Hi folks, longtime lurker, just registered just to make this post.
My first impression is that this game is a finely crafted and polished gem sticking out of the heap of garbage that is made, and bought, as mainstream games today. The game is a challenge to learn, but rewarding and maybe even harder to master. I play on normal settings for my first run and it's unforgiving if you do not think ahead and plan your tactics. Just button mashing gets you killed but you know why, it is not because the game is unfair. It happens because you failed.
The graphics are phenomenal, the amount of detail is astonishing, the music is okayish, above average, sometimes great. Depending on how deeply you explore, you will find quests that will not be forced upon you (I watched the let's plays on youtube before I got the game, because I could not wait and the guys there did not find half the stuff you could actually do in the tutorial/intro mission(s)). The developer actually risks people not finding everything, sometimes you even cannot do two things at the same time, replay value is guaranteed.
There is real choice that matters, not simulated one or jut the "apperance" of choice. I am only a few hours into the Witcher2 and I have already seen multiple quests that really change depending on your actions. People whom you kill will not appear, people who you help will help you or attack you (way later in the story) if you did not help them, and so on and so forth.
Basically what this means is that the developer has made not only ONE game, but MANY games that he can only sell as one game. Because REAL choice needs all the places and people and choices to be existing along each other, while the player can only take one route. As far as my first impression after roughly 12 hours of playing concerns, the Witcher2 delivers.
The game starts relatively linear in the extended tutorial/intro mission but once you get into your first town the world map opens up and you can explore more freely. I decided to run into the woods in the night instead of following the main quest and started killing monsters (for crafting reagents), which fought each other. So I was sneaking around in the dark, buffed by an intoxicating potion, watching some sort of bugs killing some sort of zombie thingie and then jumped in to finish the both of, shortly before becoming swarmed by another wave of beasties that slew me right there.
As someone who has played RPGs since "The Bards Tale" on the AMIGA I can only highly recommend this game to anyone, who has just the slightest interest in the genre. And please, please do BUY this game. Do not pirate it! Tell your friends not to pirate it. It is worth every Nickel, Cent, Yen or whatever currency you fancy. It deserves to have good sales and totally obliterate the crap we nowaydays get served as mainstream games. I had almost given up on gaming in general and felt like one of those old folks just remembering the "good old times", but this game really gives me the wonderful "escape" adrenaline kick, I was missing so much with the modern games.
The Escapist should give this game at least as much coverage and credit as it did with Dragon Age2 even though it's "just" from "some European company".
Sorry for any weird sounding English and all typos I did not find, I am from Austria and English is not my native language.
Best vibes from Vienna!
Furin
It was more the knowledge that they were there since I figured he was meant to sleep with the first women becuase I thought she was his girlfriend ...lol. It wasn't just the cards it was also the fact that there were really no normal female characters they all seemed to have set thier phasers to 'slut' as it were...
