The Witcher : Enhanced Edition - Platinum (PC DVD)

Were I a member of the gaming Industry right now, I would be shamed to be taught what gaming should look and feel like and how it should be marketed by a small Eastern European company. Who of the multi-billion gaming "giants" ever went back to improve a released game? Yet, there you have it: thanks to CD-PROJECT gaming as an art-form is still alive and kicking!

This was the most awaited fantasy cRPG 3 years ago. Not only did the original deliver, but even more work has gone into truly improving it. This PLATINUM edition is patched (to the latest version, 1.5), DRM-free and uncensored. It also offers about 10-12 hours of extra gameplay, as it comes with a Bonus DVD containing new adventures, a printed Guide, printed Manual and a soundtrack CD - all in a beautiful cardboard box, reminding us of the golden age of gaming.
THIS WAS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL cRPG GAMES I HAD EVER PLAYED - AND NOW IT IS GORGEOUS!

The environments are detailed, realistic, and can be experienced from up close. Grass, flowers and tree branches moved in both Fable and Titan Quest as well; these, however, seem so true I caught myself reaching for my...antihistamines! Weather affects and day-night alterations (you have to see the elongating shadows to believe them!) are just gorgeous! More importantly, these are not just eye-candy: certain NPCs and monsters appear only when the correct combination of time-of-day and weather coincide...The horizon is far and the clouds move in endless variations. It reminded me of the sky of the original UNREAL, another visually ground-breaking game at its time. PURE VISUAL MAGIC!

The character (Geralt) can master both sword-fighting and magic spells (what is known as a Warlock). To some die-hard RPG fans this may seem like heresy, nevertheless, keep in mind that multi-classing is not unheard off. The movement repertoire for both practices are impressively designed. Especially the sword-fighting, it is at par to any console action game. And the spells (both offensive and defensive ones) are not less impressive.

Free roaming? Yes and no. One can decide which parts of the map he will visit but loading is still needed to travel even annoyingly short distances. And since quests and side-quest still have to be completed, yes, eventually a subtle, yet ever present, directionality is present.
Looting and bartering? Aaah...yes, sort of. You practically never change the sword you start off with (although you do get to improve its abilities), whereas good armor is only a little easier to come by compared to PlaneScape-Torment. On the upside, you get to gamble, have romantic relationships (FABLE was full of great ideas after all!) and bribe for information, so trinkets have other uses as well.
Detailed character modifiers? Nothing like the AD&D rules. You gain talents (gold, silver & bronze) which you can spend to improve your fighting or magical abilities. Pretty much like the Diablo or the Titan Quest abilities systems.

So, apart for the slight action-cRPG handicap, I have only two other objections. First, the...camera placement. Once more the notorious Aurora Engine (remember NWN2...?) will keep auto-placing it where it is bound to get on your nerves - as it targets your character even if that is not the most logical option. Yes, this has indeed improved compared to the original but one cannot teach an old dog new tricks.
Second, the controls. They need getting used to as the fighting combos are still easily ruined by clicking out of sync. You do eventually get the hold of it, however it keeps glitching.

Nevertheless, its shortcomings are not enough to diminish the breath of fresh air this release brings to the scene. The Enhanced edition not only is a truly reworked game but it also comes full with detailed Manuals, beautiful Maps and all the extras that games used to come with in the good old days...

The Baldurs Gate Saga saga was a masterpiece but (by today standards) is visually wanting to the casual gamer, whereas the Neverwinter Nights series was found, well, wanting in most aspects. THE WITCHER is DREAM cRPG that BIOWARE was supposed to be capable of releasing all along but never did - until very recently Dragon Age: Origins.
That dream game, however, is finally here - and not from whom you would expect. A tip of my hat to CD-PROJECT for keeping the ART-FORM of PC Gaming alive. Well done indeed!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

This is definatly a fantastic game and not your average fairy tale or medieval game you would think. This is probably the closest thing you can get to real if monsters and dwarves existed. Its an 18 for a reason dont buy it for your kids or yourself if you cant take a shock or two...infact only buy it if your prepared to have a laugh at some of the stuff this game produces. Brilliant Dialogue, ace combat system, easy to understand, never nothing to do due to a tight-knit community making mods for the game and adding side adventures for hours more fun, get drunk, play dice poker, get laid and get cards with smokin hot medieval chicks on them after you tap them.

I really like the protagonist Geralt, he has a serious attitude and adeep voice without seeming emotionless, dull or boring. Hes kind of to the point but still shows alot of passion. Hes a fearless Witcher who suffers from memory loss but has the brains to retrace his life...a true warrior.

5/5 stars i found nothing wrong with this game...although be aware that a serial code doesnt come with this version, a slipup on Atari's end. you have to email there helpline with pictures as proof of purchase to recieve a registration key. You can still play the game fully dont worry...but you wont get any future updates or anything like that i think until you register i think.

CLASSIC MASTERPEICE, a must buy.

The Witcher goes back to the simple basics of RPG while adding in a few new features I had not seen in previous games. First of all, unlike most of the current RPG games available right now, you run one specific character and this is the only character you will control throughout the experience. This makes a huge difference from franchises like Neverwinter Nights, Baldurs Gate and Dungeon Siege. You won't find yourself having to micro-manage a team of characters, you won't need to keep up with replacing level appropriate armors or struggling to keep track of which characters need skill upgrades, spell upgrades, no bulk buying potions and trying to calculate which characters should have what. A refreshing change of pace from the games I've played in the past ten years.

In this game, you control one main character: Geralt. Gerelt is a Witcher, which is essentially a mutant bred specifically to kill monsters...for a price! A womanizing potion addict who likes a good drink, Geralt is straight to the point and at times rather tactless (admittedly I find Geralt at times a bit robotic and emotionless but I can't decide if this is intentional plot due to his mutation, or if it's fault through lack of animation and expressive voice acting).

Geralt has a main plotline established through the prologue and tends to weave in and out of his original mission while he searches for "Witchers' work" in exchange for money (you'll soon find that Geralt is rather focused on two things: money and sex).

The storylines is interesting enough, and the fact that all the characters vocally speak makes it much easier to pay attention to (who hates reading small boxes of text in other games?). Did find that most of characters were clones of each other, while the main ones started to look like re-coloured versions of others.

Were a few odd things I noted from the game.

* The tutorials for the game are rather lacking something. You start the game and are immediately thrown right into battle before you've even been introduced to the characters. The instructions seemed basic enough in theory but were wrong in my experience as I was told via the instructions to point and click to attack monsters which caused Geralt to somersault back and forth across the targets like he was auditioning for Cirque de Soleil! I soon worked out that actually waving the mouse pointer across the targets to slash and stab was all that worked.

* The alchemy feature is great but there was hardly any explanation of what to do, and I was quite confused. More care was really needed into making this part clear, as the first section of the game has you making a potion to save the life of a character, and barely explains how you do it.

* The game is VERY heavy on language. Not only is there an F-bomb frequently dropped, but at times I've seen random characters use both "C" words. Some people might find this hilarious, but it gets old. I couldn't find an option to turn this off (as the characters all use recorded vocals, I don't think that's possible) so it definitely isn't suitable for your kids, nor for people sensitive to swearing.

* The game also has a frequent focus on Geralt getting laid by a number of women. Although you don't really 'see' the event taking place, a card comes up showing nudity of the female character he's fornicating with. Later, I'll also mention, there are characters who will stand/walk around completely nude and this is not blurred out in any way. As mentioned in previous point, not suitable for your kids and people sensitive to nudity, even if it is cartoonish. Alot of female players will find this game incredibly sexist.

* All of the characters in game have voiceovers, which is a marvel in itself...however, sometimes the voices are mismatched. I'll give you some examples: On the outskirts of Vizima, there are NPCs (Non-playing characters) wandering around...some of them are female. If you stand around and listen to them, they'll be talking with French accents...that is until you click on them and they will respond to Geralt sounding suspiciously like Wendy Richards in her "Are you Being Served?" days. Sometimes, in Vizima itself, you'll hear the "Wendy Richards" girls wandering around who will suddenly gain impressive American accents when clicked. In the inns, the fist fighers jump from being Manchunian, Brummie and Cockney all in the same one character. The Dwarves, however, seem to remain ever Scottish (I wonder where this stereotype comes from? Does Scotland have world's record for short bearded folk?). This point is minor, and I realise that because the game was re-coded for an international release (I believe it was previously German?) that this should have been expected.

* Unlike the usual RPG games out there, the books available through finding and buying actually have some purpose. They add map information, monster information (incredibly useful as it tells you how best to kill a monster), and character information as well as information on how to make potions, blade coatings and bombs. No more of the books that kept turning up in Baldurs Gate that had no actual use I could see other than storytelling.

* A slightly challenging aspect to the game is that the characters move from place to place depending on times of the day (the game has a clock, and time passes in half-hour increments). For example, one character might be found at the Inn at night, but then during the day be found at a place of business or their house; it's up for you to know exactly when that character will be somewhere as your quest may depend on it. For example you can only find the gravedigger in Vizima during the daylight at the cemetery gates, and you can only find Conrad in the Hairy Bear of an evening.

* With the 24 hour clock in the game, you will find that certain times of the day in towns are more dangerous than others. During the day, you will be able to roam around most towns without the worry of being ambushed, but during the night you can expect it at any times. This doesn't apply to the outdoor areas, sewers or outdoor areas.

* As this is an RPG, like the usual games of the genre, you MUST remember to save your game often. There is no re-spawn (like Dungeon Siege, for example) so you will either have to start a new game or load your previous saved game to continue. If you don't save often, you will lose your progress and end up having to live through the same sections of game again (I tend to save every five minutes, and after every large bulk of quest dialogue).

* You need to patch. Patch does not fix everything, however. The game does have an occasional crash or two sometimes (I've owned the game since Friday and have had five crashes now) so as I mentioned in the previous point, remember to SAVE.

* A large part of this game is that the game is a little like one of those "choose your own adventure" books. The choices you make depend on how you end up in the quests, and you can end up in completely different directions to get to your goal; several characters might be suspicious of a crime and it will be your job to figure out who the real criminal is before taking action or you may find yourself accusing/offending/killing an innocent, therefore changing their opinion of you and preventing them from doing business with you. You can be either good, bad or neutral; it seems to be there is no 'right and wrong' way of doing anything here, as they all seem to go towards the same goal and the quests are still more or less completeable regardless of what you do. The good thing about this though, is that if you decide to replay later, you can try different approaches.

* Did note that the music from this game sounded awfully familiar; I suspect Bioware and Atari share soundtracks with every game they are involved with...the soundtrack here sounded familiar to Baldurs Gate II and Neverwinter Nights. Just observation.

There's alot more to mention but for now I'll leave it at this. I'm still working through the game, which itself is very addictive and amusing. I'd recommend it, as for the price you are getting a hell of a lot of gameplay that is also very replayable. Will be looking to the sequel game once I've finished with this.