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Featured Game #14 The Witcher 2

Dark Drakan

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For anyone not familiar with these threads see my others here. Basically I want peoples opinions on the games in these threads and what you liked/didnt like in them.
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This weeks game is:The Witcher 2
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This is one of the games I havent played but im really interested in now its heading to Xbox 360. I thought the original looked superb but I dont have a PC that would run it and then The Witcher 2 was released for PC also and received rave reviews. Been quite jealous of PC gamers having it all to themselves then CD Projekt said they were working on a console version much to my delight (and apprehension to it being dumbed down). However with IGN's new article which I posted here im even more interested. I know there are some gamers here who have played it so id like to know your thoughts on the game.
Average Metacritic Score
PC - 88/100
Things that appeal to me
  • Adult storyline and content
  • Combat looks great
  • Dialogue choices & gameplay decisions to make
  • Good mix of skills to use in the game
  • Visuals look impressive
I dont know enough about the game to list any cons or things I dont like about it yet but im interested to hear what others thought.
Now for this week people can voice their opinions on the game...
Can post your own Pros and Cons or if you havent played it things that appealed to you/didnt appeal and why you didnt play it...

Any questions about the thread or suggestions for next weeks featured game send me a message.
 

Gikoku

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Good choice, really like this game.

I was afraid my PC wouldn't be able to run it when I saw the visuals in action, but after getting my hands on it (and after all the updates), my rig runs it excellently at max settings. And with that said, the visuals are utterly gorgeous and I have to say the screenshots shared by the press don't do the game justice. The character animations are top-notch and move with a very life-like flow (easily witnessed when you first meet Vess), with voice acting that equally compliments the game's rich party of personalities.

The combat is solid, but will take some getting used to for sure. It's definitely along the lines of Assassin's Creed combat with just a hint of Fable, such as taking on a group of enemies then flowing between spells and melee. I've really been enjoying the story so far and its cinematic approach, throw that in with believable acting and meaningful characters and it becomes easy to actually care for what's going on in the game.

I'm wondering if they'll be keeping the nudity and sex scenes intact for the console port, even though they don't really add much to the story, they do help give a bit more weight to the intimate and lust-filled moments. Still, as great as this game is it does have its cons, though only a few. For one: Even though this game was well designed for both Keyboard/Mouse and an Xbox 360 controller.. the interface text is mind-bogglingly small. It's great that it fully supports Xbox controllers so one doesn't have to hunch over a desk all day... but not so great when they designed it for one to be sitting 3ft. away at max distance. I sit 7-8ft away from my HDTV which the rig is hooked up to, and I can't read a damn thing on this game's menu, very annoying.

The other cons I have is NPC difficulty, in large numbers it can be a bit of a handful especially when enemies are at your back, however 1-on-1 and it's not that difficult. Even at higher difficulties, which only changes their stats and not the AI where in some cases enemies will patiently wait for attacks. The final con I have are the journal entries for quest objectives, if you don't pay close attention to dialogue/cutscenes you're going to be pretty lost in many places. Vague journal entries of what you have to do along with objective markers being non-existent at times on your map.

Still, cons aside. This game was definitely worth it and I gladly recommend it.

Cons:
- Not very challenging AI, especially later in the game.
- Small text menu that isn't ideal for couch players. (PC)
- Vague journal entries with many quests that don't have a quest marker.
- There are moments where the game tries to play at being stealthy, but falls flat without any real stealth mechanics.

Pros:
- Gorgeous visuals with life-like animations, epic environments, and well designed cut-scenes.
- Solid combat with a nice flow between melee and ranged.
- Good depth to character development with many abilities & skills to choose from.
- Voice acting is great and allows for players to care for the characters.
- Deep storytelling that has been excellent so far. The story revolves around Geralt mainly, and you'll get as deep a story on him as you will with Kaim from Lost Odyssey in the dream sequences.
- Conversation choices can make a difference and interacting with the characters is entertaining.
 

Dark Drakan

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I'm wondering if they'll be keeping the nudity and sex scenes intact for the console port, even though they don't really add much to the story, they do help give a bit more weight to the intimate and lust-filled moments.

Still, as great as this game is it does have its cons, though only a few. For one: Even though this game was well designed for both Keyboard/Mouse and an Xbox 360 controller.. the interface text is mind-bogglingly small. It's great that it fully supports Xbox controllers so one doesn't have to hunch over a desk all day... but not so great when they designed it for one to be sitting 3ft. away at max distance. I sit 7-8ft away from my HDTV which the rig is hooked up to, and I can't read a damn thing on this game's menu, very annoying.

As far as im aware they havent cut any content from the game but have instead added more to it with new features and some updates.

That happened in quite a few titles that were designed in a higher resolution than the average screens therefore text was tiny. Same thing happened with Dead Rising on consoles as it was designed to be used on HDTV's and had issues on standard TV's with text being so small. Would be the same kind of thing in this instance I imagine but it being designed on something thats a higher resolution and doesnt scale automatically. Id imagine its going to be fixed for console release.

The combat is solid, but will take some getting used to for sure. It's definitely along the lines of Assassin's Creed combat with just a hint of Fable, such as taking on a group of enemies then flowing between spells and melee. I've really been enjoying the story so far and its cinematic approach, throw that in with believable acting and meaningful characters and it becomes easy to actually care for what's going on in the game.

The final con I have are the journal entries for quest objectives, if you don't pay close attention to dialogue/cutscenes you're going to be pretty lost in many places. Vague journal entries of what you have to do along with objective markers being non-existent at times on your map.

The combat looks quite smooth and seems to flow well between moves which I liked the look of, also has quite an adult look about it with the blood and some of the moves.

A pet peeve of mine is vague journal entries and lack of a decent quest log and objective markers. I dont want my hand held but I like to have an idea of where im going and what im doing without it being a quest in itself finding out.
 

Gikoku

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As far as im aware they havent cut any content from the game but have instead added more to it with new features and some updates.

That happened in quite a few titles that were designed in a higher resolution than the average screens therefore text was tiny. Same thing happened with Dead Rising on consoles as it was designed to be used on HDTV's and had issues on standard TV's with text being so small. Would be the same kind of thing in this instance I imagine but it being designed on something thats a higher resolution and doesnt scale automatically. Id imagine its going to be fixed for console release.

Glad they haven't cut anything then, hate it when companies do stuff like that.

Well, whatever the reason may be for it here it's very unfortunate. Because the devs still haven't fixed it with an update, and players have to resort to one fan's font-size mod that isn't that polished. Text is bigger, but it has cutoff issues and the possibility to damage the game. So yeah, hopefully they learned from this mistake for console players.

Dark Drakan said:
The combat looks quite smooth and seems to flow well between moves which I liked the look of, also has quite an adult look about it with the blood and some of the moves.

A pet peeve of mine is vague journal entries and lack of a decent quest log and objective markers. I dont want my hand held but I like to have an idea of where im going and what im doing without it being a quest in itself finding out.

The combat is definitely a lot of fun when you can run through an environment and clash steel with enemies, the most enjoyable fights I found are when taking on multiple enemies at a time (4+). Just feels so satisfying taking on a group of fools and wiping them all out with cinematic kill moves in-between, that.. and slicing their limbs and heads off.

Well, on the bright side that peeve doesn't happen too often, but when it does it's very annoying and just leaves you wasting time. I was doing a quest early in the game and was sent off to perform a task in a city at the King's order, instead of easily reaching my objective, I wasted about 30mins checking all the houses for what I'm supposed to do.. when I could've gotten past it all in 5 mins had I been given a quest marker. I'm sure they'll have fixed that in the console version cause it was a common complaint amongst players.
 

Dark Drakan

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The combat is definitely a lot of fun when you can run through an environment and clash steel with enemies, the most enjoyable fights I found are when taking on multiple enemies at a time (4+). Just feels so satisfying taking on a group of fools and wiping them all out with cinematic kill moves in-between, that.. and slicing their limbs and heads off.

Well, on the bright side that peeve doesn't happen too often, but when it does it's very annoying and just leaves you wasting time. I was doing a quest early in the game and was sent off to perform a task in a city at the King's order, instead of easily reaching my objective, I wasted about 30mins checking all the houses for what I'm supposed to do.. when I could've gotten past it all in 5 mins had I been given a quest marker. I'm sure they'll have fixed that in the console version cause it was a common complaint amongst players.

I like kill moves in games and rewards for taking out enemies with skill and precision rather than simply hitting them until they run out of health. I was so happy when Skyrim had executions and stealth kills for example and think more games should incorporate them. I also quite like Assassins Creed's combat at the same time as its more about timing.

If its a genuine glitch etc then thats fine, its if it was designed to be that way where its an issue. Normally used by companies who want to merely extend the playtime of their games by making everything take longer than it should.

EDIT* Quote from Gamespot in regards to the content :

An "enhanced" version for the Xbox 360, with half an hour of new cinematics and an extra four hours of questing*, is on the way, and it still looks pretty tasty squeezed onto a console, resembling the PC version with medium graphics settings.

Article here:
http://uk.gamespot.com/the-witcher-...s-skyrim-a-different-kind-of-fantasy-6365140/The Witcher 2 vs. Skyrim: A Different Kind of Fantasy
 
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