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Game Information
- Platform: Windows XP
- BBFC Rating:
Suitable for 18 years and over. Not for sale to persons under age 18. By placing an order for this product, you declare that you are 18 years of age or over. - Media: Video Game
Frequently Bought Together
Product Features
- Geralt of Rivia: a one-of-a-kind protagonist
- A charismatic and unique character, Geralt is a mutant swordmaster and professional monster slayer.
- Choose from over 250 special abilities correlated to attributes, combat skills and magical powers to build the character in a way best suited to tactical needs and style of play.
- Original fantasy world drawn from literature
- Inspired by the writings of renowned Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski.
- Featuring adult themes, less fairy-tale than typical fantasy, with mature social issues like racism, political intrigue and genocide.
- It is a harsh world where nothing is black or white, right or wrong, often forcing players to choose between the lesser of two evils to advance.
- Non-linear and captivating storyline
- Full of turns, twists and ambiguous moral decisions which have real impact on the storyline.
- All quests can be accomplished in several ways and the game has three different endings depending on the player's actions and choices throughout the adventure.
- Visually stunning tactical action
- Engage in complex yet intuitive real-time combat based on real medieval sword-fighting techniques.
- Motion capture performed by medieval fighting experts at Frankfurt's renowned Metric Minds studio, resulting in 600 spectacular and authentic in-game combat animations.
- Six combat styles, dozens of potions, complex alchemy system, modifiable weapons and powerful magic add tactical depth to the fluid real-time
Product details
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Product Description
Manufacturer's Description
The Witcher represents the pinnacle of storytelling in role-playing games, shattering the line between good and evil with a world where moral ambiguity reigns. In a beautiful, rich game universe created by artists first, technology second, the player becomes his own hero in an epic, action-packed narrative uniquely defined by his actions. Returning to the roots of the role-playing genre with a fresh and modern approach, The Witcher emphasizes story and character development in a vibrant world, while incorporating tactically-deep real-time combat like no game before it.
Immersed in a vivid but harsh fantasy world, the player assumes the role of a white-haired witcher named Geralt, a renowned monster-slayer-for-hire and master swordsman with superhuman strength and reflexes. While trying to regain his lost memory, Geralt unwillingly becomes involved in a world-shaking power struggle. Created to provide entertainment for both fans of role-playing games and those seeking fast-paced action, The Witcher brings together epic storytelling and dynamic, visually stunning, and tactically deep action.
Product Description
The Witcher represents the pinnacle of storytelling in role-playing games, shattering the line between good and evil with a world where moral ambiguity reigns. In a beautiful, rich game universe created by artists first, technology second, the player becomes his own hero in an epic, action-packed narrative uniquely defined by his actions. Returning to the roots of the role-playing genre with a fresh and modern approach, The Witcher emphasizes story and character development in a vibrant world, while incorporating tactically-deep real-time combat like no game before it.
Immersed in a vivid but harsh fantasy world, the player assumes the role of a white-haired witcher named Geralt, a renowned monster-slayer-for-hire and master swordsman with superhuman strength and reflexes. While trying to regain his lost memory, Geralt unwillingly becomes involved in a world-shaking power struggle. Created to provide entertainment for both fans of role-playing games and those seeking fast-paced action, The Witcher brings together epic storytelling and dynamic, visually stunning, and tactically deep action.
- Geralt of Rivia: a one-of-a-kind protagonist
- A charismatic and unique character, Geralt is a mutant swordmaster and professional monster slayer.
- Choose from over 250 special abilities correlated to attributes, combat skills and magical powers to build the character in a way best suited to tactical needs and style of play.
- Original fantasy world drawn from literature
- Inspired by the writings of renowned Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski.
- Featuring adult themes, less fairy-tale than typical fantasy, with mature social issues like racism, political intrigue and genocide.
- It is a harsh world where nothing is black or white, right or wrong, often forcing players to choose between the lesser of two evils to advance.
- Non-linear and
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Fun:
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!)
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!)
43 of 49 people found the following review helpful
Fun:
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 .
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 .
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
Fun:
For some reason the beginning really turned me off, but once I got over this I really got into The Witcher. The story is great, and the quest tracker works brilliantly. It also looks great, and should look even better when the new version comes out next month, which by the way is absolutely free if you already own the original. The combat works well, with some extremeley satisfying moves and spells, and you really get your money's worth in terms of gameplay time. The 322mb patch also seems to sort out any stability issues. I'm giving it a five because,so far, I've never enjoyed exploring a fantasy world so much as I have done in The Witcher.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Extremely good RPG
One of the best RPG games I've ever played. Good graphics, excellent storyline, tough choices and interesting characters. If you love RPG games it's a must.
Published 2 months ago by Dp Wasilewski
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Average RPG
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Excellent, very close to Sapkowski's story
I won't go into detailed game's description as so many players did it before me. I only want to say it's in my opinion the most mature game so far released. Read more
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PC Game
I bought this for my son who seems happy with it but as he's a teenager I haven't had much feedback. The most I can expect is a grunt with a smile.
Published on 13 April 2009 by Shelley Eccleston
A classic
An excellent game. Transitions take some time - even with the updates - but overall a classic.
Published on 12 April 2009 by Shrike1313
Best Game Ever
Of all the genres and all the games I've played this is by far and away the best I've ever played. It has the most advanced graphics I've ever seen, so you need to make sure your... Read more
Published on 9 April 2009 by I. M. Knight
WHAT MORE CAN I SAY
Buy the enhanced edition, feel the game, play the game, live the game.
100%
100%
Published on 19 Dec 2008 by Helpless
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