The Witcher 2 First Impressions Thread

[Dragonborne88]

Medium still looks beautiful, and my laptop is handling it well for being about 2 years old. The gameplay and story is quite awesome, and the game changes a LOT in chapter 2 based on your decisions in one. My friend and I have two completely different Chapter 2 games going. Completely, as in like, different locations, story, and hub.

I kind of miss Steel and Silver swords having two different fighting styles though (or do they, I just haven't noticed?). Small detail. The fights require mad crazy amounts of strategy though, which is awesome for an Action-y RPG. Running in will get you killed a lot. I'm taking the Swordsman path, and hitting multiple dudes at once for full damage helps make things a lot easier.

Overall, I'm LOVING the game. Quite happy with it. The transfered save (yes, save games can be brought over from the first one) don't seem to influence a whole lot other then cameos, dialog, and random gifts, though keeping Raven's Armor from the first game, the Silver Sword Aerondight, and my sweet Elvish sword were cool pluses.

First game I've ever played where I died like 8 times in the first 5 minutes of the game. Note to future buyers, DON'T CHOOSE THE DRAGON DIALOG for the first choice to make.

Bit of a curious question here. I know the series is famous for it's female nudity but...is there any male nudity in the game?

No pen0rz, upper body and leg nudity, but they never show the male anatomy from what I've seen and read.

 

[Agayek]

-snip-

I love the game, but I'm about 8 hours in, and suddenly all the voices cut out. I no longer hear any voices in any of the dialogue. Every other sound works fine, it's only voices that don't work. I have no idea why, and I can't get them to turn on, even though I've reinstalled the game, started a new game, loaded all of my saves and everything else I can think of.

I've also done the "fix" on their site where you switch from 5.1 to 2 speakers and it still doesn't work.

 

[Alucard788]

Medium still looks beautiful, and my laptop is handling it well for being about 2 years old. The gameplay and story is quite awesome, and the game changes a LOT in chapter 2 based on your decisions in one. My friend and I have two completely different Chapter 2 games going. Completely, as in like, different locations, story, and hub.

I kind of miss Steel and Silver swords having two different fighting styles though (or do they, I just haven't noticed?). Small detail. The fights require mad crazy amounts of strategy though, which is awesome for an Action-y RPG. Running in will get you killed a lot. I'm taking the Swordsman path, and hitting multiple dudes at once for full damage helps make things a lot easier.

Overall, I'm LOVING the game. Quite happy with it. The transfered save (yes, save games can be brought over from the first one) don't seem to influence a whole lot other then cameos, dialog, and random gifts, though keeping Raven's Armor from the first game, the Silver Sword Aerondight, and my sweet Elvish sword were cool pluses.

First game I've ever played where I died like 8 times in the first 5 minutes of the game. Note to future buyers, DON'T CHOOSE THE DRAGON DIALOG for the first choice to make.

Bit of a curious question here. I know the series is famous for it's female nudity but...is there any male nudity in the game?

No pen0rz, upper body and leg nudity, but they never show the male anatomy from what I've seen and read.

Interesting...I wonder if games will ever see full male nudity. *ponders*

Either way I think I may just get both games. I really did love the books, and a friend of mine have been raving about the game for days.

...might just give it a try.

 

[Dragonborne88]

Interesting...I wonder if games will ever see full male nudity. *ponders*

Either way I think I may just get both games. I really did love the books, and a friend of mine have been raving about the game for days.

...might just give it a try.

One did. The Lost expansion to GTA4 showed full up a dudes junk from the front. It was pretty funny, actually.

EDIT: How were the books, by the way? I really want to read them, ever since the first Witcher game. I really want to learn the whole history of the "Butcher of Baklava" story, and the whole story of how Geralt of Rivia died and lost Yennefer. Especially since she comes up a LOT in The Witcher 2. They make tons of references to the books.

 

[Sunder845]

-snip-

I love the game, but I'm about 8 hours in, and suddenly all the voices cut out. I no longer hear any voices in any of the dialogue. Every other sound works fine, it's only voices that don't work. I have no idea why, and I can't get them to turn on, even though I've reinstalled the game, started a new game, loaded all of my saves and everything else I can think of.

I've also done the "fix" on their site where you switch from 5.1 to 2 speakers and it still doesn't work.

That is a pretty strange fault, Are you using a sound card? If you are I would try taking it out and using the onboard audio just to see what happens. Also, you could try updating your sound card / onboard drivers to see if that has any affect on the problem.

 

[Agayek]

That is a pretty strange fault, Are you using a sound card? If you are I would try taking it out and using the onboard audio just to see what happens. Also, you could try updating your sound card / onboard drivers to see if that has any affect on the problem.

I've done all that. It makes no bloody sense.

 

[Sunder845]

I really want to play it, but I'm not certain my laptop can run it. My specs seem good enough to manage it on at least low settings, but I'm not sure. Since the developers haven't released a demo the only way for me to find out if it runs or not is to drop £35 on it and keep my fingers crossed.

This is what pisses me off about PC gaming. There's such a massive variety of hardware that there's no guarantee that you'll be able to run a certain game, even if your specs are good enough on paper. It should be some kind of law to do a demo for pc games, it's such a stupid decision not to. As it stands, I can't buy it because I can't afford to spend that much money on something that might not even work.

I agree with you to a point and I think that wider betas for PC games (especially ones of this complexity) is a must. However, a lot of the hardware is standardized enough nowadays where I rarely see a problem with games not running at all, I think one game I have bought in the last few years had that problem (with a big fuck you to assasins creed 2 for making my computer hang). At any rate it isnt nearly as bad as it was back in the late 90's early 2000's.

 

[Rusty Bucket]

I really want to play it, but I'm not certain my laptop can run it. My specs seem good enough to manage it on at least low settings, but I'm not sure. Since the developers haven't released a demo the only way for me to find out if it runs or not is to drop £35 on it and keep my fingers crossed.

This is what pisses me off about PC gaming. There's such a massive variety of hardware that there's no guarantee that you'll be able to run a certain game, even if your specs are good enough on paper. It should be some kind of law to do a demo for pc games, it's such a stupid decision not to. As it stands, I can't buy it because I can't afford to spend that much money on something that might not even work.

I agree with you to a point and I think that wider betas for PC games (especially ones of this complexity) is a must. However, a lot of the hardware is standardized enough nowadays where I rarely see a problem with games not running at all, I think one game I have bought in the last few years had that problem (with a big fuck you to assasins creed 2 for making my computer hang). At any rate it isnt nearly as bad as it was back in the late 90's early 2000's.

Oh yeah, it's definitely a lot better than it was. But it can still be difficult to work out if your machine can run a game just by looking at the recommended specs. By not issuing a demo, the developers' are expecting me to drop nearly £40 on a game that may or may not run with no way to find out until I've already paid them. I don't see how that's acceptable at all. As it stands, they just won't get my money until there's a demo.

Edit:

Medium still looks beautiful, and my laptop is handling it well for being about 2 years old.

What are the specs on your laptop? I really want this game, but I'm not sure if my laptop will run it. It's got a 2.4ghz i3, 4gb RAM and an Nvidia 415m. It seems just about good enough to do it, but with no way to find out without buying it I'm a little hesitant.

 

[devotedsniper]

Well after completing my first run through i must say i'm very impressed the combat might be a big leap when you compare it to the first but it's just as good if not better, i do not regret buying it at all, now to replay the first so i can start differently.

Oh and to any of those having performance issues it seems to be GPU drivers which are the issue, for example some people on the steam forums have found deleting the NVIDIA 3d vision drivers helped alot, although for me it's ran perfectly on my system on high with the 270.61 drivers, and my specs are below

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3GHz (2.4GHz standard)
Motherboard: Gigabyte G31M-ES2L
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 460 768mb (overclocked to: core clock: 800MHz, shader clock:1600MHz, memory clock: 1900MHz)
RAM: 4GB (2GB*2) OCZ 667MHz (overclocked to 800MHz) DDR2

 

[Trolldor]

Well I just wrote this in another thread, so I'll copy/paste it:

I played for around 2 or 2.5hrs last night. I like it, but playing on Hard is... well, Hard. Died many, many times just in the assault portion although I learned pretty quickly haha.

I have to say, the graphics are a bit below what I expected and a lot more demanding than they should be. This is so far the ONLY game I cannot play on Ultra - but maybe a driver update will fix that. On high settings it runs very smoothly, around 40-50fps. I noticed that character animations are quite... awkward. I've also seen some small glitches - one time Gerault's hair was sticking straight out and twiching very stiffly and another time he puts on a boot and his leg is sticking right through it. Small stuff like that. The graphics aren't bad though, and the aesthetics (thanks Extra Credits) are very well done thus far.

Combat is a bit awkward. I expected the WASD keys to select the target based on which direction I was pressing, but instead it's actually camera related. The camera though is very twitchy, and also to properly aim you can't really do much of a top-down view. It's probably not as bad as I'm making it sound right now, but it definitely takes getting used to.

I also am not a fan of left click being used for all actions - combat swings, climbing, talking, picking up loot. And in regards to loot, it's annoying to not have hotkeys to "take all" or "discard all". Instead you have to use the mouse, which can appear anywhere on screen. If they at least made it appear inside the loot box it would be so much better.

Anyway, so far it's pretty sweet. Got to see Triss's nice big boobies lol... She looks better than in the first game IMO.

Press Spacebar to take all items, or the highlighted items.

Also works as a 'quick buy' and a 'quick sell' button.

Finished the Witcher 2 yesterday, have an old computer so minimum settings it was, and had serious framerate issues at some point. Couldn't get past the first fights on normal with the framerate issues.


Like the Witcher 1 it does 'choice' well. You can't be certain of what the consequences of your actions will be, and while often they're binary, the culmulative choices taken affect the story in some quite large ways - at the same time, there's never any moral ambiguity. There is not a single morally ambiguous choice. Everything is done in consideration of your goal.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

Ok, couple questions:

Someone posted a comment earlier in this thread saying it was "open-ended". As in open-world? I played through the Witcher and it sure as hell wasn't open world.

Has someone put up a Witcher save game database like the ME -> ME2 one yet? I deleted my save files back in 2007 or 2008... and now I has a sad.

Also, does Shani make a return?

 

[Merkavar]

only issues i have so far is that all th controls are different from witcher 1 so bit of a learning curve and i havent been able to download my dlc out fits and the free quest.

any idea why i cant down load the DLC. keeps saying its downloading but nothing happens

 

[distortedreality]

Ok, couple questions:

Someone posted a comment earlier in this thread saying it was "open-ended". As in open-world? I played through the Witcher and it sure as hell wasn't open world.

Has someone put up a Witcher save game database like the ME -> ME2 one yet? I deleted my save files back in 2007 or 2008... and now I has a sad.

Also, does Shani make a return?

Open ended as in 4 different beginnings and 16 endings, not open world.

Not yet - however if you google witcher 2 save import you will find a forum thread that has people posting their saves, saw it earlier.

Not sure about Shani - if she does come back I don't think she's integral to the story.

any idea why i cant down load the DLC. keeps saying its downloading but nothing happens

If you check the game site they're saying that they're having all sorts of server issues, that's probably the problem you're running into.

 

[-Seraph-]

Anyone else getting trouble regarding the DLC? My downloads are stuck in an infinite loop and just keep re downloading. It started happening with the English voice over DLC and the only way I could stop it from eating all my bandwidth was to go into the registry and delete it. The problem with that is now the DLC doesn't show up in the DLC section if I wanted to get it.

The same thing is happening the my merchant pack and troll quest DLC after I decided to reinstall the game (backed up saves thank god) to try and fix some issues. It's really infuriating how after the language pack issue, it already ate up 5 gigs of bandwidth before I found out and stopped it. So many tech issues getting in the way of such a great game, leaves me really annoyed.

 

[Zer_]

After beating the game, I found it to be really, really good. Honestly if you find the combat too difficult, try it on Easy mode. Interestingly enough, the difference between the two difficulties is quite huge. It'd be better if normal wasn't so difficult so as to punish any mistake with death.

Easy: No real tactics in combat beyond the need to avoid being surrounded. Shielded opponents don't block, they only mitigate damage done.

Normal: It's incredibly hard. At the beginning of the game, an enemy can 2 or 3 shot you from behind. Very, very unforgiving for a "Normal" difficulty.

Anything harder than that would be insanity I presume.

 

[-Seraph-]

After beating the game, I found it to be really, really good. Honestly if you find the combat too difficult, try it on Easy mode. Interestingly enough, the difference between the two difficulties is quite huge. It'd be better if normal wasn't so difficult so as to punish any mistake with death.

Easy: No real tactics in combat beyond the need to avoid being surrounded. Shielded opponents don't block, they only mitigate damage done.

Normal: It's incredibly hard. At the beginning of the game, an enemy can 2 or 3 shot you from behind. Very, very unforgiving for a "Normal" difficulty.

Anything harder than that would be insanity I presume.

I'm playing on Hard mode and finding it pretty manageable; you really gotta use all the tools at your disposal even in standard enemy encounters. Those little shits like Nekkers and Drowners can easily murder you if you get surrounded....and boy did I fucking hate Nekkers while in Flotsam.

Capcha: between essivila

 

[BodomBeachChild]

So fr so good. Had some issues in the beginning with some studdering but it got cleared fast. So detailed and colorful.

The combat is fun, but had a learning curve that resembled the St. Louis Arch for me. Lock-on targeting is something the game tends to forget it is supposed to do. Using magick is 100x more efficent in TW2, though

Btw Dangeling Object Limitor limits how many objects such as hair/ropes/swords dangle. No other dangely bits. The world is goddamn vibrant..

 

[sbb]

It looks fantastic. I started out running it on medium-high, ran pretty well. Updated my graphics driver, and fps dropped in the toilet, no matter what settings I had. Rolled back the driver and everything's gravy again. Combat is way tougher than I expected, and I'm kind of considering buying a wired 360 controller so I can play it that way. I find when I have 20 different actions I NEED TO USE right in the middle of battle and most of them are keyed to be right next to each other, I'm frequently hitting the wrong thing and getting myself killed. Ugh.

 

[ElectroJosh]

I found the combat more challenging but, after getting used to the mechanics, I prefer it. It feels more satisfying when I defeat monsters/enemies. Also, as I said in an earlier thread, the signs are more useful. In the first game I really only used Aard and Igni - now I find that I regularly use all of them and am considering investing in more heavily in magic this playthrough.

 

[Sunder845]

Normal: It's incredibly hard. At the beginning of the game, an enemy can 2 or 3 shot you from behind. Very, very unforgiving for a "Normal" difficulty.

Anything harder than that would be insanity I presume.

I agree with this, I am on chapter 2 now and am finally used to the normal difficulty, though it took many many deaths to get there.