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Publisher: Atari

Developer: CD Projekt Red

Release Date: 5/17/2011

Available On

Action RPGs these days are really iffy due to the fact that they tend to feel too formulaic. They usually have good stories, but the graphics are horrible, the combat is clumsy, and the quest system is yawn-worthy. The Witcher 2 takes what was great from the first and makes it even better to form one of the greatest action RPGs of this generation.

You play, once again, as Geralt of Rivia, a witch who got framed for assassinating King Demavend and must prove his innocence. The story is heavy on politics but is also very deep and feels just like the novels. Triss Merrigold also returns with her beautiful red hair and all. You will also see other familiar faces, such as Zoltan Chivay and Dandelion. The new faces are strong, likable, and memorable characters that you will grow to love or hate, respectively, throughout the course of this 20- to 30-hhour game. Geralt himself is even stronger this time around, with more problems than you can shake a stick at. You learn to respect him more and see just how much this poor man can take. CD Projekt really shows you the roots of both good and evil in humanity in such a realistic fashion, and that’s what really drives the characters home.

The combat in The Witcher 2 is better than the first game because gone are the timed sword swings and stances. You now just have light and heavy attacks, but you can block and counter-attack (when you unlock the skill), and you still use the steel/silver sword combo. Steel is for people, and silver is for monsters. Combat was very hard to do when the game first launched, but patches as of late have fixed this for multiple blocking and faster responses. The combat isn’t great and is clumsy, especially early on when you aren’t very strong and towards the end of the game. Combat will make you smash your monitor in frustration in the beginning because you have to learn to just hit once or twice, dodge, run around, hit another couple of times, rinse, and repeat 50 times. Yeah, it’s one of those games in the beginning. After you level up enough, you can cut down enemies in just a couple of swings, and groups of 7–10 won’t really bother you.

Of course, you can equip better armor, weapons, and so forth, but The Witcher lets you do other things like equipping trophies that are found on bosses that increase stats, using sword enhancements such as oils, whetstones, runes, and armor enhancements (kind of like Monster Hunter?). This adds a lot of depth to the customization of your loadout, which has endless possibilities. I think the biggest improvement is resource gathering and alchemy because it’s so simple and easy now. Just gather resources as you go, and you can meditate and create potions that increase your vigor (for signs; more on that later), vitality (health), a potion that lets you see in the dark, damage-increasing potions, etc. The only problem is that you can’t drink them from the menu; you have to use them before a fight. This is my biggest beef with the game because if you are low on health in a fight, you’re screwed unless you took a swallow potion beforehand. The premeditated potion drinking is a big flaw in the game, I think, but some hardcore RPG players may like this.

The Witcher is also famous for its signs because witchers can’t use magic like sorcerers or mages can. There are six different signs, and they use chunks of vigor but recharge over time. These signs are vital to winning in combat, especially against bosses, so learn to use them in tandem with sword combos, and you can win even the toughest fights. One last thing you can use in combat is Places of Power, which you find with your wolf medallion. Activate it, and you may find, out in the woods or in wild places, signs of power that give you temporary stat boosts. These come in handy early in the game (especially in Flotsam) when you are at a low level.

The story also has moral decisions thrown in there that really change the outcome of the story. Of course, there are multiple playthroughs (but no new game, sadly), so you can see what each decision will bring. There are a lot of plot holes in the story that aren’t filled until the very end during dialog, which I found odd, so if you get confused, just hang in there until the final moments of the game. Overall, my biggest issue is the potion use, combat, and the huge difficulty spikes. The graphics are groundbreaking, with gorgeous lighting, highly detailed textures, amazing landscapes, and varied environments with nice weather effects. The character models look superb, and the voice acting is top-notch. This game just shows that indie developers can make games look great. You do need a monster rig to run the game on high settings (especially with Ubersampling enabling you to probably need dual GPUs and a high-end quad-core CPU). Other than that, The Witcher 2 is amazing in every way and should not be missed by anyone.

Reviewed On

Keyboard & Mouse
Xbox 360 Controller for Windows

Publisher: Atari

Developer: CD Projekt Red

Release Date: 9/18/2008

Available On

I love action RPGs, and The Witcher had a lot of promise when it came out. This game is really for the hardcore due to the fact that it relies on you to decide what to do and never really tells you what to do except what your missions are. It’s very hard to describe just what The Witcher is trying to do, but it seems to have trouble doing it. Most RPGs are simple with a map, inventory, leveling up, buying items, weapons, and armor from townsfolk, etc., but The Witcher makes this a bit more complicated.

To get started, I want to get the quest system out of the way. You can check your quests and track them on your map, but not all quests are clear, and they’re a mess. You’ll end up with over 20 quests at some point, and most of them are completed once you complete the chapter, so they aren’t really quests. This becomes very frustrating because you never know what you’re supposed to do with them except ignore them. Side quests are obtained by talking to certain people, but not all of them are clear and can really leave you clueless as to what to do. One of the most important parts of RPGs is the quests.

The Witcher has an alchemy system, and it seems RPGs just can’t get an alchemy system downright that isn’t overly complicated. You can find ingredients throughout the world by collecting herbs or finding them on dead enemies. You can’t pick certain plants until you read a book about them, and you can’t make certain potions until you obtain the recipes for them. See how this game works against you? Finding these books and potions is a real pain, since it’s like finding a needle in a haystack. Once you do get a recipe, you have to acquire the ingredients for it, which consist of a few components as well as some sort of alcohol base. This also includes health potions, and after I gave up on the game halfway through chapter three, I still couldn’t find enough ingredients to make a health potion.

While alchemy is really complicated and puts a damper on gameplay, magic is the same way. You have an endurance meter, and using one of your seven signs can drain it, so you need a potion to refill it faster, and maybe a potion temporarily increases your stats to get through a tough boss fight. You never feel strong enough. Even when I quit at level 17, I was still getting my ass handed to me, and upgrading weapons and armor is another pain.

You can collect meteorites and give three or more to a blacksmith, and you can upgrade your steel or silver blade. Finding these meteorites is a pain, and usually, not all blacksmiths will just make the weapon they need—a valuable jewel or something of the sort. Finding gold (orens) will be a huge issue since most of the quests are backtracking back and forth between places and only about 40% are fighting. Even in chapter three, I still couldn’t get enough gold to buy armor.

Besides this, the combat system is pretty solid. You have three different styles you can use, which are strength, speed, and group. You can switch to each on the fly, and timing is lowered by clicking when the icon turns into a flaming sword, which allows powerful combos. The fighting system doesn’t really go beyond that, so it gets dull after a while. When you level up, you can upgrade stats and different attributes, but you always feel the game is more powerful than you, no matter what you do. Leveling up isn’t a simple matter since you have to find an inn or a campfire and meditate, and this is also the only way you can use alchemy. Why did the developers make a game that works against you? Why can’t I just find a potion and drink it like in every other RPG? Why do I have to have flint to light a campfire?

The game starts out fairly easy, but once it dumps into the world, it feels linear, and you don’t know what to do. There are a bunch of little annoying things, like you can’t see in a dark cave unless you drink a cat potion or carry a torch. A lot of the dialog is good, but the game is full of monotone voice acting. While the story is good, depicting a man named Geralt of Rivia, who is one of the last witches, trying to find a friend and kill an evil group called the Salamandra, it feels like there’s too much filler. The game is truly for the hardcore due to the open reign it gives players. The game looks pretty decent, but nothing close to next-gen, and it just feels a bit dated. For $20, you get a lot of games here, but some people may be lured in and quickly let down.