The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review

[Omnific One]

Ah the Escapist... Bioware fanboys to the end... even the editors.

Dragon Age II- Escapist: 100% Metacritic: 79%
Witcher 2- Escapist: 70% Metacritic: 89%

BW gets a +21% over Meta, CPR gets a -21%.

Jesus Christ, you guys really need to get those freaking nostalgia glasses off.

As Skyrim isn't made by BW, I'm calling the Escapist giving it between a 60 and 80%.

The Rasmussen of RPG reviews. Congrats on the title.

 

[Moffman]

Review seems even handed to me. I got the Witcher I and wasn't a fan, not because it was hard (I in fact found it very easy) but was just boring. I'm well aware this game is probably different but if the first game in a series doesn't grab me, I'm done I think that's fair.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Someone pointed out that it would be out of character for this badass Warmaster to have to go through a "and here's how you block" tutorial, so I was thinking - wouldn't it be cool if you started the game as some sort of neophyte recruit who was being GIVEN a lesson by *the* Geralt himself? That'd preserve Geralt as a wise experienced warrior while still introduce newbies to the game.

And then maybe the recruit gets killed and Geralt takes over, providing the player with an immediate emotional attachment to the game. I think it would have been a cool idea.

Based off the ending of the first, and Geralt's current situation in the second, that really isn't possible.

Spoiler: The first hour, unimportant but still a spoiler so I won't force you to read this

He helped King Foltest many, many times. Saving his daughter from the curse of the Striga in the intro cinematic to the first game, helping him many times throughout the first game, and at the start of the second Geralt is essentially Foltest's personal body guard. Geralt even says that Foltest thinks him his "good luck charm".

He doesn't really have any time to be training a recruit

Well, in regards to training a recruit, a large part of the 2nd English book written by Andrzej is about Geralt training a protege...however I think this precedes the Witcher saga and the game. But that would be cool if it could be used as a tutorial.

 

[Mangue Surfer]

Maybe we guys that like challenging are getting too rough. But try understanding how frustating this day and age are for us.

 

[ElectroJosh]

I love the game and, to be honest, thought that the complaint about the steep learning curve were exagerrated. This review changed my mind on the issue a bit. After reading this I realise that I happened to play the prologue in the "correct" sequence - so the mechanics were explained as I needed to know them. I now realise that I was lucky to have done it this way as the game allows you to play them in whatever order you choose (which would be quite hard).

Fair point but I still love it. I thinks its fantastic but could not unequivocally recommend it to everybody and anybody.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Ah the Escapist... Bioware fanboys to the end... even the editors.

Dragon Age II- Escapist: 100% Metacritic: 79%
Witcher 2- Escapist: 70% Metacritic: 89%

Jesus Christ, you guys really need to get those freaking nostalgia glasses off.

As Skyrim isn't made by BW, I'm calling the Escapist giving it between a 60 and 80%.

The Rasmussen of RPG reviews. Congrats on the title.

Before anyone goes crazy about the use of metacritic in this comment, that score is actually based on critic reviews, not user. Even IGN, one of the most Xbox fanboy heavy sites I've seen, gave it a 9. Just sayin.

 

[Chase Yojimbo]

Agreed Greg. Story, Plot, and Characters were fantastically done, but gameplay and anything involving such sucked the fun of the story out. I haven't even finished it yet because I just got so damn bored of it.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I'm a BIG fan of the game...and even bought both editions of the first game and played it in different languages.

But I'm also one of the guys who went and jumped in the Dragon part of the prologue first, and yeah it was frustrating as hell. Yes, I know, duh, FIRE, but even when I skipped through the gap unscathed suddenly he was on fire for no reason, and yeah I did it many times again and again. And the whole damn place was on fire, I couldn't tell whether I was flaming because the dragon breathed on me or because somethings were falling apart and I was too slow.

The rest of the fighting so far seems ok, a little clunky, but maybe just because I don't have the timing down so well yet. Because there are moments of pure sword ballet if you get it just right, leaping from one enemy to the next when they are open. So I'm looking forward to some of the fluidity coming back upon levelling up, which is what many say is what happens later.

The other issue I had with it was inventory, but only because there wasn't a box storage system. I wouldn't care actually, I'm not one for lugging and hoarding stuff anyways, but it's a little difficult to tell what will be crucial later and what won't be, so I just kinda sell "common" stuff and hold onto the "rare".

 

[Throwitawaynow]

Ah the Escapist... Bioware fanboys to the end... even the editors.

Dragon Age II- Escapist: 100% Metacritic: 79%
Witcher 2- Escapist: 70% Metacritic: 89%

Jesus Christ, you guys really need to get those freaking nostalgia glasses off.

As Skyrim isn't made by BW, I'm calling the Escapist giving it between a 60 and 80%.

The Rasmussen of RPG reviews. Congrats on the title.

Metacritic can be trusted. Also witcher 2 has less than 1/2 the reviews that dragon age 2 does. I disagree with Tito too, the game is perfect and just isn't for the casuals. PC is the bestest of all the consoles EVAR! It has no bugs, it doesn't re-use anything, and the inventory is easy to manage if you're not a noob. That light attack, heavy attack sword system is too deep for people.

Before anyone goes crazy about the use of metacritic in this comment, that score is actually based on critic reviews, not user. Even IGN, one of the most Xbox fanboy heavy sites I've seen, gave it a 9. Just sayin.

IGN isn't xbox fanboy heavy, it's fanboy heavy. Anything with a lot of fanboys gets pandered too. Look at the comments so far.

I summed up what I had problems with in an earlier post.

The game has some serious issues, I'm glad that you think it's a perfect game that can't be critisized. Game killing bugs, I'm experiencing one now. All of my controls are locked up and after reloading my character it is stuck. Once you're in a town you can't leave until the next part of the story happens. It's very close to what DA2 did, you know how everyone loved that. Despite having an inventory maximum, there is no sorting. I keep going over the weight limit but I can't sort by weight to see what is dragging me down. There are junk items, but no junk folder. You have to search through each item individually to find it. The camera sucks, if a loot bag and a torch are next to it, one of them is going to be overriden. The auto-save system doesn't always save, and your saves sometimes overide each other making a huge messs and not knowing where you want to load from. The journal is extremely lacking, and often won't tell you what you need to know to play the game.

The sword combat consists of light attack, and heavy attack, with no discernable combos. You can only cast 2 signs at a time(spells) and it takes a while before you can cast another. Trying to throw things is annoying and will sometimes just not work. The game also won't tell you when you're out of ammo. Input lag will kill you, and input lag does happen. There is only 2 systems of sound, music and everything else. Want to turn down the extremely loud wind that is drowning out the dialogue? Good luck because it's on the same level as the dialogue. Some of these things could be adjusted by going through the files of the game, but arn't fixable easily.


Edit: @bob1052 Pointed out that I had missed the flat boosts, and was going in to regeneration.

 

[sta697]

after giving da2 5 stars with the one location boring characters and no story how can you give this 3.this just doesnt add up.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I'm glad that there is a game out there that says "fuck you figure it out for yourself", instead of the hand holding that has become so commonplace. There is a reason Dwarf Fortress is so appealing, some people love the challenge of discovering things on their own.

I don't see that as shoddy design, just an old school choice.

 

[Furin]

What puzzles me is that in the whole (video) review is not a single word about the choice system in Witcher2, which does not give you an illusion of choice but rather manifests many decisions of the player in the real game, and not just in different dialogue options but rather in game content, either immidiatly or later on. I would call it a "horizontal" game design, which does indeed shorten the lenght of the individual playthrough, thinking of the player manouvering through the game from bottom to top, but on the opposite side does provide replay value. The developer is taking a risk here, as people will maybe say the game is too short. I would have liked to see that aspect being discussed.

I think the other points depend on personal taste. Do you like the game to hand you everything on a plate or do you like to explore and learn from failure. Do you like apples or oranges. Do you like to have convenience food in a restaurant or do you prefer to cook for yourself. Both is good and whatever floats your boat is great (as long as noone forces the other to eat oranges when they want apples).

Edit: And since the game genre has become an industry with profit in mind, catering to the majority for maximum revenue, I had my fair share of oranges tbh.

 

[MatsVS]

Reading this review was like reading a review of a Bergman or Tarkovsky film, where the reviewer was lamenting that the work of art was not more like another standard superhero film. Sad indeed.

Besides, reading the manual was not even necessary to adjust to the fantastic combat system. Some quick trial and error, and voilà. As for the "poorly explained side quests", you ought try reading the in-game journal with the relevant monster information. It is spelled out which bomb you need. Honestly...

The developer said in an interview that they had been inspired by Demon's Souls, and it shows. This is a work of art of nearly the same lofty heights, and that's not something I say lightly. Geralt is exactly as responsive as he is supposed to be, which makes him feel like a real person rather than a floating, fire-spewing camera with swooshing swords attached to him. You need to pay careful attention to your position, vigour, an health, making combat an exciting exercise in tactics and skill.

There is a few mechanical shortcomings, granted, such as the doors in the game, but that is nit-picking, really. Hopefully, no one has been dissuaded from purchasing this game because of this strange review. And The LotR pun was painful, aye...

EDIT: As for the potions, it seems to me that taking the time to unscrew an chug a potion during the middle of a frantic sword fight. A holdover from the meditation system? Please... If anything, it seems much more in line with the source material, which focused a lot on the importance of proper metabolism in regards to potions.

 

[rsvp42]

Although I support your desire to quell egregious fanboyism, I feel like I should point out a couple things:

You can only cast 2 signs at a time(spells) and it takes a while before you can cast another.

If you're referring to the vigor bar, it only has two notches in the beginning, hence two casts. You get a third soon after (and I assume even more later), as well as abilities that refill it faster both in and out of combat.

Want to turn down the extremely loud wind that is drowning out the dialogue? Good luck because it's on the same level as the dialogue.

So far, I've only seen this happen once. It made me leave on subtitles because I have no way of knowing when it will happen again, but I wouldn't blow that issue out of proportion.

 

[bob1052]

There is a few mechanical shortcomings, granted, such as the doors in the game, but that is nit-picking, really. Hopefully, no one has been dissuaded from purchasing this game because of this strange review.

The doors are actually something I was really impressed by.

It is tough to notice but right after going through a door (it also happens in certain hallways and cave entrances that are shrouded by vines in the forest surrounding Flotsam) but for the first split second all textures are incredibly low resolution.

You probably notice that the game is graphically intense on your system. That door that you need to awkwardly, and they do get pretty awkward, actually blocks your view, allowing them to downgrade all the textures and not lock your frames at 15 or force you to drop your settings any lower.

You might have also noticed how you can sometimes get a quarter second loading screen when going through a door or one of these cave entrances, thats the game prepping the area ahead, it normally can keep up with you changing in real time but sometimes it needs to load for a moment. If they didn't use those doors it would be much less pretty and much less fluid when travelling from one side of a region to another.

 

[Zhukov]

*sigh*

This review sure has the fanatics crawling out of the woodwork like rats.

Anyway, I'm not finding the game all that difficult. Except for the dragon part. Not gonna lie, that was utter balls.

 

[Aethren]

I'm loving this game, it's refreshing to have a challenge.

That said, I am absolutely loathing those damn Endrega Queens. I killed the farther one first, and now I'm trying to kill the one next to town but I can't seem to manage it.

 

[rsvp42]

after giving da2 5 stars with the one location boring characters and no story how can you give this 3.this just doesnt add up.

In DA2's defense, the characters were the highlight. Really unique and had some great banter. It also had many locations, they were simply reused too many times, which is the main issue with the game. Well, that and the exploding bodies. And it had a story, it was just episodic instead of being one long epic.

 

[MatsVS]

The doors are actually something I was really impressed by.

It is tough to notice but right after going through a door (it also happens in certain hallways and cave entrances that are shrouded by vines in the forest surrounding Flotsam) but for the first split second all textures are incredibly low resolution.

You probably notice that the game is graphically intense on your system. That door that you need to awkwardly, and they do get pretty awkward, actually blocks your view, allowing them to downgrade all the textures and not lock your frames at 15 or force you to drop your settings any lower.

You might have also noticed how you can sometimes get a quarter second loading screen when going through a door or one of these cave entrances, thats the game prepping the area ahead, it normally can keep up with you changing in real time but sometimes it needs to load for a moment. If they didn't use those doors it would be much less pretty and much less fluid when travelling from one side of a region to another.

Aye, all you say is true, but I was rather thinking about how only one person could pass through a door each time it was opened. It made for an awkward fight or two. But yes, concessions in game design such as these are to be expected on graphic-heavy releases, so I don't count it a genuine flaw.