Zero Punctuation: The Witcher

[VMerken]

Yay, a review of The Witcher!! And I only barely hardly pitched the game several times for several weeks .

I loved the review, as it (a) has the usual generous helpings of black acidic humour (b)reminded me that I have indeed generously "overlooked" some badly executed features while playing the game (curse that inventory system for one!), simply because the story kept me hooked. It's fully understandable that if Planescape: Torment isn't one's thing then The Witcher probably won't be either.

Also, I have to concur with the points made by Um... Te, Rabbitdynamite, alzxul, and others. I really enjoyed The Witcher, played it from start to finish, and the negatives mentioned in this review do not appear to reflect the true negatives of this game.

Then again, these were Yahtzee's first impressions, so perhaps the negatives he talked about are the ones apparent during first impressions without having had the chance to be replaced with the real negatives after the game sunk in. I can't really tell, since I was having far too much fun deciding whether or not to let the Witch live, or to kick the priest's... fence.

By the way, Yahtzee, if you think Planescape: Torment is boring then - should I find the time - I just might be able to show you a different look at the game in the coming future .

 

[escapist007]

Most of you people are kissing his ass, don't know for what reason. I admit he's got style, but before you give any opinion, finish the damn game first. Cause it was boring at first to me to, hell...a lot of good games were boring at first, but you have to give a chance to everything. What i'm saying, is finish it and i'm pretty sure you won't pe dissapointed.

 

[SacrificiaLamb]

Think about it this way: if your reaction to this review is "I loved this game and can't believe that Yahtzee is misrepresenting it so!", then for a minute imagine the reasons that Yahtzee has provided. Obviously you would have a rebuttal to each of them, but I think it's absolutely fair to say that many people would not, and would in fact line up much more with Yahtzee's line of thinking than yours or mine. Now imagine that you're that person. Hasn't this been a helpful experience?

Personally, I have yet to play The Witcher, but I think this review has informed me just as competently as to the content of the game as any of the lengthy previews I previously checked out.

If you're like me, you watch Yahtzee to get a sense of the game's flaws. The serious reviews tend to concentrate on the positive. But he missed many of this game's real flaws.

1. Not enough inventory slots for all the crap you can collect.

2. Tiny item icons, making it hard to tell just what all those twigs and berries are.

3. No at-a-glance means of telling what secondary properties those leaves and guts have.

4. Somewhat confusing talent tree (can I take Slashy II without having Slashy I? Looks like I can! I wonder if it actually does anything, though). You can probably pick talents at random and do fine.

5. Not nearly enough character models! Too many people look alike. The models aren't bland, they're just over-repeated. I guess if the models were generic it wouldn't matter as much. No, you have some really interesting character models (tall, shirtless guy with tattoo of naked woman on this chest, or an obese man with a bell around his neck) that are repeated for both scrub NPCs and main characters (look, another fat man). Not good.

6. Staging the first boss fight after a lengthy cut-scene exchange. Come on. Almost everyone will die, usually repeatedly. Don't make the players click through the cut-scenes every darn time!

7. Ill-timed spell ("sign") acquisition. By the time you pick up the other signs, you'll have Aard and Igni developed to the point where spending points on the others doesn't make sense.

8. Bland side-games. Not as bad as Bioshock's single flow-puzzle they use for everything, but boxing and dice kinda suck. Should have just ripped off Puzzle Pirates for good diversionary games. On the plus side, I guess, the NPCs are so retarded at playing dice that you never lack for funds.

9. Clunky fight mechanics. This is the Aurora game engine's fault, but sometimes when you click to do something it doesn't "take." Very annoying.

10. Auto-sheathing of weapons. Almost guarantees you'll be caught flat-footed at the beginning of every encounter. That also causes you to pause during that animation. You can loot items before and after, but not while precious Geralt is adjusting his accoutrements.

11. Infinitely-respawning scrub creatures at higher levels. Gee, I can take out a half dozen Drowners with a single sword swing in Act V, so why torment me with the little buggers? At least let me kill them all so I don't have to deal with them anymore.

12. Little or no foreshadowing that you're about to enter a boss battle. Let alone any idea how difficult or easy it might be. You go from slaughtering hordes of thrall with a sharp stick and disapproving glance to "die if you open that next door without a half-dozen potions streaming through your bloodstream and Oil of Ickiness on your silver sword" without warning.

You get the idea. There are real faults with what is, overall, an excellent game. Those are the kind of things I watch Yahtzee to have illuminated for me. All I got was "oooh, it's so complicated my head hurts" when, in fact, the Witcher is one of the most simple RPG games I've ever seen. Simple enough to be a console game. (heh)

QFT^2. Excellent points. The Witcher isn't anywhere near complicated. Oh, I dunno, it took me all of 10 minutes (less, actually) to figure the mechanics out, including alchemy and the journal, without ever looking at the manual.

I found The Witcher to have overly simplistic gameplay, actually, a la Jade Empire and Mass Effect. The inventory/alchemy layout was a bit cumbersome, but nothing deadly.

The Witcher is a decent to good game IMO, depending upon my mood, but not great. It feels more like a console RPG than an old-school PC RPG like Ultima 7, PS:T, or Baldur's Gate, so I don't know where the 'PC elitist' crap is coming from.

 

[GloatingSwine]

hell...a lot of good games were boring at first, but you have to give a chance to everything..

Care to name some?

I can't think of any games that were boring at first and didn't stay boring, or at the very least suffer from regular bouts of boring when they returned to whatever game style made them boring in the first place (like Folklore, where the poor translation and shocking narrative style make pretty much every conversation an exercise in frustration and leaves you pressing X rapidly so that you can get back to wandering around smacking things in the face).

 

[EvilEngineNumberNine]

This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee roleplays a pale, lanky misogynist.

Quite the stretch then.

 

[hex1]

Ah, that's more like it! Nice to see this whole 'humour' thing creeping back in Yahtzee's vids. 8 thumbs up.

 

[banksie]

SacrificiaLamb

If you're like me, you watch Yahtzee to get a sense of the game's flaws. The serious reviews tend to concentrate on the positive. But he missed many of this game's real flaws.

Several aren't real flaws though.

1. Not enough inventory slots for all the crap you can collect.

Intended feature - you aren't meant to be a loot monger in this game. Instead you are meant to pick and choose while travelling fairly light.

4. Somewhat confusing talent tree (can I take Slashy II without having Slashy I? Looks like I can! I wonder if it actually does anything, though). You can probably pick talents at random and do fine.

Actually each level in the combat styles talents unlocked a particular attack or feature in the combat chain sequence. So pick talents in slashy three, say, and until you chain three blows together then those talents won't do anything for you. The manual even tells you this...

6. Staging the first boss fight after a lengthy cut-scene exchange. Come on. Almost everyone will die, usually repeatedly. Don't make the players click through the cut-scenes every darn time!

This was pretty much the only mis-step like this they made though. (I am currently in chapter four.) I agree it was a mistake but it happens once in eighty hours. Crying shame it is the first boss fight though as it does tend to put people off.

7. Ill-timed spell ("sign") acquisition. By the time you pick up the other signs, you'll have Aard and Igni developed to the point where spending points on the others doesn't make sense.

You don't have to put points into the signs and by the time you gain the other signs, mid chapter II if you have searched thoroughly, there is still plenty of time. Besides there is such a plethora of Bronze talents that generally you have all the first and second stage talents acquired anyway. It is the Silver and Gold talents that take the thought and you don't get those till chapter III.

8. Bland side-games. Not as bad as Bioshock's single flow-puzzle they use for everything, but boxing and dice kinda suck. Should have just ripped off Puzzle Pirates for good diversionary games. On the plus side, I guess, the NPCs are so retarded at playing dice that you never lack for funds.

They are called side-games for a reason. Unlike Bioshock's flow puzzle which was pretty much essential to the game and simply couldn't be avoided.

9. Clunky fight mechanics. This is the Aurora game engine's fault, but sometimes when you click to do something it doesn't "take." Very annoying.

But also very rare. I think I have had it happen three times thus far.

10. Auto-sheathing of weapons. Almost guarantees you'll be caught flat-footed at the beginning of every encounter. That also causes you to pause during that animation. You can loot items before and after, but not while precious Geralt is adjusting his accoutrements.

You always have signs ready to go. If you really need time to prevent being jumped (which given the view distances meant only giant centipedes and Echinopse plants actually can surprise you) then simply always have Quen the protection sign chosen. Then you can dally preparing while people wail on the protection barrier first. Or just use Aard and Igni to knock them back and then draw your sword.

11. Infinitely-respawning scrub creatures at higher levels. Gee, I can take out a half dozen Drowners with a single sword swing in Act V, so why torment me with the little buggers? At least let me kill them all so I don't have to deal with them anymore.

Never found the drowner repellent talisman, huh? You can get it mid-chapter II by purchasing it and are given it as a side-quest item in Chapter IV. Seems like somebody might not be doing side-quests or checking merchants too often. This might well be a side-effect of the small icons issue you mentioned.

12. Little or no foreshadowing that you're about to enter a boss battle. Let alone any idea how difficult or easy it might be. You go from slaughtering hordes of thrall with a sharp stick and disapproving glance to "die if you open that next door without a half-dozen potions streaming through your bloodstream and Oil of Ickiness on your silver sword" without warning.

It did this once and once only to date. Kikimore Queen? Lots of foreshadowing that it was going to be a tough fight because of what you are doing to then reach her. Dagon fight? Plenty of warning - hell the games beastiary warns you it is a god and you deliberately summon it. Fight with the Professor and Azar Javed, both are explicitly marked as being dangerous foes and your first major battle with them in the Swamp is very clearly foreshadowed by the whole murder investigation quest which you cannot skip.

While yahtze's review is funny it doesn't rate highly for me simply because the game he played and gave impressions of is evidently from Bizarro World as it doesn't match what I played. I much prefer his reviews where he does nail real flaws in the game, like Crysis or Bioshock, and still has fun poking valid exaggerated criticism at them. This one just misses the mark.

 

[Estelindis]

I really enjoyed The Witcher. Fantastic stories, brilliant protagonist, very interesting (and many quite unclichéd) NPCs, gorgeous graphics, and stunning combat animations. Happily spent a full week over the Christmas holidays doing nothing but playing this game.

I genuinely don't see what's so hard and off-putting about it! Shifting between combat stances was as easy as pressing a single key, and it made a real difference which one you chose to use. Alchemy could often make an impossible fight winnable, and once you read almanacs and/or have conversations with locals about herb lore you can easily brew potions because you know what herbs do what. I liked the way the game information was organised between lots of different screens, because it meant I knew exactly where to go when I wanted to look at anything. Every single bit of info you learn goes into your journal, but with all the subject divisions (alchemy, formulae, people, monsters, etc.) it never got confusing.

Really, I find Zero Punctuation hilarious normally. But this one just left me puzzled.

However, the brief movie at the end was side-splittingly funny, as if to make up for the review.

 

[SilentScope001]

ZP always was shallow. Always meant to be. You watch it for the lulz factor. Seeing people come in to try to feebly defend their game is just silly.

I am getting tired of Yazthee reviewing RPGs, but that's because he did so a lot. Why not attack RTSes instead?

Anyway, the goal of a game is to have fun. No fun=no good. I can't play through 3 whole hours to...reach the 'good part'. Why not just let me skip to the 'good part' and let it be over with?! And, uh, Yazthee...you know, had no real incentive to actually 'continue'. Why continue to go and 'grind' when you already got 3 hot females in your bed? To Yazthee, that's victory.

 

[m_jim]

Is anyone else wondering what the critical mass is going to be on Zero Punctuation before the whole thing collapses on itself and everyone finds the new flavor of the month? I thought this phenomenon had capped at about 180 comments, but with the review of Mario and Crysis, the boards have been getting even crazier, although half the comments are bitching and moaning about how unfunny/terribly misrepresentative the "review" was.

 

[Estelindis]

I'm not trying to "defend my game". I've seen Yahtzee make fun of games I like before. But this was the first time I didn't find it funny. His criticisms just didn't hit home. I mean, I like The Witcher, but it's not perfect. There were flaws in the game that he could have zeroed in on and made very funny remarks on - but everything he had trouble with wasn't a problem for me in the slightest. I'm genuinely mystified by this review.

 

[bfb8688]

The music selection is always appropriate for the video game under review. Just another enjoyable nugget of Zero Punctuation.

 

[DayDark]

hahaha, Nice! I want to here his thoughts on the fox news debate about mass effect xD

 

[LarsWestergren]

Hm, least funny ZP yet. How can you claim the controls are too complex, and then 30 seconds later slam the combat for being too simplistic? Did you play on easy mode? Journal, dictionary and bestiary screens hideously complex? Not any more complex than a web page or any GUI with multiple virtual screens or tabs. Besides, you don't HAVE to read them... Alchemy difficult, elitist, and confusing? You just click on a recipe, then "brew" and its done! Unless the recipe is greyed out, in which case you don't have the necessary ingredients.

I agree with Estalindis. I usually like ZP because despite the informal and joking style, he tends to be more insightful than 99% of "ordinary" reviewers, and really put his finger on the most important aspects of the game instead of spending 75% of the text on graphics like other reviewers. But here it seems he totally missed all the really strong and weak points of the game. It IS something a bit different in a world of me-toos, it focuses more on plot, atmosphere and characters than most; and it has (some) moral complexity in a medium of cartoonish black and white. As others have said, perhaps he should stay away from reviewing games from a genre he doesn't like.

Incidentally, this marks the second time the Escapist publishes a negative review of the Witcher written by someone who has only played a fraction of the game.

 

[hotcod]

While this did have me laughing my ass off i can't help but feel his some what missed the point.

First of all we have, as has been pointed out, his ranting about games given him no middle ground and when a game with truly 'real' options all with shady moral questions comes along it gets ignored. This can be sort of passed off beacuse his not really played far enough in to the game, the biggest failing of the game is the first chapter simply is not as good as the rest of the game by a long shot. Which is why almost all 'previews' of the game that don't get past the first chapter are negative and most full reviews praise the game so highly.

The game has a wonderful sense of a being part of a "real" world in which your actions have effects. You make a choice and the out come of that choice may not be made apparent until later on in a way that makes you feel like your actions have set off events in the world around you that you might not find out about until they come back to, say, bite you in the ass. There is no other game that dose this nearly as well and it leads to the feeling that your choices really are giving your a different game, unlike say KotR where you could tell if you took the 'good' choice what was going to happen if you took the 'bad' one since you know it will keep you on rails and the choices are very straight froward. While it IS the same with the witcher to a lesser extent you don't 'feel' limited and so you don't think about what the other choice would have meant which leads to a much more involving game.

Next is the whole sexism crap that seems to get spouted. There is a leaning towards it with the idea of the collectable cards but it is no where near as black and white as this, or the other "review" of the witcher on the escapist would have your believe. First of all lets just get something straight, Geralt is a completely sterile disease free man. Think about what that means in the setting you find your self in... it means his is likely to be the only person that a typical women will ever meet with whom she can have safe sex. Isn't it a bit one sided to say that its all about geralt going after the women when he offers the women he sleeps with danger free sex. Given the high level of deisease with the plague around "safe" sex would be a very very attractive quality. So it could easily be just as much the women taking advantage of him as he is of them. If you really want to question it you might as well question the idea of one night stands... but you can't really call one night stands sexist and nor can you if you look in to the context say the simple fact he sleeps with women makes the game sexist. In fact the game and the world is full of very strong and powerful female figures and not even in the typical fantasy way you would expect. Take sharni one of the strongest women in the game by far but one with no "power". She is an almost unique figure in gaming and one that could never be made if the game was truly sexist.

Again this may not be something that gets made clear in the game in the first chapter but even then you don't have to sleep with all the women if you don't want to. At that point there are only 2 plot line driven encounters... one with the women your told you used to love, and one with a women who is likely using it as a way to manipulate you in to helping her. Neither of these are 'falling over' to sleep with you in anything but an interesting plot driven way.

What its really sad to see if the number of people here who have said they where going to buy the game and now are not. The witcher is one of the best games of last year, easily in my top 5 even arguably in the top 3... if you like rpgs you owe it to your selfs to at lest try the demo and to read up on some real reviews, and by that i don't just mean the previews but just the fact that you should all by now know that yatze hates RPGs and his reviews are free to reflect that.

Over all i think yatze skips over some of the true problems of the game, of which there are many but all forgiveable in the long run to over inflate tiny problems that really aren't that much of a deal. Funny as it is its not very useful for any one thinking about buying the game. I really do think if yatze went back to the game and tried to get a little of the way in to chapter 2 even he'd have to admit the game is a lot better than his giving it credit for so far.

 

[miraitan]

Great job again yahtzee. Suprised you aren't lining up an E3 stand-up debut. I'm always in fits of laughter on these reviews.

Will check back next week. Looking forward to it!

 

[devilondemand]

I enjoyed thoroughly, as always

 

[Axulciex]

I knew he wouldn't like it
But the controls and interface aren't that hard to grasp, you don't need to look at the manual.
He should have played though the whole game, but he put first impressions and not review as the title, that makes it ok I guess.
Still enjoyed it, few more laughs than the last.

 

[Um...TE]

Several aren't real flaws though.

This isn't the place to debate minutiae of the game, but don't assume that I don't know what a Drowner repellent talisman is (really, that statement just told me you haven't seen the swamp in Act V...go ahead and wear that talisman and try to enter the Druid's Cave with a dozen of those peckers running around you, pulling you in and out of combat) or that I didn't play all the side quests. Just because you disagree with my opinions does not mean that you are more knowledgeable about the game.

Oh, about that other "review" of the game. I agree, it was abysmal.

 

[St1ckman]

Puffa fish. hahahaha