That Game I Should Have Liked

[znix]

You're entitled to your screw-ball opinion, of course. Geralt was a real character. He might not have had a lot of oh-so-important depth due to complex sexual identity issues (really, is that what constitutes good character development now, Extra Credits?) - but he was a fully fleshed out bad ass with a unique identity and unique skills.

Playing RPGs is NOT necessarily the same as playing yourself. It's also not the same as being allowed to customize a character to death. No. A ROLE playing game is one where you play a role of someone, in this case Geralt. I liked that aspect of the game very much, instead of being just another generic warrior/druid/mage/rogue D&D ripoff, like you end up being in almost every other so-called RPG out there.

THIEF, by that account has more role playing in its left pinkie finger than Oblivion ever did. Baldurs Gate let you customize things, but the game wove a story around your character as it progressed. Mass Effect gave you two choices, a cool female protagonist or a Ham&Cheese male. Still, it was your role to play and it was clearly defined. Just like Geralt.

The combat worked great for me. Perhaps because my dexterity level isn't equal to a Yakuza member who's been screwing up too much. It was refreshing to have more than just the regular click click click game play that's so damned boring in most action "RPG"s.

 

[unacomn]

True, it does happen for reviewers to dislike games for various reasons. It happened to me as well, back when I was forced into reviewing Wii games. I had to rewrite a review once because it had too much of me in. And me no likey shovelware Wii games. But since I then worked for people for whom integrity meant how long I can stand before the whipping cracks my sanity, I was told to make them nicer, so Nintendo would be nice to them.

I tell you, quiting that job was the best thing I did this year.

As for Geralt of Rivia, well he's not really a bad character. Depends mostly on if you played the Enhanced Edition or the normal one, where the translation is a bit off. The game itself also tends to not appeal as much to westerners. It's made by eastern europeans for easter europeans moslty. I guess that's why I liked it so much. It felt like home. Actually, Temeria seems a lot nicer than home sometimes. I wonder what their immigration policy is.

 

[Wolfrug]

This is the good thing with buying games way after release for -75% or whatever from the bargain bin: lowered expectations! Having only fairly recently played The Witcher (although I had checked out the demo earlier), I must say I rather enjoyed myself. You can't roleplay anything or anyone, in fact you're just playing as Geralt, a ready-made literary character who already has a personality. For all that, I still thought he was interesting enough. As was the world he inhabited. And the story, although disjointed, was also rather enjoyable when push came to shove. Lowered expectations? Probably! But the fact it had been heavily patched, models had been replaced and the deplorable loading times had been fixed probably helped too!

I guess it's kind of a hit-and-miss. If you don't enjoy the idea of roleplaying as an alchemist-cum-stage magician-cum-swordsman monster-hunter, who's also a bit of a womanizing ass, then you might simply not like this game. I liked it for its unpredictability and eastern european mindset, and forgave it its quirks and minor annoyances, especially towards the end part.

Kind of the same thing as I have with the new AvP ("Aliens versus Predator 3", or whatever). It's in no way a contender for "best FPS ever", it doesn't really even hold a light to AvP classic, and it's quite clearly waaaay too short on the SP side (and I can't imagine MP being any fun at all). BUT, for what it's worth (not very much, a few euros), it's actually a ton of fun! Smack alien - shoot alien with shotgun. Repeat. Lure human to the side. Jump down on top of and rip spine off. Etc. Fun stuff. Story? Not so much. But a fun romp, once. Lowered expectations ftw!

 

[PopcornAvenger]

Geralt a real character? Real, maybe, but original? Hmmm, lessee, an albino warrior-mage who takes drugs to supplement his strength . . . . . . *cough* ELRIC *cough*. No, he was a ripoff of the original White Wolf. I agree, having the option to play a witcher of your own design (and gender) would be a big improvement here.

The Witcher wasn't bad but it was overrated. I'm hoping the sequel addresses the problems with it, including tedious travel, load times, combat, lack of loot, and stunted ability development. That is, everything not involving the actual RPGing.

 

[Powerman88]

Dude, I couldn't possibly agree more. First off I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE GOG! Best thing ever. Second off the more complex a system is, the more of the keyboard it uses, and the more alienating it is to the console crowd, the more i love it.

I never got behind the Witcher and the furthest I ever made it through the game was through the first area. I really want to love it, but I can't.

A game I recently bought because I love the idea and the company, but can't bring myself to play is Amnesia dark decent. I love the fact the game exists and from and Indi company, but I just can't get more than half an hour into it! But they sure as hell got my $20 and it is on my steam list.

 

[tautologico]

This is something that a lot of people don't seem to understand: reviews are personal opinion. There are good and bad reviews, but the difference have nothing to do with the opinions of the reviewer.

I see people complaining about Yahtzee that he's not "unbiased", his "reviews" are not "fair and balanced", and I can only laugh. Although I don't think Yahtzee is really a reviewer (neither is he just a comedian joking about games; he makes valid points), I can only laugh when people seriously think other reviewers are completely fair and unbiased.

 

[Continuity]

Well, my definition of fun is "something that entertains", so you seem to be splitting hairs over semantics in regards to that particular word.

This is a fair understanding of the word to be sure, but I think the word "fun" also has connotations beyond that of "entertainment". Though of course I realise you were using the word casually (which is entirely fair) and so yes I was splitting hairs in terms of a argument between us, but to be frank I was more using your post as a soapbox to stand on, I wasn't judging you personally.

And don't get me wrong: I didn't just play for five minutes and give up. I'm not some kind of twitch gamer who can't sit through an hour's intro if it doesn't have explosions and ponies and rollercoasters. I'd probably have limped through Planescape like I did Baldur's Gate if it hadn't disagreed with my computer after a few plays.

I apologise if it seemed I was insinuating that you are, my intention was only to express an opinion, I meant nothing personal.

But impenetrability isn't what made those games good, unless what you really enjoyed was the tactical combat. Though admittedly I haven't played AD&D - when Baldur's Gate came out and AD&D was -the- system I still had milk teeth and hadn't quite mastered my times tables. I just don't have that mechanical foreknowledge that might've made the combat enjoyable. Everything that made it a game I should have liked was all this talk of deep worlds and characters I kept hearing - things that are not made better or somehow deeper by the game being hard to play.

Of course you're right, impenetrability isn't what made these games good - as an AD&D player I didn't find them impenetrable at all so that proves the point, as I believe they were great games. I think though you might of been expecting something other than what was on offer, which was an RPG - RPG's entail figures, stats, dice, and lots of complexity... at least the good ones do. Worlds and characters are more the realm of adventure games, which isn't to say that many other genre, not least RPG, can't involve adventure, its just not their defining characteristic.

 

[Aphroditty]

Of course you're right, impenetrability isn't what made these games good - as an AD&D player I didn't find them impenetrable at all so that proves the point, as I believe they were great games. I think though you might of been expecting something other than what was on offer, which was an RPG - RPG's entail figures, stats, dice, and lots of complexity... at least the good ones do. Worlds and characters are more the realm of adventure games, which isn't to say that many other genre, not least RPG, can't involve adventure, its just not their defining characteristic.

To put the section in bold another way, it is the dice, statistics and complexity that are the ultimate point of a role-playing game. The game part of an RPG is its defining point, not the role-playing. The game parts are not means to the end of fully realizing and enacting a role, these are the end. Games where the end is developing and exploring a role--and possibly to do the same in a world within that role--are properly adventure games.

I think what we need is a new term for RPGs, because clearly your conception of an RPG doesn't match up with the meaning of the acronym. Possibly, instead of RPGs, we should call these SDCGMIICWs--Stats, Dice, and Complexity Games which May Incidentally Include Characters and Worlds.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

For me it boiled down to being just another point and click action game that was bogged down by unintuitive menus and gameplay (if I could actually dodge and range was made more important in the rolls,ect it would have been awesome).

 

[HK_01]

I absolutely love The Witcher, I think it's one of the greatest RPGs I've ever played (and I've played my share), but I guess some people can't really get into it.

 

[Yossarian1507]

Well, as a person who read every single The Witcher book before playing the game, my sympathy for Geralt was already set-up, and IMO in-game Geralt was spot on with the book version. Sure, he was a dick, but I really wouldn't want him any other way, because I would be like 'WTF? This is Geralt?'.

The game is IMO great. Nice story, probably the best grey-and-grey morality system since long time, wonderful quasi-dark climate. Also, I'm probably one of those 5 people in the world who actually enjoyed the combat system. Switching between strong/fast/group style and iron/silver sword is easy and intuitive thanks to the hotkeys, and I think it's a refreshing change from 'click all enemies to death' style of combat in most RPG games.

Can't wait for The Witcher 2.

 

[Guilen-]

Did you play the game with english voice-over? I'm playing it in its native Polish and its fantastic. I flat out -love- this game. The english dub is -terrible-. I rather like Geralt in Polish, even if he's not gimmicky-likeable because he's too busy being a hardass who gets shit done. hahaha...

 

[pacati]

brah hamma, peruh mahd trabaloba mor conawayta dinga besa peradufaduchentesnsa maybe pruga!

 

[Thoric485]

Well, as a person who read every single The Witcher book before playing the game, my sympathy for Geralt was already set-up, and IMO in-game Geralt was spot on with the book version.

This. There's a lot of allusions and references to the books, many places and characters have backstories from there. Makes the experience much richer. Though i guess it's true the presentation is lacking without having that.

And there's also the factor that only the first and third book have been released in English, the publisher is skipping the second (it's a short story collection which sets the mood for the saga) and fourth is due 2011. While throughout continental Europe the whole series has been published long ago in many languages.

 

[mechanixis]

I'm in the exact same place with Assassin's Creed 2 at the moment. The loving detail in the architecture, character designs, use of language...I want to love it so badly. And then they make me play as Ezio, a boring douchebag with hazy characterization, silly eyebrows, and a stupid, conspicuous cowl.

 

[CoL0sS]

Yeah it's funny how main character can ruin the game. I personally hated Kratos from God of War. It was a pure example what would happen if you gave badass swords and godlike superpowers to a little whiny *****. But game itself was fun (even if i had to play as a fish/cow so I wouldn't have to look at his ugly face). Now, Witcher for me was a one-time deal - game that you play once, complete once, and never return to it. It had its limitations and unnecessary mechanics but I wouldn't say I hated it. But some games I loved and spent countless hours playing them; like Baldurs Gate collection, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, even Morrowind, I've never completed.... Crazy, I know.

 

[WaderiAAA]

Well, at least you're not the kind of guy that reaches the conclusion that you are the one that is right, and that everyone else should have hated the game as well.

Bah, I hate those guys - and so should everyone else!

 

[AngryPuppy]

I liked The Witcher and Geralt didn't bother me right up until I realized I'd spend hours, or DAYS even, in the same town and/or the very boring woods outside. The world just felt too small and bland. I never got past the second part of the game. I have no idea if you ever leave that dreary city. After multiple tries over a year or so I always get too bored and move on, which I've never done before. To this day The Witcher is the only game I ever play that I never completed.