Zero Punctuation: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

Gametek

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predatorpulse7 said:
Been watchin Yahtzee for years now and I can safely say that this is the first review where I constantly though to myself "BS! BS! BS!" with some minor laughs along the way.
Aside everything else, with Bs you mean Blood Lust? You know, are you an ex WoW player? =D
 

Gametek

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remnant_phoenix said:
MelasZepheos said:
I actually defend this attitude to reviewing games (not finishing the whole thing) because it perhaps shows better what sort of game you're playing.

A good game will keep you playing to the end.

A bad game will not./quote]

Amidst all the backlash of "He just doesn't have the attention span!" "He's not a PC gamer!" blah blah blah...

I noticed that few people seemed to miss that Yahtzee's biggest point on why he stopped playing was, and I quote, "I wasn't having fun!"

Too many people take gaming too seriously. Games should be fun first, everything else second. Certainly people have different standards of what constitutes "fun." Some think unstructured open-world freedom is fun. Some think hardcore skill and strategy is fun. Some think that going round after round of tea-bagging noobs in Call of Duty is fun.

But can you really fault someone for refusing to continue playing a game because they just aren't enjoying it?
That is what he said. So your is an I agree, or what? o_O
 

predatorpulse7

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Gametek said:
predatorpulse7 said:
Been watchin Yahtzee for years now and I can safely say that this is the first review where I constantly though to myself "BS! BS! BS!" with some minor laughs along the way.
Aside everything else, with Bs you mean Blood Lust? You know, are you an ex WoW player? =D
No, BS as in bullshit.

Never played WOW, hate what it did to some of my friends(who are hooked on RPG's) and as I said, I rarely play RPG's but TW 2 was amazing and if a fps/action-adventure fanboy like myself can deal with it's supposed combat issues,"difficulty" and inventory problems(the mutagen thing) then I don't see what the rest of the population has against it.

I'd hate to see some of these lazy types play a neverminter nights, icewind dale, baldur's gate or planescape torment type of RPG. Those are difficult RPG's.
 

Monstrion

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Very funny review. But at the same time, very wrong review. And I know that was to be expected, but if you are one of those crazy people, who form opinions about games based on ZP, dont do it with this one.

Get a pair of balls, decent PC and enjoy a game that downright shames last 10 years of Bioware production.
 

predatorpulse7

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Monstrion said:
Get a pair of balls, decent PC and enjoy a game that downright shames last 10 years of Bioware production.
I agree. I giggle everytime I hear someone compare TW 2 to recent Bioware games. It kills them, pisses on their corpse and sets them on fire in every single way. You can see that CD Project care about their franchise and aren't milking it and/or dumbing it down. Hopefully they will succeed with the console version as well.
 

Magicman10893

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I came here expecting to lol at the butthurt PC Elitists that are mad that their precious gem got smashed by Yahtzee, but then I came to the sudden realization that I was planning on getting this game when it comes to consoles.
 

Kahunaburger

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Zannah said:
Kahunaburger said:
The journal is part of the writing. It frequently gives you hints as to where to go in the game. Think the Civipedia. It's also, incidentally, the only in-game journal I can think of that isn't painful to read. I personally didn't find the game impenetrable - it just expects its readers to keep up haha.
If I walk in on a public execution, tense music starts, and I'm expected to interfere, and I then have to open the journal (without any indication that I should do so), to find out who these people are, and why I should care, that's not good storytelling - not to mention that you encounter people several times, and are expected to react to them in a dialogue, without the chance of accessing the journal first.
Videogames, as the name implies, are visual mediums, and therefore operate under "show, don't tell" rules. If a game has to hand me a manual, for it's story to make sense, that's pathetic.
That's like starting Star Wars with the Empire Strikes Back and being all "who is this Luke kid? Why do I care whether he gets eaten by a space yeti or not?" In either case, if you really insist on starting with the later installment, you could just watch the characters' actions and let indirect characterization work its magic. And the point with the journal is that it's A) entertaining commentary on past events, B) a quick explanation for people who haven't played the first game or read the books, and C) a hint as to where you go next.

Zannah said:
That the first act might as well be titled "Robin Hood 2: The Sheriff joins the KKK", to the point where the forest the scoi'athel live in, is actually called "Sherwaedd", and that Saskia is a better Jeanne d'Arc impersonator, then the one from the actual Jeanne d'Arc game.
It resembles Robin Hood in that it's an authority figure vs. heavily armed people who live in the forest, but the circumstances, ideologies, characters, and plot are completely different. Who, for instance, is Iorveth's Maid Marian?

Saskia resembles Joan of Arc in that she's a woman who wears armor and leads people into battle, but once again, different circumstance, ideology, personality, and story.
Also, I don't recall Joan of Arc being a dragon.

Zannah said:
This doesn't really make sense either. Could you elaborate?
I actually posted a lengthy rant about that issue a while back -
Basically, there's this civil war thing going on, and this conspiracy, and the player sees both, and personally, I was interested. It wasn't first class writing by any stretch, but pretty atmospheric, and I could imagine having a lot of fun with that story, as a pc-generated char. Unfortunately, I'm forced to play a dude, who doesn't care about any of this.
Geralt wants his memories (that I only see three cartoon cutscenes of) and his girlfriend (which I only see one sex scene of). The game completely fails to get me interested in either - Geralt on the other hand isn't interested in the real plot going on, and keeps contradicting his own paperthin justification for being a part of it - (He keeps saying he wants to clear his name, while also claiming he doesn't need to, towards Triss - you can tell Saskia you believe in her ideals, but ten minutes later, Geralt will tell her he doesn't care).
Geralt has little reason to be in the plot, and seems as annoyed by me trying to speak for him, as I am by him contradicting me, and his own emotional and actual baggage keeps hijacking the otherwise interesting plot - personally, I feel like this plot was written for a pc-generated character, and then they decided to make it a game about the witcher, rather then one merely set in the world, hoping to sell more copies that way.
Well, it sounds to me like (since you basically get to pick what Geralt says his motivation is) you're picking contradictory options and then are getting mad that the game is letting you pick contradictory options. That's like alternating between Paragon and Renegade options in Mass Effect 2, then saying "who the heck is this Commander Shepard woman? One minute she's being the voice of diplomatic reason, the next minute she's yelling at people and beating witnesses!"

And a major theme of Witcher is the tension between Geralt's desire/duty to remain neutral and the desires of others to use his skills for their own political ends. This is hardly the first Witcher story where Geralt would like to do his job or pursue some personal goal, but ends up getting roped into a power struggle of some sort.

It sounds to me like you really don't want to like this game, so you work really hard to find ways not to like the story. Honestly, I don't get this whole Dragon Age vs. The Witcher thing - most people like both and there's room for more than one story-driven medieval fantasy RPG out there.
 

carnex

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If you dislike certain type of games you shouldn't review it unless you can distance yourself from your bias.

You really don't like this type of games but that doesn't make them bad games. just makes them unappealing to you. Just like others have no love for guitar/band games or sport games. These are still great games, they are just not up to everyone's taste.

Let me give you a basic PC specific example of how complex and counter intuitive does not make game worse. Take two legendary games. master of Magic and Heroes of Might and Magic (and let's take second iteration, even though it came years later, since it's when series hit the stardom. Second is more streamlined and simpler yet still strategic enough to please strategy fans,so it more appealing to the average player. Master of Magic if infinitely more complex and it's menu system is far from intuitive yet it offers much deeper immersion in the world offering much deeper freedoms in strategic thinking and approaches to problems. That makes Master of Magic better game in eyes of many games despite it's high entrance bar and complex menu systems.

Given, they are different games, but they appeal to the same public. Strategy playing fantasy lovers.
 

Bobzer77

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esliang said:
I'm really not sure how seriously to take this review...Yahtzee's pretty insightful but can this game really be that tedious? I've always kind of wanted to try it.
No, no it isn't.

Some advice, never ever take Yahtzee's reviews seriously or you will miss some awesome games.

MelasZepheos said:
Amidst all the backlash of "He just doesn't have the attention span!" "He's not a PC gamer!" blah blah blah...

I noticed that people seemed to miss that Yahtzee's biggest point on why he stopped playing was, and I quote, "I wasn't having fun!"

Too many people take gaming too seriously. Games should be fun first, everything else second. Certainly people have different standards of what constitutes "fun." Some think unstructured open-world freedom is fun. Some think hardcore skill and strategy is fun. Some think that going round after round of tea-bagging noobs in Call of Duty is fun.

But can you really fault someone for refusing to continue playing a game because they just aren't enjoying it?
You can fault someone for saying a game is bad just because they couldn't finish it. I could say FFVII is a terrible game because it only kept me playing for the first 10 minutes but I would be torn to pieces on the forum.
 

gellert1984

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grimner said:
I didnt have a problem getting past the Intro, the dragon killed me once at the hide-in-the-wooden-edge-bits bit but that was mainly cos I saw bad-guys to kill down the middle and charged like an idiot.

Hell, I havent even looked at the manual, the only thing I needed help with was using runes and mutations, which I googled.

(edited cos i typed Tutorial but meant Intro)
 

Eclectic Dreck

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searanox said:
1) Yahtzee claims early on that the game requires patching and updating when playing. This is not true. If he bought a retail copy, he would have had to activate the game using SecuROM, otherwise there is no activation and no mandatory patching. The patch that was available on day one took approximately ten seconds for me to download, and was fully optional.
Personally, I have had problems patching the game but they did not prevent me from playing. I gave up on the process and just kept playing.

searanox said:
2) Player training isn't handled well. This is kind of true, but I think people overstate it and confuse "learning curve" with "difficulty" and "bad training."
The game is most difficult at the beginning and gets much easier at the end. This is the reverse of how most games handle this. Part of this is because the player has little idea how to play the game at the start and part of this is because the player is so incredibly weak at the start.

searanox said:
The game spams you with pop-ups early on,
and that's definitely not the best way of handling things.
They often given irrelevant advice and, as often as not, ask you to pay attention in a moment when you desperately need to pay attention to other things

searanox said:
On the other hand, it takes about 3 seconds to figure out the controls, and the first battle where you're supposed to fight "dozens" of enemies actually requires you to do absolutely nothing, as you'll have just as many allies on your side during that very battle, who are glad to do the heavy lifting and let you figure things out in the background
I knew how to play instantly but I did not become proficient at the game for hours. There's a clear difference between knowing how to imput commands and knowing when I ought to input said commands.

searanox said:
But then, I guess I can't blame someone for assuming they're going to be Fucking Badass Incarnate at level 1 and ruin all the enemies by diving onto their swords, right?
And yet, most RPGs in recent memory expect one to do precisely that. This is really what the core problem is with the Witcher. It isn't that it's a bad game (it's excellent); but rather that the game simply doesn't communicate with the player well. Ever.

searanox said:
5) Spell names? Not completely obvious upon looking at them? Have to read the manual? Oh gnoes! How dare my fantasy game not be absolutely 100% generic as shit! Why isn't my game playing itself yet?!
It's about communicating with the player. I had to consult the manual more than once to remind myself which spell I might want to choose for a given situation. Eventually, you learn what they mean but the question really is simply if the added immersion value of having something other than "stun ray" or "fireball" is worth all that time people spend scratching their heads.

searanox said:
7) Drinking potions before combat rather than during it is a pretty obvious design choice and basically comes down to encouraging smart preparation rather than chugging potions while enemies wail on you.
The problem I have with this logic is simply that I don't always know what I'm walking into. That means that I spend most of my time using a generic set of potions as it represents better preparation than the alternative of stumbling into a situation, seeing what I need, reloading and trying with a proper set.

searanox said:
It's also more true to the lore, since potions take time to take effect and most of them are useless instantly upon imbibing. But I want my Quik-Heal(TM) button dammit, and nobody better take it away from me!
I have no real problem with the system because the generic set worked fine. I will say that this is just one of many areas where one design choice doesn't seem to fit well with another.

searanox said:
9) Tying in with the last, how do you know when battles are going to happen? Gee, how about intuition and common sense?
The answer to this question is "they will always happen". This tautology is unfortunately useless. In the first act for example you might stumble into an elf ambush or a Nekker attack or a number of other monsters. In this first act, you are asked to fight four major enemy types that require dramatically different strategies to defeat and until you play for a time you don't really know where one group is likely to attack. I know I'm going to be in a battle; I just don't know anything useful beyond that.

searanox said:
12) On combat: learn to dodge, learn to use crowd control, learn to use bombs, learn to use spells/signs. Oh, right, almost forgot it's supposed to be playing itself! Whew, lucky I caught myself there!
The game is perfectly easy once you understand how to play. The major complaint nearly everyone has lodged against the game is simply that it does a terrible job of telling you what you need to know.
 

Imrix

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I walked into this review not taking it terribly seriously. I've found it's best to treat Yahtzee as a comedian first, critic a distant second. He usually has some good points in there, but at the end of the day he's there to make you laugh. That said, this was his first review that I actually found disagreeable.

The tutorial could explain things better, and it takes some time to get used to the combat system, but you know what? I like it. It's challenging without the difficulty being fake. Once you actually get the hang of it, you can walk into a crowd of a half-dozen enemies and defeating them will feel like an acjoevement, not just spamming powerful spells. The game encourages you to prepare in advance and fight smart. I can respect that. I can also respect that the game stands by its lore; the distinction between swords, for example.

Yeah, I got a bit frustrated early on with the game not telling me some things. Then I went and read the manual, and it all made sense. It's not hard. It took five minutes effort, and it was useful. This is not a terrible crime, and this is not a terrible game. Speaking as somebody nearing the finale of Act 2 and still having great fun, I can actually say it's pretty darn good.
 

KillahMate

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The problem here is that there is no response.

Yahtzee has made himself out as the Console Fun Guy against the PC Elitist Assholes. No matter what you people say no one will listen to you, because if you like Witcher 2 you must be a PC Elitist Asshole. Witcher 2 didn't come out on consoles and therefore it must be a game for assholes. If it was any fun it would have come out on a console, like all the other fun games. PC gamers don't know how to have fun. We all sit around and stare at our FPS counters all day. If we wanted to have fun we would have bought a console. Since we didn't we must be uptight elitists.

What, you say "That's not true!"? That's exactly what a PC Elitist Asshole would say! Why don't you buy a console so you can have fun?

(Like I said earlier, I don't get Yahtzee here. I mean he *wrote* like a dozen PC games. What's the deal?)
 

WilliamRLBaker

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Finally someone else that recognizes and remembers that the witcher 1 was a bad game till they took a year to release a patch that fixed most of the bugs and gameplay problems.
 

Darkong

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Imrix said:
Then I went and read the manual, and it all made sense.
If you need to read the manual for the game to make sense then that is a failure of game design, plain and simple. This is not the mid-90s, in this age of gaming developers have the technology and the storage space where simple tutorials should always be included for something that it not utterly obvious.

I don't want to rag on too much because there is definately space and demand within the market for a challenging RPG but there is a difference between a game which is hard because it requires skill and a game which is hard because its inacessible. Still going to give Witchher 2 a chance, Dragon Age has never resonated with me.

I guess that, like the original, its a love it or hate it game, if you can get around the sometimes iffy design then there's plenty there but I certainly can't blame anyone who finds it too frustrating.
 

Quellist

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Oct 7, 2010
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Continuity said:
Quellist said:
Continuity said:
Quellist said:
I suspect Yahtzee might have a point with this review. With the first Witcher game i bought it, gawped at the graphics, spent a week upgrading my PC to play it well then after i got used to all the beautiful scenery i realized the game beneath it was just complex for the sake of being complex, it didn't last me much longer after that...

As a long time PC and console gamer i like an RPG that's involved but The Witcher imo was just taking the piss. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the sequel is just as bad.
Humour me, what exactly was complex? from my perspective it was a fairly medium weight hack n'slash / RPG. Sure you have potions and the alchemy to create them but thats hardly complex, and the combat could only be made more simple if the computer actually did it for you.

Where is the complexity? OK its a fairly long winded game and some bits bordered on tedium, but that, for me at least, in no way tarnished the great experience provided by the atmosphere, plot, and characters. The combat was a little lacklustre but then if you're playing RPG for the combat then you're simply playing the wrong genre.
Besides, being long winded and tedious never stopped WoW from being a big hit so I don't think we can fairly level that as a criticism of the witcher, at least not whilst letting WoW slip by unmentioned.
Longwinded, tedious and lackluster, you use those words and seriously have to question my problems with the game?

Combat was atrocious; 2 swords and 3 combat styles per sword each that have to be individually xp'd and to top it all off combat involved little more than clicking the mouse at the right time. The problem here is its not RPG combat and its not action combat but some bastard hybrid of the worst parts of both.

Beyond that nothing was utterly terrible, it just wasnt good enough, none of it fired me up enough to put aside the games flaws and enjoy it. I'm not saying i cant enjoy flawed games but this game just had too many.

Oh and i'm not a WoW player.
I'm a fairly harsh critic, I can make any game you care to name sound poor by enumerating its weaknesses. The witcher wasn't a bad game, in fact I found it to be a very good one. And I personally dont really count longwinded as a flaw per se, it only becomes a flaw when you're not enjoying the game much, otherwise its a virtue IMO, especially in an RPG. Yes the combat was poor (not terrible though), yes it was little more than hack n'slash but so what? its an RPG, the main strengths of the RPG genre are not combat/action but plot, dialogue, immersion, characters etc... combat is just the chaff around the wheat, a perfunctory necessity.

As far as flawed games and rough diamonds go, the witcher doesn't even register on the scale, its flaws were relatively small and nothing was game breaking or particularly annoying. Compare it to a real diamond in the rough like Bloodlines the masquerade and then you'll see just how polished it is.

I can understand why many people didn't get on with the witcher, and its clearly not a game for everyone and it doesn't help itself by having the tutorial area (up to that demon dog thing) being the most tedious part of the game (which most people never get past by all accounts), I just think that its a much better game than many of those people give it credit for, like Yahtzee they dont give it enough of a chance to show them what it has to offer... and who looses out? they do.

On another note I firmly believe that not all games should cater to everyone, some games ought to have niche appeal or else all we're left with is bland bland bland. I support CD Projekt Red if only because they're one of the few AAA developers to buck the trend toward always catering to the lowest common denominator (no slur on those people intended, their only crime is being numerous)

1337mokro said:
elmo360 said:
How do you get fired from a Dick sucking factory?
By biting down to often during work hours.
Outsourcing, they can suck dicks for 1/10th of the price in india.

Hell, they can do anything for 1/10th of the price it seems, i've already lost two jobs to outsourcing and i'm not yet 30.

I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this game. Maybe I'll give it another chance sometime, but right now it just isn't my thing. I stand by what i said but i guess one man's tedium is another mans rich immersiveness.
 

DeleteThisAcc

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Was that hate towards PC gaming or not? Anyway worst ZP so far.

Oh one more thing, I know it's too far but I hope ZP will review Alice Madness returns.