that most of the women will jump you if you give them a bread loaf seems to rather break the realism somewhat - not to mention that you get a card depicting your conquest, which seems a wee bit misogynistic to me. In fact, in the entire game, only one character actually reacts in a vaguelly logical way to your constant shagging, and that is Shani (and the prostitutes, technically). Which is why, I eventually chose to take my relationship with her further, which actually becomes an almost touching love story, at least until you have a threesome in the second to last chapter *rolls eyes*.
Other than that, the characterisation is relatively well done, nothing special though, and the voice acting is definatly better than Oblivions, but is otherwise marred by there being VERY few character models outside of the main characters. It somewhat breaks the immersion when you're talking to someone, and you see their twin walking past in the background. It also doesn't help that the dialog seems somewhat broken, but apparently this is going to be remedied in a patch later this year, so I will have to wait and see what that's like.
All told The Witcher is simply a good game, rather than a great game. The good ideas take a little to long to appear, and whilst playing it there is a string of constant problems. None of them are ever really enough to stop the game being fun, they just hold it back from being a classic. With luck, The Witcher 2 will improve on this.
 My first 3rd person game July 8, 2008
David W. Brynolf (Scotland. UK. (The 'Rainy' place))
First off, I normally hate playing 3rd person games but this one has converted me to that genre. The game is so involved and intricate that it hurts. I totally enjoyed the game.
 !!! May 30, 2008
Moosh
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
"Loading times from hell" should be the tag line. Is this Polish humour or are they taking the piss. Sort it out and release the Enhanced Edition before we all die of old age. I can't play a game in that state that this is,no matter how good it eventually is.
Don't miss this one May 28, 2008
A. Bonn (United Kingdom)
For those of you who like new ideas, bold creativity, compelling immersion and excellent art - don't miss this. It does have loading times that require tea-breaks, the occasional tiresomely laborious combat scene and lacks intuitiveness at times, but you will forgive all these for what you get back in new and adventurous themes and art - even the loading screens are excellent (Though you do get to see them for looooooong periods) This is the best of this genre since Morrowind (Especially for those who felt let down by Oblivion) and is quite diffenrent.
Absolutely Brilliant! April 21, 2008
C. Ross
A really excellent RPG. Refreshingly different, great story, fresh combat and character development. Highly recommended, but wait for the enhanced edition due out shortly which will be even better.
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