The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review

[Turing '88]

Thing is, with BG2 figuring out what builds to do to make the game easier is half the fun, and rarely possible on the 1st playthrough (especially if you're new to D&D).

Agree massively with you here. That's one of many reasons that BG2 > Any other game ever (imho).

The best judge of your game will always be the audience you're aiming it at.

Again I agree, and I think they specifically aimed at people like me who enjoy games where difficulty is like it is here. If the game was easy throughout that's boring, but when it starts out hard and gets progressively easier due to your characters advancement that, to me, feels like your character is becoming very powerful, even if everyone else gets that same experience.

If you had said you didn't like the witcher and/or agreed with the review because you personally felt the lack of challenge was boring, I'd say fair enough. I'm sure some people felt like that. My only problem was you said that, objectively, the witcher 2 was a badly designed game.

 

[Turing '88]

What I wanted to point out was that it had multiple design flaws, not that it was a badly designed game in general.
I can understand it was okay for you, but could you honestly say that it wouldn't have been better if it had a proper challenge by the endgame?

Yes, I probably would have enjoyed it with more of a challenge for the final Act 3 Bosses, but I could have upped the difficulty if I wanted. I didn't care enough to do that. Every game has some flaws, I think the witcher 2 has bigger ones than difficulty personally.

For example, I would have liked a better inventory, I would have liked the interact button(climb, loot, open door..etc) to be a different button to quick attack, I would have liked the enter button to be usable in dialogue, or for the game let me know space can be used...etc. All these things are minor to me though, and TW:2 is still one of the best games I've ever played (like, top 5 with Baldur's Gate series, KOTOR's, NWN2:MoB..etc)

Truth be told, I don't enjoy combat as much in these real time RPG's. With Dragon Age 2 I gave up playing way before I even got to the underground bit at the end of Act 1 I hated the combat so much. Then I saw http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/miracle-of-sound/2965-Age-of-the-Dragon-Dragon-Age-2-Song which made me want to play again, so I replayed the game this time instant killing every enemy with cheats and I enjoyed the game a lot more. It literally jumped from a 3/10 to a 7/10 for me.

Since the end of the Infinity engine era games combat has almost been the part you 'deal with' to get to the dialogue sequences for me. That's probably why I love games where the dialogue is itself gameplay.

 

[abija]

But that's not the point I was trying to make. This review's made for the majority, the mainstream audience, a huge chunk of which won't get or care about the story.

That's just nonsense. A review should cover all aspects exactly because it should relate to every reader.
And sure as hell he shouldn't be filtering out important aspects of the game because he ASSUMES majority won't care about.

Offtopic DA2 rant:

I love both the story and the combat parts in a game. DA2 was fine, combat-wise. The difficulty was overall weak for the "normal" setting but "blowing things up with RPG elements" isn't very different from what I used to do in Diablo, and Diablo was a bitchin' game.

Except it wasn't advertised as a Diablo game was it? I didn't buy it expecting hack and slash combat because their main designer made sure to underline in a video presentation PC gamers will enjoy the tactical combat they loved in DA:O.
The story might have been good but it wasn't supported by anything. It had no foundation because Kirkwall had no life. The tension and the political struggle that should have been fueling it were "streamlined" out of it. To make it even worse, the dialogues and acting in the intro are so terrible I couldn't give a shit about Hawke's family either.
All the details and the depth were taken out of the game and the majority of their work was to make combat flashier and more suited for a console hack and slash and to implement a ME variation of dialogue and companion system.

 

[abija]

Grab every game that got a 1 star review on this site, and you'll find a person (or group of people) who liked it. Should the reviewer praise it in fear of leaving those people out?
Didn't think so.
I didn't say he left the story out. I said the story wasn't as important to his score as it would have been to, say, YOU. Which could have been a personal prefference.

No, it's not about praising the features of the game. It's about covering them in the review. He ignores important features like how your choices alter the game even in minor details not only the big fork and has one liners that apparently should cover story, atmosphere, artistic value and level of detail for example. Then goes on for 3 pages nitpicking some flaws.
That's the issue with the review, not the rating or his personal opinion on the different aspects of the game or how much they affect said rating.

 

[Turing '88]

Then you probably loved the hell out of Planescape Torment.

Yes, great game. Although I preferred BG2 more if I'm honest, Planescape was amazing but BG2 was something else entirely for me. PS:T was probably slightly too complex and/or I was too combat focused when I was a teen.

I love both the story and the combat parts in a game. DA2 was fine, combat-wise. The difficulty was overall weak for the "normal" setting but "blowing things up with RPG elements" isn't very different from what I used to do in Diablo, and Diablo was a bitchin' game.

See, Diablo is a series I've never had any interest in. Maybe if I try 'em I'll think they're great but they don't sound like the kind of games I enjoy.

For the record, I wouldn't have given DA2 a 5/5 since it had some huge flaws, some of them significantly bigger than TW2's. But that's not the point I was trying to make. This review's made for the majority, the mainstream audience, a huge chunk of which won't get or care about the story.

I'm not so sure on this. This is obviously a story driven game, as is Dragon Age. I can't see too many people putting up with all that dialogue for the gameplay. Unless your saying the story can be slightly clichéd and formulaic? In which case I agree, I just think there is a much higher bar for how good it has to be at a minimum, compared to many other genres.

Besides that, a 5-star reviewing system doesn't follow a set structure like some of the 10 or 100-point system other reviews have; this is basically just the author's impression turned into numbers. Expecting it to be unbiased is ridiculous.

Yes, its ridiculous because that's impossible without some scientific method for scoring games. The problem is though that it should be reviewed by someone who likes/loves the genre(Edit: Obviously my point here is that they are different genres, in that they're aiming at a different type of player). If I reviewed Starcraft 2 I'd give it 6/10 at a push. I'm almost objectively wrong with that subjective statement, if you know what I mean, because the game wasn't designed for me. I'm not an RTS fan. I think the incredulity on here has been a result of a good-to-great (as a cRPG, which is how it was marketed) game getting a worse score than an average-to-bad(as a cRPG, which is how it was marketed) one.

N.B. I know the above few lines are subjective and just my opinion, I also think though that the point is a lot of people share those views.

 

[Flamey]

One of the worst reviews I have ever seen.

Seriously what's with the continuous whining about the difictulty? Turn down the dificulty if you're such a bad gamer.

 

[CommanderKirov]

Not being able to use potions in battle...

Why did you put the review to a guy who does not even bother to find out about the world?

Witcher is a frekking low-fantasy game. Potions themselves are toxins that have certain effect upon witcher bodies but they require mental preparation and meditation before taking them.

That is why you cannot just chug down the potion like it would be some cheap liquor.


Other than that, after so much complaining about how the game is so very very hard, I stopped bothering.

 

[Leo Alli]

The Witcher 2 - Teaching Yahtzee How to Play! [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FutePIDGuVg]

Watch the little girl, mothaplower!

 

[Robert Roy MacGregor]

And this comes from the people who gave DA2 perfect score? Guess CD Projekt RED pockets aren't as deep as EA's..

 

[Danpascooch]

This game had two problems

1.) Difficulty curve that went backwards
2.) Sometimes unresponsive combat controls

In my opinion the story and environment far outweighs the problems.

I think this deserves a 4.25, obviously the Escapist doesn't allow for 1/4 stars, so I would say it deserves either a 4.0 or 4.5 based on the preferences of the reviewer