The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review

[bob1052]

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review

Geralt of Rivia is one badass motherf'er.

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Let me get this straight, actually having to craft spells breaks your immersion? Having to tactically utilize your potions breaks your immersion? The complex combat system breaks your immersion? I'm sorry this isn't Dragon Age 2. Go and pop that in for another ride if all you want is hours of mindless button mashing.

Typical fanboy whine.

There is no excuse whatsoever for the "can't drink potions in combat" mechanic. You get these interesting potions, combat relies heavily on you using them especially early on, but it asks you to be goddamn Nostradamus before you can ever use them.

Putting your sword away and chugging potions when people rush at you with swords sounds like a pretty dumb idea.

Anyone who claims you need any kind of foresight in The Witcher 2 would claim they need foresight to predict if they need to eat food today. If you fill up your inventory as much as this review claims, you would have plenty materials to make sure you always have a potion active. Theres no need to guess and then cry when you guess wrong when you can easily have 100% uptime.

Also how can you complain about being stuck in the forests of Flotsam for too long when DA2, which you gave a perfect score, was about running around one city with every dungeon being a reused map.

 

[Woodsey]

The only real grievances I have with the game is the overly consolified and obnoxious UI, and that the tutorial is so absurdly difficult, relatively speaking.
Also, that it takes so damn long to drink potions.
*slowly sitting down, then reaching out for a potion to drink, quaffing it, then tossing it. Then you can- no wait! Gotta wipe the sweat off of his brow.*

Hey! A sweaty-brow is a ***** in a sword fight I'll have you know.

 

[rsvp42]

The combat is complex in that it is all about timing. If you time your attacks correctly you can get through any fight unscathed, as I started to do later in the game, especially with the annoying Letho confrontation. Utilizing your magic powers in combat will also pay off big time, especially if you can time your aard and ixii spells before your opponents are on top of you. Whenever one enters the non safe zones (ie: areas you cannot meditate) you should know to consume a swallow and a rook. Fairly easy to gather the resources to consume these all the time. You can make as many potions as you want at once, just keep hitting the enter key (want 6 potions? hit enter 6 times. Wow, so hard.)

[edit] DA2 was the biggest was to of 60 bucks I ever spent. If i want to spend 60 dollars for recycled material I would buy a valve collection. DA2 still owes me a full fledged campaign, not 3 expansion packs rolled into 15 maps. It's no better than brink.

We might be polar opposites because I like both DA2 and Brink, but it's because the flaws didn't impede my enjoyment of the good things.

Something to remember about the combat (if we're going to compare games) is that TW2 is about controlling one character. DA2 has you controlling four. I'm not going to say it's a better game (because TW2's art direction and graphics are phenomenal) but I think a lot of the complaints have been exaggerated. Except for the repeated environments thing, which is an issue of scope as well.

As for the interface, it's not just the multiple item thing, it's the clarity of certain information, the organization of acquired recipes, the fact that you have to constantly exit and re-enter the crafting to buy things from the crafter you're already talking to. There's general convenience features that could have made it all flow much better. Personally, I don't mind and I've figured almost everything out, but I can deny that certain aspects would benefit from some streamlining, I'm not even talking about combat here, this is just menu navigation stuff. And again, it hasn't impede my enjoyment, but I understand why it could hurt a review score, which is about considering the good with the bad.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

You know, I was about to pass this, but seriously?

Your problem with the game is that the game doesn't tell you how to beat enemies? You didn't infer from the fact that it's FIRE to stay away from it? You wanted a briefing before every battle on how not to die? Somehow having to prepare for battle, outside of battle, broke your immersion?

Play on easy, the fact that you aren't sufficiently skillful at the game shouldn't be an influence.

L2Read. He never says that the fire was what killed him. It was the incredibly poorly explained fight against three guys in the middle of the fire that did.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review

Geralt of Rivia is one badass motherf'er.

Read Full Article

Let me get this straight, actually having to craft spells breaks your immersion? Having to tactically utilize your potions breaks your immersion? The complex combat system breaks your immersion? I'm sorry this isn't Dragon Age 2. Go and pop that in for another ride if all you want is hours of mindless button mashing.

Typical fanboy whine.

There is no excuse whatsoever for the "can't drink potions in combat" mechanic. You get these interesting potions, combat relies heavily on you using them especially early on, but it asks you to be goddamn Nostradamus before you can ever use them.

Putting your sword away and chugging potions when people rush at you with swords sounds like a pretty dumb idea.

Anyone who claims you need any kind of foresight in The Witcher 2 would claim they need foresight to predict if they need to eat food today. If you fill up your inventory as much as this review claims, you would have plenty materials to make sure you always have a potion active. Theres no need to guess and then cry when you guess wrong when you can easily have 100% uptime.

Also how can you complain about being stuck in the forests of Flotsam for too long when DA2, which you gave a perfect score, was about running around one city with every dungeon being a reused map.

Oh, I'm so sorry. And here I thought that the almighty Geralt could maybe, I don't know, hang some on his belt, pop them with one hand and take a brief quaff in five seconds time.




Seriously, PC RPG fanboys are some of the most irritating people in the world. They were like this with Risen, too. A game may be the deepest in the world, but if half the people who pick it up cannot penetrate it far enough to get into any of that depth, it's a failure of a game.

Diehards will put up with hours of frustration, but a lot of people won't. Does that make them dirty casual gamers or noobs? No, it just means that they'd rather be spending their time doing something else than slogging through an unwieldy, unintuitive beginning to a game, no matter how tasty a reward was dangled in front of them.

To be fair, I just watched the video review rather than reading any of this. And I take offense to calling a game "flawed" just because it's more difficult and/or complex than most of the crap that passes for RPGs these days. You want a deep and meaningful experience? Well then Witcher 2 delivers. You want simplistic and easy yet deep and meaningful experience? Well, sorry, but those are ideas which are directly contradictory to one another. That's called trying to have your cake and eat it too. A fair, difficult game makes you feel like you've truly accomplished something after each and every battle. An easy game gives you very little satisfaction, even after having completed the entire thing.

And giving W2 a 3.5 when the Escapist gave DA2 a 5? Yeah, this site just lost a lot of credibility in my eyes in regards to reviews...

Frankly, I'm glad to see a review that honestly discusses Witcher 2's flaws instead of just kneeling in front of Geralt and mindlessly going to town. I like the game, but it's arcane and impenetrable and its UI sucks.

Also, FFS people: A 3-and-1/2-stars score is *still an above average game.* He's not panning it.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

The combat is complex in that it is all about timing. If you time your attacks correctly you can get through any fight unscathed, as I started to do later in the game, especially with the annoying Letho confrontation. Utilizing your magic powers in combat will also pay off big time, especially if you can time your aard and ixii spells before your opponents are on top of you. Whenever one enters the non safe zones (ie: areas you cannot meditate) you should know to consume a swallow and a rook. Fairly easy to gather the resources to consume these all the time. You can make as many potions as you want at once, just keep hitting the enter key (want 6 potions? hit enter 6 times. Wow, so hard.)

[edit] DA2 was the biggest was to of 60 bucks I ever spent. If i want to spend 60 dollars for recycled material I would buy a valve collection. DA2 still owes me a full fledged campaign, not 3 expansion packs rolled into 15 maps. It's no better than brink.

We might be polar opposites because I like both DA2 and Brink, but it's because the flaws didn't impede my enjoyment of the good things.

Something to remember about the combat (if we're going to compare games) is that TW2 is about controlling one character. DA2 has you controlling four. I'm not going to say it's a better game (because TW2's art direction and graphics are phenomenal) but I think a lot of the complaints have been exaggerated. Except for the repeated environments thing, which is an issue of scope as well.

As for the interface, it's not just the multiple item thing, it's the clarity of certain information, the organization of acquired recipes, the fact that you have to constantly exit and re-enter the crafting to buy things from the crafter you're already talking to. There's general convenience features that could have made it all flow much better. Personally, I don't mind and I've figured almost everything out, but I can deny that certain aspects would benefit from some streamlining, I'm not even talking about combat here, this is just menu navigation stuff. And again, it hasn't impede my enjoyment, but I understand why it could hurt a review score, which is about considering the good with the bad.

Brink I enjoy as a MP experience, but as a SP experience it falls flat. It didn't have a ending that made sense for gods sake. DA2 I enjoyed as a once through adventure game. As a re-playable RPG it failed because none of the RPG elements diverged from the central role.

As for W2, yes, the interface system is a bit window happy, but that is kind of minor and can be fixed in a future update if plenty of people have issue with it. Remember, this is the same studio that remade Witcher 1 to be even better than the original release. I really think this game should have gotten a 9, if only for the graphics, story and voice acting.

The voice acting? Graphics are great, story is pretty good, but the voice acting? I couldn't even take it seriously half the time.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

I agree with a lot of this review. The inventory and some of the menu screens are an absolute mess. It uses the ancient "you can only carry this much weight" system from RPGs that should have been replaced last decade. That problem is compounded by the fact that some of the crafting materials use up a lot of your weight (Ores and Leather especially). I found myself holding onto all those materials, and I just ended up having to dump inventory every half hour or so because of it.

Not being able to drink potions in combat is a huge hindrance. You really never know when you're about to enter combat, so you have 2 options: 1) waste a boatload of potions and keep them up every time you leave town, or 2) rarely use potions at all. It's also irritating that you have to enter meditation every time you want to drink or make a potion.

I'm still enjoying the game, mostly due to the unbelievable visuals and wonderful setting and story, but it will definitely frustrate most gamers with a multitude of small annoyances that really add up overall.

 

[bob1052]

Oh, I'm so sorry. And here I thought that the almighty Geralt could maybe, I don't know, hang some on his belt, pop them with one hand and take a brief quaff in five seconds time.

Seriously, PC RPG fanboys are some of the most irritating people in the world. They were like this with Risen, too. A game may be the deepest in the world, but if half the people who pick it up cannot penetrate it far enough to get into any of that depth, it's a failure of a game.

Diehards will put up with hours of frustration, but a lot of people won't. Does that make them dirty casual gamers or noobs? No, it just means that they'd rather be spending their time doing something else than slogging through an unwieldy, unintuitive beginning to a game, no matter how tasty a reward was dangled in front of them.

How is an easy to maintain 100% uptime unintuitive.

If someone's car runs out of gas on a weekly basis because they say that filling up gas is unintuitive and requires you "to be Nostradamus" to know when to refill, that doesn't make filling up gas unintuitive, it just makes you look stupid and look like you are trying to blame everything but yourself in some desperate attempt to deceive yourself from your own stupidity.

 

[Woodsey]

Frankly, I'm glad to see a review that honestly discusses Witcher 2's flaws instead of just kneeling in front of Geralt and mindlessly going to town. I like the game, but it's arcane and impenetrable and its UI sucks.

Arcane? Its not exactly old-school. Its just difficult. Turn it down to easy if you have to for the opening. It requires some perseverance, its not impenetrable (as shown by... yourself. You can't be enjoying something if you can't even get into it.)

I agree with a lot of this review. The inventory and some of the menu screens are an absolute mess. It uses the ancient "you can only carry this much weight" system from RPGs that should have been replaced last decade. That problem is compounded by the fact that some of the crafting materials use up a lot of your weight (Ores and Leather especially). I found myself holding onto all those materials, and I just ended up having to dump inventory every half hour or so because of it.

Not being able to drink potions in combat is a huge hindrance. You really never know when you're about to enter combat, so you have 2 options: 1) waste a boatload of potions and keep them up every time you leave town, or 2) rarely use potions at all. It's also irritating that you have to enter meditation every time you want to drink or make a potion.

I'm still enjoying the game, mostly due to the unbelievable visuals and wonderful setting and story, but it will definitely frustrate most gamers with a multitude of small annoyances that really add up overall.

Dump all the leather, dump most of the iron ore, keep all the silver stuff. Honestly, if you need it, you can trip over it everywhere, or you can buy it. There's no need to pick it up.

Potions stick on for 10 minutes or so, you should be able to judge if you're going to run into enemies a lot of the time. Caves/mines? Enemies. Forest/woods? Enemies. Dirty great vibrating wolf necklace? Big fucking enemy!

As for the weight limit, only at the end game was I knocking against the it. If you have a bunch of swords and armour worse than what you're using, sell them.

 

[Keava]

Oh, I'm so sorry. And here I thought that the almighty Geralt could maybe, I don't know, hang some on his belt, pop them with one hand and take a brief quaff in five seconds time.

Just because i actually know the novels. Impossible. The potions are meant to work like that and people who were familiar with the lore actually did complain shyly about it with the first game. The potions are highly toxic poisons that would kill any normal person, paralyse for rest of life at best case scenario, witcher can drink them thanks to their mutations but even then still the toxicity has effect on them in initial stage before the mutation filters it.
If the game was to be 100% like lore you would have drink potion then meditate for 8 hours (think AD&D spell system with need for sleep each time you expended your memorized spells) before you could actually benefit from them. The first witcher's intro cinematic portrayed it pretty well, mostly because it was from actual story by Sapkowski.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

To be fair, I just watched the video review rather than reading any of this. And I take offense to calling a game "flawed" just because it's more difficult and/or complex than most of the crap that passes for RPGs these days. You want a deep and meaningful experience? Well then Witcher 2 delivers. You want simplistic and easy yet deep and meaningful experience? Well, sorry, but those are ideas which are directly contradictory to one another. That's called trying to have your cake and eat it too. A fair, difficult game makes you feel like you've truly accomplished something after each and every battle. An easy game gives you very little satisfaction, even after having completed the entire thing.

And giving W2 a 3.5 when the Escapist gave DA2 a 5? Yeah, this site just lost a lot of credibility in my eyes in regards to reviews...

Frankly, I'm glad to see a review that honestly discusses Witcher 2's flaws instead of just kneeling in front of Geralt and mindlessly going to town. I like the game, but it's arcane and impenetrable and its UI sucks.

The game has its flaws, but this review picked out few of the actual ones. There was a lot more nit-picking about difficulty and complexity than anything else, and these are not bad things. When you give a game like DA2, in which you can literally auto-attack your way through every encounter on normal, a 5/5, it's pretty obvious what your preferred level of sophistication in games is.

I didn't play DA2. I don't have all that much time for games these days, and I never played DA1, so I wasn't interested.

But I'm having a ton of trouble getting through the obtuse interface and bizarre design choices to enjoy the meat of the game. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that people who aren't die-hard old-school RPG fans will do the same, and a review that honestly tells them that is a good thing.

 

[Casimir_Effect]

It's a shame that there is so little place left for a complex RPG which asks that you put something into it so that you can get a lot out, rather than most RPG games these days which are so scared of you losing interest they throw godly powers at you right from the start and never let you fail a quest.

I hate unfairly hard games, games which could be called Nintenhard. But I love the combat in TW2, because upon figuring out that it's all about patience it becomes a lot of fun to play. Switching between signs - like Yrden to stun and Igni to damage - then throwing a few bombs before darting in to slash someone, retreating when the enemy recovers. Or later on when you unlock the riposte ability you can try to sit back and counter - but not permanent blocking like is allowed in an Assassins Creed game. You can take a few blows but after that your block is down, so you make that first chance to riposte or you dodge away and change tactic. This game rewards thinking and planning, which is so rare right now.

I don't even need to mention the graphics and art direction of the entire game, which make running around even the same environment always interesting. That forest: I loved every second going through it.
DA also wishes it could match the tone of this game; rather than advertising itself with Marilyn Manson and revelling in having blood splatter your armour, then having an underwear sex-scene and people speaking ye olde english.
[I do actually like DA, but there's so much wrong with it that The Witcher (both games) have done better, especially in terms of maturity (discounting the fuck-cards)]

Finally, the complete lack of good, evil or morality-based choices at all is fantastic. Everything is about the personality of the Geralt you are playing, rather than "Am I going to play light side, dark side, or impotently neutral?". Can't wait to go back and replay the game going a seperate path than that I took. Not to mention all the other replays I can do which involve crafting a different skill path and changing some of the smaller choices I made.

The game isn't perfect but then nothing has been yet, objectively speaking. If I had to attach a number (which I hate doing) I'd give it a 9/10. Small interface complaints are about all I've got really. And the map. The map does kind of suck.

 

[Ligisttomten]

I agree on the interface problems, it gets quite annoying. Cut-scenes and conversations however was something I enjoyed immensely! Especially the part where the gang sits down at the tavern in Flotsam to catch up.

 

[Mangue Surfer]

I had the same issues with the games, even posted on this forum and got dismissed as rtfml2pconsolescrub

People are unerringly blind to things if they choose to be.

But, cheers for the spoiler in the middle of the video!

But you basically are doing the same.

I'm blind? No! I just play games that challenging their audience much more than the Witcher 2. The castlevanias games for example (not the last one). You can acuse the developers to make nostalgics choices but call everyone that can play without problem blind?!

People that say that the problem doesn't exist are blind. People that force themselves past it anyway are people like me.

LOL.I probably invented this "Castlevania" thing in my process of deny. Such a crazy name anyway