The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review

[BreakfastMan]

OT: I was rather surprised you gave it the score you did. You had too know you would get a lot of flak for this (especially after giving DA2 such a good score). I salute you and your bravery! Good on you!

Bravery? That's an interesting take on this. More like trolling. The butthurt on the 10 pages is about Greg abandoning all pretense that his dream job is with EA marketing. If he has such high standards, then why 5/5 for Dragon Age 2, a game so controversial and so obviously flawed and rushed, that yesterday the lead designer on the bioware forums had to admit that there are things about DA2 that "must" be improved. Why was Greg blind to these things that obviously "must" be improved when he reviewed DA2? Still 100% perfect, eh? Nothing to improve? Then why the hard stick now all of a sudden (relative) to the Witcher 2?

The other reason for the butthurt is that Dragon Age 2 is a dumbed down "baby first" game, whereas the Witcher 2 puts you through your paces. It's surely bad when reviewers punish a game simply for being challenging.

Anyway, that's all with me and this site - I've seen what I need. I loved TW2 and loathed DA2. Last post and removing bookmarks. This site has ZERO credibility now. Nothing useful for my tastes any more.

Why the frak are you so "butthurt" over one man's opinion? Seriously, why does it frakking matter to you that he liked a game you did not, and did not like a game you did? Is there something wrong with that? And why does someone who works for the site having differing opinions from yourself suddenly give the site zero credibility? It just does not make any sense from my point of view how out of shape you and others seem to be bent over this.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Have you people considered that maybe a game having a difficulty curve like running headlong into a brick wall might actually be a bad thing? Isn't the early stage of a game -supposed- to be fairly easy to get you used to the controls, and gradually ramp up the difficulty? Now the incline of the curve can differ depending on the setting, but a game should never start out horrifyingly difficult and then get -easier-.

And for those of you who are comparing it to the Classics like Baldur's Gate, recall that the first fights in Baldur's Gate are -very- simple and the combat system at the early levels is basically 'point, click, and watch.' RPGs having deep, complex combat systems is a fairly new thing. I cannot -think- of a classic RPG that had a really deep combat system. Certainly not the Isle Trinity of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape Torment. Certainly not Arcanum, much as I love her. Deus Ex's combat was difficult, but not complex. Complexity is not inherently good.

Allow me to make a blanket statement from my own personal perspective.

'Hard to learn, harder to master' is not something that should be a goal. The goal is 'Easy to learn, hard to master.' Someone earlier in the thread commented about how Tito should complain about how Chess should set up it's strategies for him. Would you care to explain how exactly that makes any sense? Chess does not have an arcane system, it has a -very- simple system, and from it's simplicity comes great depth.

Metacritic is bullshit, by the way. Most game review sites operate on the Four Point Scale between 7 and 10. Thus, their ratings mean nothing. Escapist doesn't do that, thank God.

Tito is just as entitled to his opinion as you are. Cut the BS and the personal attacks. His dislike of Witcher 2 isn't going to hurt your enjoyment of the game at all, is it? Or is your great and abiding love of the game so much that you people can't even tolerate the presence of dissent?

Let me explain how reviews -actually- work, since some of you actually think your anger is justified - you're being stupid, by the way - A reviewer plays a game and -reports his feelings-. Now, you're wondering what the purpose of these reviews are, I suspect. Now what you should do is go through prior reviews and study his opinion until you get a basic understanding of his likes and dislikes - you should especially pay attention to games you have played that he or she has reviewed. If your opinions regularly coincide, you should probably pay attention to the reviewer. If -not-, you can pretty safely ignore the reviewer, because you clearly have different taste in games from that reviewer.

To summarize, stop whining, Tito's entitled to his opinion, given that most of the Witcher 2 fanboys hate Dragon Age 2 you should -know- you're not going to agree with Tito, and having a complicated system does not make it a good system.

 

[Inkidu]

Unless this actually comes out for console, which it hasn't as far as I know. Then I'm not getting it. I'm so tired of the PC rat race. Otherwise, I'd play it. The Witcher had a lot of the same brutal learning curves so it's par for the course at least.

 

[Bostur]

I have a question, and an honest one. A lot of people complain about the ruthless intro sequence. Why don't you just lower the difficulty? Is it a knock on a game when there is an option to make a scene easier but you have to injure your pride to pass it?

When I play a game and encounter a tough sequence I usually go through a couple of phases.

1. Desperation. "WTF this is impossible."
2. Progress. "Maybe I can do this after all."
3. Victory. "Waaaaaagh."

If I were to cut down the difficulty every time I faced something difficult it wouldn't be nearly as much fun, so I try to avoid that except for the most extreme cases.
In TW2 the problem isn't that the game is too hard (on normal that is) but that it sometimes is too hard or confusing in the wrong places. For instance having to react quickly right after a loading screen, or having to react quickly while trying to read tutorial tips.

Making the start very hard, and the later chapters comparatively easy isn't the best balance. It's better to ease new players into the game, and then turn up the scale later.

 

[Levethian]

I get that reviews are subjective.

But it feels like a Gym teacher is an examiner for my final-year architecture project. He knows nothing about what I'm trying to achieve or why, and can't possibly assess the strengths and weaknesses of my argument. His mind is so focussed on Gym-stuffs that he isn't mentally equipped or trained to award an accurate grade.

Why the frak are you so "butthurt" over one man's opinion?

You know why people read reviews, right?
Because people care what they say. Amazing.

 

[rsvp42]

I have a question, and an honest one. A lot of people complain about the ruthless intro sequence. Why don't you just lower the difficulty? Is it a knock on a game when there is an option to make a scene easier but you have to injure your pride to pass it?

Kind of, yeah. The problem is not the difficulty level itself, it's the curve. They throw you into some really brutal fights, even on normal difficulty, without really easing you into the mechanics of handling multiple enemies, then handling multiple enemies with armor and shields. This is not game-breaking by any means and anyone who paid fifty dollars will push through and be better for it, but it could have balanced that part better.

The reason switching down to Easy isn't a viable option all the time is because Easy seems to be too easy. There's a fight I just did last night, where the enemy is brutal with his ability and item usage and makes it really hard to get successive hits in, all while doing major damage any time he hits you. This was on Normal. It was a major spike in difficulty, so instead of beating my head against that particular wall, I decided to switch down to Easy.

It didn't just become easier, it became a downright cakewalk. Suddenly the enemy never blocked, never even used abilities and I was able to keep landing hits on him non-stop. Again, I can't fault the game too much, but there seems to be a significant gap between those two difficulty levels. Obviously the game can't match my exact skill level and familiarity (and the example I gave was not the beginning of the game), but if it was going to lower the difficulty anywhere, the beginning is the best choice. People are jumping the gun and calling that "hand holding," but that's not the case. Easing players into an experience is not hand-holding. Is a movie "dumbed down" when it introduces viewers to the world and the characters in the beginning? The game can be as hard as it wants, it just should have ramped up into that difficulty better. Again, this was not a big deal for me and I'm loving the game in spite of it, but I can see why it would frustrate some players and no, it's not because they're utterly incompetent.

 

[abija]

Let me explain how reviews -actually- work, since some of you actually think your anger is justified - you're being stupid, by the way - A reviewer plays a game and -reports his feelings-. Now, you're wondering what the purpose of these reviews are, I suspect. Now what you should do is go through prior reviews and study his opinion until you get a basic understanding of his likes and dislikes - you should especially pay attention to games you have played that he or she has reviewed. If your opinions regularly coincide, you should probably pay attention to the reviewer. If -not-, you can pretty safely ignore the reviewer, because you clearly have different taste in games from that reviewer.

A reviewer thoroughly plays the game analyzes all aspects and points the good things and the flaws. You know, so the reader gets an idea of what he might like or not in the game.
This review is more like a first impression of the game both in the way is written and in level of analysis.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Why the frak are you so "butthurt" over one man's opinion?

You know why people read reviews, right?
Because people care what they say. Amazing.

I get that people care about what other people say. What I do not get is why so many people on this forum care so dang much. It is just an opinion of someone on the internet, dangit, it is not the end of the world! It reminds me of this XCKD comic:

See what I mean? The guy I was talking to above said that he believed the site has zero credibility and was not coming back because... one editor gave a positive review to a game he disliked, and a less positive review to a game he liked? Doesn't that seem, oh I don't know, a bit petty to you? Come on people, it is not that big of a deal!

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Easing players into a game isn't handholding, it's -good game design-. That's how you're supposed to do it, that's how the Difficulty Curve works.

 

[rsvp42]

A reviewer thoroughly plays the game analyzes all aspects and points the good things and the flaws. You know, so the reader gets an idea of what he might like or not in the game.
This review is more like a first impression of the game both in the way is written and in level of analysis.

A quick look at Metacritic would let curious customers know that this review is slightly lower than the average. The game's getting stellar reviews for the most part and if any RPG fan is making the purchase decision based entirely on Tito's opinion, they're doing it wrong. So what's at stake here and why people are getting so up-in-arms over it? I can only assume that people are idle/bored like me and are just killing time by debating online.

 

[Karinnare]

A reviewer plays a game and -reports his feelings-.

Prince, although I agree with the rest of your post, the whole review explanation you give misses the point; it's ok for the dude writing the article to state his opinion on the important aspects of a game he's played, but what do you do when he states it nonetheless without actually playing the whole game? Or even half of it by the looks of the article. Or worse, he played the whole game and stated impressions only of the beginning phase and a couple of flaws in the next village...

Honestly, if you ignore the DA2/TW2 arguments, there's more to learn about what the game has to offer from the comments than from the article itself.

I agree, the negative aspects Greg listed are there; but where's mention about the plenitude of choices, about how they affect the rest of the walkthrough and about how if you play it twice you'll get a whole new story (give different choices ofc). Where's mention of the characters you meet throughout the game and how are they given a personality of their own? About how the world around you tries to copy a living one? (if it rains, they take cover under roofs, when the sun sets, they gather around fires, etc... instead of standing still in one place all game long). These are good things the game has to offer, and they should be mentioned, not left aside.

I can continue the list...

And after seeing 3 pages of criticism about the beginning, but almost no word of the good parts that come later in the game, I do believe that either he didn't play the whole game, or that he did and left the good parts untold (which would be worse in my case).

The game has good parts, and bad parts. That he likes the game or not, I don't care. But that he chooses to only mention the bad parts, that's something I do care about.

It is a bad review, by yours, by mine, by anyone's standards, and it deserves the comments. Those complaining about its quality are not stupid at all.

 

[Pandabearparade]

Maybe he just likes DA2 more instead of The Witcher 2, some people do y'know.

Some people like Star Wars Episode I better than Empire Strikes Back, too.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

And for those of you who are comparing it to the Classics like Baldur's Gate, recall that the first fights in Baldur's Gate are -very- simple and the combat system at the early levels is basically 'point, click, and watch.' RPGs having deep, complex combat systems is a fairly new thing. I cannot -think- of a classic RPG that had a really deep combat system. Certainly not the Isle Trinity of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape Torment. Certainly not Arcanum, much as I love her. Deus Ex's combat was difficult, but not complex. Complexity is not inherently good.

I'm not sure what game you played but the Baldur's Gate I remember was extremely difficulty especially in the early levels with multiple party-members able to die or permanently die from a few Gibberlings or Wolves because they had like 7-10 hp which is 1-2 hits. The game got gradually easier as you got more tactical options like spells, staffs and potions and a lot more HP (aside of some of the awesomely designed bosses and encounters that were all over the game).

Yeah, it was a pain in the ass, but it was not -complicated.-.

 

[Inkidu]

There's a difference between challenge and being difficult.
Challenge is fun, difficult is when something is just hard for the sake of being hard.

Unintuitive menu designs archaic mechanics. That kind of stuff. A lot of old classics fall into this category of obtuseness. Some new stuff does too.

Fallout
Baulder's Gate
Mortal Kombat (2011)
ME1 (See the inventory)

et cetera.

 

[RA92]

Amidst all this rage, let me just point this out to those who are still on the fence about purchasing this:

There are 11 pages worth of comments defending this game.
Most of those people defending Mr Tito are themselves saying it's an excellent game (albeit with some flaws).
Mr Tito himself said he'll be replaying this game over and over again.

Glean what you can.

 

[Keava]

Yeah, it was a pain in the ass, but it was not -complicated.-.

Neither is Witcher's 2 combat complicated. Maybe i do understand the word itself differently but, logically, is concept of not getting surrounded, avoiding blow in the back, not bashshing mindlessly at a guy with tower shield, avoiding getting hit by using dodge/parry/spells or using explosive to control larger groups is somewhat complicated?

Just to use the brought up BG/IWD examples. Remember the mage management, with setting up spells to memorize then having to rest 8 hours so you can cast 3 magic missiles and 2 fireballs? The fact that you couldn't kill a troll if you haven't got acid/fire damage in your disposal? Mobs immune to damage from non magic (at least +1) weapons? The whole deal with curing level drains, etc. AD&D had plenty of user-unfriendly concepts.

 

[Pillypill]

I wasn't planning on getting it anyway though i was hoping to maybe be convinved otherwise. I had no trouble with the first one even though it was sticky and difficult, but from the sounds of things The formula hasn't been improved enough to warrent an actual purchase.

So now i have to hope Bioware can make DA beter again or else i'm gonna be without a solid (clasic style) RPG.

 

[abija]

I wasn't planning on getting it anyway though i was hoping to maybe be convinved otherwise. I had no trouble with the first one even though it was sticky and difficult, but from the sounds of things The formula hasn't been improved enough to warrent an actual purchase.

So now i have to hope Bioware can make DA beter again or else i'm gonna be without a solid (clasic style) RPG.

And this is why half arsed reviews are bad.

Also the game doesn't try to hide mechanics or other information just to appear more complicated than it is.

There is a lot of info found in the journal including combat mechanics, how to find information about the monsters, what to do with mutagens or the materials required for a diagram. It's just that the reviewer ignores that resource because we all know if information is not slapped in the middle of your screen so big that you can read it from the other side of the room is not worth it.

You can also find data about the characters, locations, info and hints about the monsters (once you gathered data about them). They put a lot of effort into explaining the game and the world, it's not designed to be cryptic for the sake of being hardcore like the review implies.