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First few hours of playing The Witcher 2
14 years ago
I can't say this will be much of a review as I am not very well versed in that sort of thing, but I still felt I should write down my impression of the game so far.
Let me start by saying how beautiful the game is.
Every scene looks handcrafted and unique with a immersive atmosphere which so far has included full blown castle sieges aswell as a dark and damp torture dungeon.
Infact it looks so good that my pretty new computer has a hard time keeping it at a high framerate on medium graphics, which makes me tempted to look for new hardware to install just so I can get the full appreciation of the visuals.
I heard the developers talk about how this was suppose to be a game you can get into without playing the first one, but I would disagree and say that this is very much a chronological sequel, and that new players will be confused at first with knowing who all these characters are, and what is going on.
They do give a good recap of the ending of the first game and explaining what happened that lead up to the start of the second game, but I would still advice that if you are interested in Witcher 2 you should definitely check out the first game first.
Now for the gameplay.
It took me quite a while to figure out just how to play this game, and I'm still learning, but I remember I had the same problem in the first game and once I figured out how it was suppose to be done, I loved the combat.
While the first game uses a sort of point and click/rhythm, where timing your attacks decided how long of a combo chain you would manage to pull off and the occasional dodging and rolling out of the way, Witcher 2 uses a much more skill based system.
It's hard to describe it since I'm still getting the hang of it, but the best example I can give that Mietz suggested is the Gothic games combat system.
If you ever played any of the Gothic games you should know that that game requires a lot of timing from you, by that I mean that you need to judge when the best time to strike and block is.
I can't tell you how many times I died in Witcher 2 because didn't play it defensively enough or didn't try more strategies then just swing my sword at it.
You will unlock more combat abilities later on which should help you take down tougher and more enemies at once, but don't expect the game to take it easy on you during the tutorial.
What else can I say?
The voice work is solid, music is solid, character models are phenomenal together with an interesting and immersive story and pace.
A lot of people will probably compare the game to Dragon Age 2, as in this is what DA2 should have been.
My only problem with the game is that there doesn't seem to be any way to change the keybinding, or even to check them up for that matter.
This combined with a somewhat weak tutorial, as in you will get a few tooltip pop up, telling you about a sertain game mechanic, but most of the time I didn't catch them in time and missed what they had to say, and since I couldn't go into the menu and check the keybindings it took me a few hours before I realized that I had a block button.
Be sure to keep your game manual at hand, you will need it.
So would I recommend this game to anyone? hell yes!
I've only planned for maybe 3-4 hours now but I've yet to be disappointed, I was afraid it wouldn't feel like the first Witcher but I think it has proved itself beyond doubt that it will be and is a strong title in the series.
If you have any other questions about it or the first game, don't be afraid to ask. :)
Let me start by saying how beautiful the game is.
Every scene looks handcrafted and unique with a immersive atmosphere which so far has included full blown castle sieges aswell as a dark and damp torture dungeon.
Infact it looks so good that my pretty new computer has a hard time keeping it at a high framerate on medium graphics, which makes me tempted to look for new hardware to install just so I can get the full appreciation of the visuals.
I heard the developers talk about how this was suppose to be a game you can get into without playing the first one, but I would disagree and say that this is very much a chronological sequel, and that new players will be confused at first with knowing who all these characters are, and what is going on.
They do give a good recap of the ending of the first game and explaining what happened that lead up to the start of the second game, but I would still advice that if you are interested in Witcher 2 you should definitely check out the first game first.
Now for the gameplay.
It took me quite a while to figure out just how to play this game, and I'm still learning, but I remember I had the same problem in the first game and once I figured out how it was suppose to be done, I loved the combat.
While the first game uses a sort of point and click/rhythm, where timing your attacks decided how long of a combo chain you would manage to pull off and the occasional dodging and rolling out of the way, Witcher 2 uses a much more skill based system.
It's hard to describe it since I'm still getting the hang of it, but the best example I can give that Mietz suggested is the Gothic games combat system.
If you ever played any of the Gothic games you should know that that game requires a lot of timing from you, by that I mean that you need to judge when the best time to strike and block is.
I can't tell you how many times I died in Witcher 2 because didn't play it defensively enough or didn't try more strategies then just swing my sword at it.
You will unlock more combat abilities later on which should help you take down tougher and more enemies at once, but don't expect the game to take it easy on you during the tutorial.
What else can I say?
The voice work is solid, music is solid, character models are phenomenal together with an interesting and immersive story and pace.
A lot of people will probably compare the game to Dragon Age 2, as in this is what DA2 should have been.
My only problem with the game is that there doesn't seem to be any way to change the keybinding, or even to check them up for that matter.
This combined with a somewhat weak tutorial, as in you will get a few tooltip pop up, telling you about a sertain game mechanic, but most of the time I didn't catch them in time and missed what they had to say, and since I couldn't go into the menu and check the keybindings it took me a few hours before I realized that I had a block button.
Be sure to keep your game manual at hand, you will need it.
So would I recommend this game to anyone? hell yes!
I've only planned for maybe 3-4 hours now but I've yet to be disappointed, I was afraid it wouldn't feel like the first Witcher but I think it has proved itself beyond doubt that it will be and is a strong title in the series.
If you have any other questions about it or the first game, don't be afraid to ask. :)
I am hoping that this one is much the same, I'm just waiting for it to finish installing before I can give it a run.
Why can't it just instant install. I am happy, seems that alot of RPGs are coming out this year.
Indeed exactly my sentiment, you can see just how much Witcher 2 actually improves from Witcher 1, how it continues -your- story (not some other spinoff characters). You can feel how much time and effort went into creating the gameworld, how much detail and backstory was put behind it.
DA2 felt like stage-set, a tv set you suddenly played in, clearly fake and non-imersive. Witcher 2 drowns you in atmosphere it gives you the sense that the world is much bigger than is shown, even if you cant reach that far away mountain-top, you -believe- it is there, that trees grow there, animals wander and possibly monsters. You do not have to reach it, you just need to believe it is there.
Effectively thats what i have been missing from a -lot- of current games, a sense of immersion, but Witcher 2 nails it. It gives you just enough exploration to not become a corridor hack and shlash but keeps it condensed and focused all the way through. No matter how much i love open-world games, sometimes they start to feel empty and the environment becomes meaningless, you start to recognize the NPCs as clearly artificially, but in W2, everything was given meaning, this way the world feels alive, big and fantastic.
All in all this is how a -great- sequel looks like. Bioware should learn from CDProject and so should SquareEnix.