Witcher 2. Should I?

[SilverStrike]

It's 26 quid on Steam, or 22 on GOG. This is the digital premium edition. (Do GOG games go on Steam anyway?)

So, looked around various reviews and stuff, but finding lately I trust the escapist more. Y'know, real people. Decent gamers, more or less. I love the crap out of Mass Effect (3 is collector's preorder) I loved DA:O, and I even got some enjoyment out the sequel. Red Dead, Dark Souls, Saint's Third, these are some of my favourite games I own. Oh, Skyrim as well.
Though TOR didn't really grab me.. annoying, given the price. =/ But that's way too much a divergence of topic And lately, Starcraft 2, though unrelated.

Sooo. Bearing that in mind, would you recommend Witcher 2. Is it good? Is it fun? Does it deliver a good story (Bioware style) Does it deliver good combat (It won't compare to DS, but is it good ) And so forth.

C'mon, should I?

 

[SilverStrike]

I appreciate your input nonetheless. So, one in Witchers favour!
Oh, and it's even got romance sub plots too, right? I love those. I like character interaction on a romantic level. Is it more on par with Bioware romances (IE, actually good and involving) Instead of say.. Fable or Skyrim, with bugger short courting, get married, they spend rest of their lives in the kitchen saying the same lines?

 

[Verzin]

it is excellent, and I suggest you buy it. The Witcher 2 is an excellent game, imo the best RPG since the Witcher 1.
The combat can be most unforgiving though, so except to die. often.

 

[SilverStrike]

I'm in Anor Londo on Dark Souls. I think I can handle dying a bit. xD God that game is unforgiving.

 

[Wolfram23]

Witcher 2 is amazing. Buy it now.

Dark Souls is also amazing. After a fairly long hiatus I just opened the gate in Londo ruins that connects to the drake valley... ugh man what a place.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

No, for the love of God dont.

read this part and had this exact face:

thank goodness for the sarcasm after that...

OT: witcher 2 is fucking amazing. hands down, every category is just amazing and they all work together perfectly, i couldn't believe how under represented it was in the rpg section this year, it truly is an amazing piece of work that is worth full price.

 

[xvbones]

That depends on if you like brilliant games that allow you to have real and actual choices that have real and actual impacts on the real and actual story.

Okay so, there's a certain point at the end of a particular chapter where you are given a choice to assist an elvish terrorist or a royal spymaster.

Your split-second choice (you are literally given only about 5 seconds to choose) completely determines the rest of the game. The entire next chapter is wholly and completely different depending on that choice. Depending on who you go with, the next chapter's setting, location, main quest, side quests, characters, everything, is different.

And that is just one example. You are constantly given choices that have clear and visible impact on the game's story and setting. This is a far cry from "answer differently here and you get a different companion, or your companion wears a different hat", no instead, this is "answer differently here and everything changes."

You are constantly forced to make choices that have no 'right' answer. There is no morality slider, there is no 'goodguy v badguy' option, there is a gradient of shades of grey and in the middle of it is you, gradually being forced to realize that pretty much always, the only 'correct' choice is the one that benefits you, directly and fuck everybody else.

There are quests that prey on your conditioning as a gamer, banking heavily on your ingrained belief that NPCs will not constantly lie to your face for their own gain. In one such incredibly memorable quest, the plot twist is

Spoiler

that an accused rapist and murderer was telling the truth when he said "You have to believe me, I am innocent."

And you won't ever even see that quest if you made a different choice earlier.

The only problem this game had at launch was sloppy combat mechanics that pumped the difficulty to ridiculous extremes, this has been fixed and now combat is about as good as it gets and this game is as close to flawless as they come.

(apart from one thing: the story is based on a popular Polish series of fantasy novels and is a more-or-less direct continuation from the first game; as such the game assumes you have familiarity with the setting and characters. You may occasionally feel a little lost when they glaze over backstory elements, assuming you already know all this.)

The story is tight and engrossing, the characters are intriguing and well-written and acted, the combat is fun and engaging, everything about this game blows everything about, for example, Dragon Age: Origins out of the water.

Also, there's tits in it.

Oh and also when they fixed combat, as a "sorry about that", they tossed in a handful of free DLC.

Why are you still in this thread? Buy the fucking game. Buy it now. Go on.

 

[zombieshark6666]

I'm in Anor Londo on Dark Souls. I think I can handle dying a bit. xD God that game is unforgiving.

I just made it there today. Haven't made it past the first knight!

The Witcher 2 is coming to consoles too, in case you prefer not playing at a desk.

 

[MisterShine]

But nothing like Hamburger Helpers gay romances, and thank God for that.

Yeah, us gays and our... feelings and shit.

Sooo. Bearing that in mind, would you recommend Witcher 2. Is it good? Is it fun? Does it deliver a good story (Bioware style) Does it deliver good combat (It won't compare to DS, but is it good ) And so forth.

C'mon, should I?

The game is quite good. Now to be fair, I only played the game at release and during the next week or two after, I don't think there was even a major patch while I was still playing, and I know since then they've done a lot of bug fixes and even added the "Dark Mode" stuff which I'll do whenever/if ever I do another playthrough.

The storyline is very Black and Gray [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackAndGrayMorality] in terms of morality, there aren't any characters who could even TECHNICALLY qualify as a good guy outside of a few, and playing Geralt as one is pretty tough. Also the game rarely gives you any indication of how your choices might impact other situations later, this will be incredibly annoying at first, but if you learn to enjoy the almost-randomness of it you'll actually appreciate its attempt to mimic life's moral quandaries. Also for the second chapter the game diverges wildly based off of which choice you make in the first Chapter, they come back together in the third for mainly the same effect as far as I could tell, it still adds an excellent feel for a second playthrough, you won't struggle to enjoy it again later.

As for gameplay, its combat is sort-of in the realm of Dark Souls, though there's more an emphasis on using items and spells together with your sword play, you can focus on one area but if you plan on playing any difficulty but easy you'll want to know how to use all the tools at your disposal. Speaking of specialization, don't bother with Alchemy (unless this is one of the big overhauls they did, but I doubt it). The potions only last for a few fights at most and the menu is rather onerous to get through making having to constantly rechug them a pain in the ass (speaking of which, I'd grab the half-hour potion mod on Witcher Nexus [http://witcher.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=5]), so pick either combat or magic and stick to 'em.

I wasn't quite sure it was worth the 50 bucks I paid for it at the time, but at 22 now with all the extras, as an action-RPG fan I'm sure you'll feel confident in what you paid. Enjoy

(Do GOG games go on Steam anyway?)

No, DRM free my friend.

 

[DementedSheep]

I would recommend it. I like the combat and love the story (tho the end feels half done) but if you do get it get it from GOG not Steam. You don't have to use the steam client, its DRM free and if you get it from GOG CD gets more money from you purchase.

I appreciate your input nonetheless. So, one in Witchers favour!
Oh, and it's even got romance sub plots too, right? I love those. I like character interaction on a romantic level. Is it more on par with Bioware romances (IE, actually good and involving) Instead of say.. Fable or Skyrim, with bugger short courting, get married, they spend rest of their lives in the kitchen saying the same lines?

Sort of but it?s not like bioware romances, you are not picking out of a list. You are playing as Geralt and Geralt is in love with Triss and Yennefer (tho Yen isn't in the games yet). So there is the romance between her and him, there are a few nice romantic scenes (tho not as gooey as bioware romances tend to be) and you can kind of choose how it plays out in some ways like how reluctant he is and whether he actually trusts her. There is also a mini romance with one of the other female characters that you can choose to pursue in one of the paths.

Also you have not finished the game until you have played both paths. They are a fair bit different and will give you different parts of the plot.

 

[xvbones]

But nothing like Hamburger Helpers gay romances, and thank God for that.

Yeah, us gays and our... feelings and shit.

I'm going to defend his comment and the exact wording that he used, as i feel it was accurate.

In the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series, you can have what appear on the surface to be gay love affairs.

Everybody made a big deal of them and went batshit over whether this was a good thing or a bad thing and everybody completely and totally ignored the actual content of those alleged gay love affairs.

In every single one of them, the characters were not ever gay, explicitly or otherwise, they were merely reacting to the PC, period.

Anders in DA2 hits on you whether you are male or female, and in exactly the same way.
In DA1, we have Zevran who also treats your gender as irrelevant.
In ME2, you can fuck Thane. Whether you are male or female. (Edit, misremembered what was apparently a runthrough with an an especially butch femshep.)

It never really feels like you are having an actual homosexual relationship and nothing more than lip service is paid to whatever society might think of it.

You are having, at best, a fill-in-the-blanks relationship with an NPC whose sexuality is determined solely by your gender.

In other words... a Hamburger Helper gay romance that would be hetero if you had ticked the other gender in the character creation pane.

Some of us found that to be somewhat insulting and would have preferred for Bioware to have not bothered, if they weren't going to include actual homosexual characters.

Carry on.

 

[DementedSheep]

In ME2, you can fuck Thane. Whether you are male or female.

No you can't. You can only romance Thane as femshep.

 

[xvbones]

In ME2, you can fuck Thane. Whether you are male or female.

No you can't. You can only romance Thane as femshep.

Are you absolutely certain? Because I seem to recall..

Wait, lemme check the wiki, it's been some time.

Nope, yup, sorry, no gays in space.

I stand corrected.

My mistake.

 

[SilverStrike]

Welp, time to buy me some Witcher. Glowing recommendations on all counts.
Still leaning to Steam. Familiarity and I rather like it. Aaaaand I might be able to get a coupon off someone.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Welp, time to buy me some Witcher. Glowing recommendations on all counts.
Still leaning to Steam. Familiarity and I rather like it. Aaaaand I might be able to get a coupon off someone.

Have fun! Seriously awesome game. It's like if Game of Thrones had a baby with the good parts of a Bioware game.

 

[BathorysGraveland]

Well, the first Witcher was a really good game, so when the second is an improvement in pretty much every level, it is a definite-own. Enjoy yourself with it.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I appreciate your input nonetheless. So, one in Witchers favour!
Oh, and it's even got romance sub plots too, right? I love those. I like character interaction on a romantic level. Is it more on par with Bioware romances (IE, actually good and involving) Instead of say.. Fable or Skyrim, with bugger short courting, get married, they spend rest of their lives in the kitchen saying the same lines?

The romance scenes in Witcher 2 blow Bioware out of the water. You believe that Geralt and Triss are lovers.

Also, be sure to dodge a lot. Unless you upgrade your shield sign (Quen), you will be ducking and dodging a lot of blows. And the targeting system is finicky, but it is getting fixed for the Enhanced Edition.

 

[godofallu]

The Witcher is horrible gameplay wise. The cutscenes are decent though.

Personally if I was offered it for free I wouldn't even download it. The game is just fetch quest after fetch quest compiled with escort mission after escort mission.

Try it before you buy it, although I doubt they would offer a demo.

 

[Hyper-space]

No, for the love of God dont.

I mean, why the hell would you want to play THE BEST (I repeat: THE BEST) RPG that has been released in the last few years? The combat is so good, ugh, who wants to play that shit. And the story. Oh man, the story telling is awesome. Everything about it is amazing. So why would you buy it?

Seriously though, slightly insane ramblings aside, I suggest you get it. Not to start a flame war or anything, but if you think DA:O is good, its time old Geralt showed you what a really good game is like.

Witcher 2 is like a slightly more fluid Dark Souls mixed with a dash of DA level design (semi-open but not really), storytelling that is so good I dont really have any game to compare it to and a shit ton of free DLC and what not. I think you would love it. But thats just me. Be sure to consider other users opinions on it too. I am a hopeless CDProjekt fanboy so im biased.

Have they fixed the lagging? I had a lot of problems playing the game, even though my rig can handle most other games that are far more demanding than Witcher 2.

Hate it when I get excited over an RPG and can't get forward.

 

[xvbones]

Have they fixed the lagging? I had a lot of problems playing the game, even though my rig can handle most other games that are far more demanding than Witcher 2.

Hate it when I get excited over an RPG and can't get forward.

Yes, all initial problems reported with the game have been resolved and patched over, because CD Projeckt is crazy on the ball about shit like that.

Generally, this shit is caused by translation issues or some such, but just like in the first Witcher, they released one huge patch that fixed everything, and also added a bunch of stuff.

In this case, they fixed combat, lag, added a tutorial and an arena and a handful of free DLC comprising a couple extra quests and a new merchant who sells some pretty fucking killer weapons and armor, who appears at each new hub.