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26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Witcher - A breath of fresh air in the RPG market, 29 Oct 2007
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Just bought this game on Friday and its very good indeed.
From the moment you start up the game (install is 8.5 gigs!) you are treated to a delightful intro sequence which is probably the longest and best intro i have seen for a while. It gives you a little background on your character Geralt - A Witcher. Witcher's are a breed apart from normal human beings: taken at an early age they are trained and modified to fight monsters and creatures of the night, they are expert swordsmen and have some magic ability as well.
Once you are in the game proper : you find yourself at the Witcher castle headquarters with other witchers. This part is mainly a tutorial for you to learn combat, movement etc. So do not be put off by the game if you are unimpressed by the start.
The combat can take some getting used to but if i were to describe it: i would say it is a cross between Diablo style and Knights Of The Old Republic style. There are different camera viewpoints you can use for playing the game: an Over the shoulder 3rd person close-up style, a low isometric 3rd person style (ie further away - more tactical) and a high isometric 3rd person style (more top-down and further away)
Basically with combat; it is about timing and fighting multiple opponents. Pressing LMB on a monster initiates an attack and then you can chain attack combos further if you press the LMB again at the right time. The graphics and animation for the combat are excellent. You see your character Geralt perform some silky smooth sword techniques depending on what level and what upgrades he has.
As well as levelling up your main attributes (str, int, stam, dex) you can upgrade your swordmanship skills in 3 areas: Strong, Fast and Group. Hopefully those are self-explanatory. But the great thing is: when you upgrade one of these you see the new combat animation in battle. You can also somersault and twirl around apponents which becomes handy if you are fighting multiple enemies (common). This combat is very enjoyable which makes a change for an RPG because normally combat takes a backseat in RPGS. You can also upgrade your weapons and collect trophies of boss monsters you have managed to kill.
The Story is fairly unique and interesting as it is based on a series of polish fantasy novels. It is certainly not your standard fantasy fare here. More interesting is that there are a lot of decision-moments in the game where you must make a moral choice and it affects the story! But you dont find out till much later in the game what effect it had. Absolute genius!
Graphics: 93% Graphics are similar to Gothic 3 and better than Oblivion imho. Animation is superbly done and very smooth. What is most impressive is the lighting: morning, afternoon, evening and night, they all look different because of the lighting and it is very atmospheric.
Sound: 90% A Brilliant orchestral soundtrack (using bagpipes?) accompanies the game when your playing.
Gameplay: 95% This is the trump card imho. Gameplay is what makes games great and this has some magic ingredient which hooks you in, its partly the story, its partly the art style and its partly the sound but it all comes together magnificently to create this experience.
Overall 94% It may not have the out and out freedom of Oblivion but it combines some freedom (think slightly more freedom than KOTR) with a superb structure. Tons of sidequests (80 hours+ game) and its not all about simple Fedex quests; a lot of them have heart and soul :)
The interface and menus are very well designed as well - it all feels very fresh and original.
There are so many things i havent mentioned yet but i dont have space: The Alchemy system (brewing potions) is the most in-depth i have seen in a PC RPG. Also because this is an 18 game the story is quite dark and mature! Some of the jokes are quite bawdy as well! So be prepared for that. But when is the last time you played a PC game that treats you like an adult?
There are numerous mini-games with the game, including: fist-fights, dice-gambling and sleeping with women as well as collecting herbs and brewing potions for yourself. And i'm only in chapter 1 !
You know in most RPGS - there are main NPCS and there are the NPCS which are just part of the scenery and dont affect the story/game so much at all. In this game a lot of the so-called minor NPCS actually make a significant difference in the game! In a normal rpg like Oblivion if you ask them something they will respond with a bland nondescript answer but in this game you can get new knowledge, surprises, gifts and money among other things from them!
The way quests are handled is well done as well: If you had a quest to kill x amount of Ghouls you cant just go out and kill them. Because you need to harvest them as well - And for that you need --Knowledge-- You will have to find out about the enemies either through what other NPCS tell you or through books but this is a great innovation. The quests are knowledge dependant which is how it should be! Brilliant!
If you are wondering how well it will run on your system - i am happy to report that it seems to run and scale extremely well for most DX9 systems: im running it on a xps1710 laptop with a go7900GTX and 2gig ram (very important in this game) at maximum settings and its super smooth. I think there may be a few problems with vista users but the developers have been very quick with patches for the game.
Loading times between areas can be a bit long but if you have 2 gig ram it should be fine.
All in all an excellent rpg with 80 hours of gameplay! Finally the clincher.....which other game is so realistic it lets you sleep with numerous women? (collectible cards for each woman!)
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55 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A No Mercy return to Form, 31 Oct 2007
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Lately there's been next to nothing of big releases that have gripped or even pleased me. Oblivion? Dull, faceless, static. Two Worlds? Beautiful but broken (not fond of restarting 3 times because factions switch to hostile, cheers.)
But here's The Witcher: a no mercy return to form for character and story rpgs on pc.
Gameplay: It comes from the Aurora engine that built Neverwinter Nights. That much is apparent from the kick-off. Combat, at its core, is turn based as you'd expect but with full real-time dodging, running and combination attacks. During combat you can alter fighting style to suit the opponent, shoot up on drugs, take potions, backflip to safety, use spells. Nothing particularly new on the RPG tree, but a tried and tested system that doesn't disapoint.
The three camera modes let you choose from a distant, Neverwinter style movement system, point and click, whilst the third brings you right up close, at times the handheld feel of the camera gave it a Gears of War-esque intensity.
Story: I think it's one of the first games where player choices do actually matter above anything else, despite was Fable, The Elder Scrolls and Gothic will tell you. Definately not the standard ixie-pixie D&D style world that's so common today either. There's strong racism, bad language, indiscriminate sex, child labour, terrorism - things a conventional RPG wouldn't touch with a 10ft barge pole.
Sound: Massive. Smashing the seven shades of ginger out of your opponents can be a room shaking experience if you've got a subwoofer. Dialogue ranges from superb to clunky and includes most of the modern world's dialects and accents. One moment i'm talking to an English Yorkshireman, the next, A Russian gambler, next, an American. Music is brilliantly composed but performance is lacking. The UMPHH! just never comes and definately shows sampling and sequencing over life performance.
I have to rate this as one of my best PC purchases this year. More gripping than BioShock and Two Worlds by far. Gambling, shagging every woman you meet, getting drunk, smacking some monsters - it's really like playing the hero we (hulking great apes sat at our machines) want to be. And if i were to be blunt, it's alot like Conan (that's good...)
Tech:
Okay thus far i've only encountered one crash in the 18 hours i played (solid). But i've picked up on a fair few complaints of repeated crashes. Runs with a frame rate of 54 on 5600AMD Dual Core, Geforce 8800gtx. Some screen tearing occurred, and with no V-sync option that could be a problem .
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best RPG I ever bought!, 19 April 2008
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
I have been playing RPGs for over 20 years and despite advances in computing power and graphics technology none have surpassed the old D&D games of the early 1990's for gameplay; until now. In OTS mode The Witcher is the most superb RPG gameplay experience I have ever encountered. As an ex-computer progammer I have to take my hat off to the guys at CDProjekt for at last breaking the fantasy RPG mould.
Anyway, before I run out fo space let's get down to details.
Graphics: 8/10. Superb. However, repeating NPC character animations get a bit boring. Problems with some graphics cards at certain resolution that cause the game to spontaneously crash. You can usually find a resolution that is reasonably stable, but crashes do still occur so save often. There is an updated version due out soon which I hope will solve these issues.
Sound: 7/10. Appropriately supports the game. English language lip sync issues with NPCs. Again claimed to be addressed in the updated version.
Gameplay: 9/10: OTS mode is excellent and really immerses you in the game. Use of sword and 'signs' is well balanced. There are also opportunities to use your fists. Magic is mostly catered for by self-use of potions which you must learn to make.
Storyline: 8/10: I have only played about 1/3 of the game so far, so it's a bit early to comment on story line; but one thing's clear, there are many different ways to achieve the same objective. Also there are plenty of side quests that both add to and sometimes are inter-woven with the main story line. So in other words, the storyline is about as non-linear as you can get.
There's simply not enough space here to describe all the facets of this excellent game. If RPG is your bag I suggest you go buy it and enjoy finding out for yourself.
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