The Witcher. I was wondering what are yours opinions on this game? Will you buy it or just walk past it without noticing it? I am mostly interested in your opinion on the world of the witcher.

 

I remember reading a Penny Arcade comic about this game about two or three years ago. I thought it had been abandoned...

 

Today (October 26th) it hit the stores around the world (except USA).

 

It certainly had good ideas, but there are many bugs. And one big negative point is the long loading time. Everytime you go out of a house (even if it's just a small shelter) it reloads the whole fucking world (outside).
But that one decision you make somewhere in the game (to kill a person or not for example) can make a huge impact later on (Like 5+ hours) is a really great idea.
But IMO the negative aspects outweight the positive ones, so I decided on "Meh"
Btw: I'm currently far too lazy to write a proper review with all the positive and negative points...

 

Playing it now.

This game has THE single most badass intra movie I've ever seen. The CGI is Hollywood worthy save for the lighting effect on the.. well you'll see. It looks a bit strange.

I hope the game lives up to the intro.

Edit: Game is detailed as shit. So far I'm not too far in, but it's been awesome.
Edit 2: Rofl, just got laid with the hot redheaded sorceress

The camera angles in isometric view ain't great, use over the shoulder camera to be able to play decently. It's a but annoying at times, but it's good once you get used to it. The reviews arent lying, there's alot of loading screens, but with my PC, they're a few seconds each. With a dirt slow PC, I could see it being annoying.

My PC is running this game maxed out around a teady 70 fps, that's with 8x FSAA, and 16x AF at 1680x1050.
The below screenshots might seem weird to some of you using smaller resolutions. Blow it p fullsize to see the quality

There are a fucking LOAD of skills. Current count, 15 pages of skills like the one linked below.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/Midknight00711/Witcher/skills.jpg

Iso normal view
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/Midknight00711/Witcher/witcher2007-10-2716-11-43-50.jpg

Close in one is not much closer, so I didn't bother to SS it.

Enemy mage
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/Midknight00711/Witcher/witcher2007-10-2716-06-31-31.jpg


Friendly hot magess
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/Midknight00711/Witcher/Triss.jpg

 

Initial Impression, its good...very good....and that's understating it. I just lost 5 hours to it somehow without realising it.

I won't go into storyline detail lest it spoil things for those who havent played yet, but the game is great. Characters are shades of grey rather than black/white which makes for a much more interesting experience.

The combat moves although automatic need linking together, so it isn't a button masher like Oblivion. But its also not completely automatic like NWN either. Its a nice balance and can lead to some glorious combos.

They have done wonders with the Bioware graphics engine, visually the game looks stunning when you find certain areas (sunrises - wow). NPC AI has been tweaked so that if it rains they go looking for shelter and
will interact (chat) amongst themselves. A very nice touch.

The game has a Mature rating and a 18 stuck on the disc and I can understand why, not just for the gory graphics but mainly for the topics which are being covered in the quests. So far I've come across a couple of themes which I've been surprised to see in a computer game. Not quite as daring as Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines was, but on the same lines.

Overall I would recommend it. Very cool game so far, and I am only five hours in

 

Especially when they insult you or gossip about things you have had done.

 

Banging the sorceress
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/Midknight00711/Witcher/bestbed.jpg

Banging the barmaid
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/Midknight00711/Witcher/witcherbangingthebarmaid.jpg


What are you guys doing for skills? Mine are currently weird.

Strength is buffed up abit, and I unlocked stuff in Intelligence to let me harvest components from the fields. Got alot of books to let me harvest stuff from animals.

The first sign is leveled up some, then toss a point in dex for the dodge. I am not understanding why though, in the first sign level up screen, you have rank 1, above that, it lets it hit 180 degrees and ups the strength. Yet for rank 2, it has the exact same skill, enabling it to go 180 degrees again???


Playing OTS cam as well?

The funniest part so far was when I went to the haunted mill to screw the barmaid. She starts screaming out, and the cam goes to the locals saying the mill must be haunted again, they should call a witcher to get rid of the screaming ghost, lol.

Uncensored European version ftw.

 

I'm investing in fast and group steel/silver sword fighting and also in strenght and dexternity. Aard is good to stun your oponents and then you can get a cool finishing move.

It is the beauty of Sapkowski writing style. They [the creatores of the game] captured it really well.

 

What happens if you kill a villager?

I was fighting group style surrounded by like 6 barghests, and one of my backhand swings smacked a militia member. they started hitting me, and I had to bail ass out of town. I went in and out of houses a few times and they finally went back to nonhostile, and warned me to keep the peace. I assume if I kill one there will be some sort of jail like Obilivion?

They released one of his books with the game according to the manual, is his other stuff translated anyone know?

 

I tried the traditional iso-view at first, but I'm now running OTS cam yeah. Helps me feel more immersed, and adds the whole new element of being able to be jumped from behind.

I am not too happy with my skills so far to tell you the truth. Mostly I've gone for a Strength and Strong Steel setup with Dex being my secondary area, with odd points scattered around here and there. I miss attacks more than I would like, but when I do hit I hit hard.
I have a feeling that another few hours in I will probably restart to lay my character out better. I'm pretty much experimenting for now, whilst doing quests and whatnot (though sleeping with women has now been added to my to do list ) and I think that I'll probably struggle later on if I don't go back and fix my setup.

Unfortunately I am not sure about his books, but if I find that some are translated then I may well order them when I'm done with the game. The world is very intriguing and immersive. Very fun to play.

 

I just wish they hadn't of done amnesia, thats just pure cheap. The again the guy supposedly died and come back to life, hopefully that's going somewhere decent

 

Yeah, I heard about him dying and all which makes the amnesia make some sense. To be honest though however cheap it might be I think it's probably necessary. It'd be a lot more difficult to appeal to a wide base if you were jumping into a game where the character is always talking about/referring to stuff you don't know about. It'd be hard to get that immersion that (hopefully) the slow dissipation of the amnesia will give.

 

The Last Wish. The first compilation of Sapkowski short stories. The rest is on the way. By "the rest" I mean: another compilation of short stories ("The Sword of Destiny) and 5 novel-lenght books (Blood of the Elves, Time of Disdain, Baptism of Fire, The Swallow's Tower, Lady of the Lake). Here is another of his stories (it's in PDF). It's called Lesser Evil.

At least it is not the main plot of the game.

 

Sweet, thanks for the link.

I'm getting a bit frustrated with it, the fist fights especially, the hit detection feels like something out of Rock-'em-Sock 'em Robots.

Finally figured out how to get into the Crypt, the loading times are getting to me as well, learned to never leave the outside main world if possible. 10 seconds in, then 20 seconds out to load the main world gets aggravating.

Money seems really hard to come by early on as well, I'm hustling the dice players as much as I can.

Edit: I see more ghouls in the crypt, but I can't get to them, I guess I'd need to upgrade the telekinetic sign more to be able to move the barriers??

Something else I found, you run much faster when you have your weapon drawn. I'll run outside, draw it, and keep hitting the "C" button every now and then to keep it out. Over a short test distance, I shaved 2 seconds off my run time, as you go further, it'd save even more time. Only works at night sadly.

I'll be looking for a mod to allow you to run faster, or to keep the weapon out always. It peeves me off bad when I get jumped, kill them all, he puts the sword away and i try to loot, and I get jumped again. then I have to wait for the sword drawning animating, getting hit the whole while, then repeat.

Having random CTD's every hour or so.

Just banged the witch.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/Midknight00711/Witcher/witcher2007-10-2819-58-10-06.jpg

Made NO sense why. I found her in a cave where the Salamandra were hiding out kidnapping kids, broke down a wall, and she's right there... probably be explained later, but for right now, wtf. We got busy with the kids literally within line of sight when the action came up, rofl.

The Beast is driving me fucking crazy. Like 10 reloads now

 

I'm officially about to punch the monitor. I can't beat the damned Beast.

Did all but 1 of the sidequests in act 1, I've tried taking Thunder, Blizzard, Swallow, and the end reggening potion in the cave AND as well as on another load outside the cave right as he attacks, and I can get CLOSE to killing him, but before I can use the sign on him to knock him down once he gets under 50% like the official forums say, I get stunned by that cheap ass move he has and raped.

Keeping the witch alive helps... if I can get to her in time, which I usually can't the dogs drop her ass in under 3 seconds.

Edit: I can say, I've never been this mad at a game. It made beating him that much sweeter... then I got jumped by the preacher, and 2 others I helped, Oso, and the merchant dude, and died. Reloaded, 10 tries later, did it again.

Set the clock to 11pm, buffed up in the cave. Specter oil on the blade, End/Regen special mixture potion, a Regen potion, and a Thunder. Got out, time went to 12:30. (DONT sleep until midnight, or it'll advance to the next day and you'll loose all your buffs) Set camera to isometric, group style, nailed first round of doggies. Witch lived, sweet. strong styled the Beast, he stunned me, dropped me to 40%. Ran in circles while I regenned and the witch healed me. Got back above 50%, hit him 4 times with a strong sword chain, hit him with magic, insta killed. Wiped the floor with the addition encounter right after!


Don't know if I mentioned it before, but watch out how many save games you keep, those things rack up fast and they're a decent size too. I had over 500 mb of saves just from the first act, most of them autosaves

 

This is pretty fucking funny


Prostitute humping http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/Midknight00711/Witcher/Prostitue.jpg

Banging the Gossip
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/Midknight00711/Witcher/gossip.jpg

 

Ehhem. Pardon the necropost, but Yahtzee from The Escapist, the reviewer who does "Zero Punctuation" has just released a review of this game.

Behold!

Also, I love this game. It's so fun...

 

Yahtzee hath spoken.... and I hath agreed. Mamorpaguh without the fun social factor...

Bleh.

 

I disagree with the review completely, but thought it was funny.

The game's only major fault, as far as I'm concerned, is the fact that the characters don't react to anything. Maybe I haven't played enough of it, but hell, I've played a hell of a lot more than Yahtzee did.