Zero Punctuation: The Witcher

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WW

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Jan 24, 2008
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Whoracle said:
My contemporary rig is more than capable of handling both.
But don't tell me you don't see how my statement would make sense in the given context IF I were right about the NWN1/2 thing.
Sorry, but if that would be the cast you would be comparing Oblivion to NWN1 and that is a no-no because the time gap is too big.

Whoracle said:
And as a final statement: I find it highly interesting how you react to someone (in this case, me) talking to you in mostly the same tone (even though the tone comes mostly from context, but is undeniably there...) as you do to the rest. You really ARE a fanboy, right?
That is right, I'm a Polish Fanboy. I want to apologize for my tone earlier. I got confused and because of that I got irritated and because of that I got angry and when I’m angry I don’t fuck-around – something like this.
Normally, I’m dwelling on a RPG forum. One of the guys there commenting this video sad that he was surprised that there were no Polish fanboys there battling… so I thought I will raid this forum and stand my ground here.

Whoracle said:
Plus, I have 3 GB RAM in my current gaming rig, a freshly installed WinXP SP2, a fully patched Witcher, the game runs fantastically, but my loading times are still between 30sec and 1 min. If that isn't the behavior your Witcher game shows, well, fine. But the rest of the world seems to have the problems, so accept that those people won't be as forgiving towards the game as you are.
Believe me, that is very disturbing.
My spec’s are:
AMD 2800+
6600GT (take into account that’s PCi)
1 RAM DDR-1

I can give you my word that I have something like 30sec when I’m loading the city and 5sec when saving.
Excuse me for this very stupid/ignorant question but are you sure that you are running on 1.2 – did you encounter any crashes by-the-way?

One more thing, besides being a fanboy I use facts and I can admit when I’m wrong, so I’m not “your typical fanboy”.
 

Whoracle

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My Specs:
AMD AM2 @ 2.4GHz
3 GB Corsair 667MHz RAM
GeForce 7600 GS 512 Silent PCI-e
ASUS M2N-E Motherboard
WinXP SP2

Granted, the graphics card is a bit weak, but that should not affect loading times.
And Yes, I have 1.2. Had 1.1 due to no NoDVD being out for 1.2, but after the abysmal loading times in 1.1 I opted for going with the DVD nontheless...

As for being a polish fanboy: Nothing wrong with this. I was glad to see a game like TW being made for a lot less money than the normal rates from the US. Plus it ain't the usual RPG.

And, as an addendum: I disagree with Yatzee on almost all points, except for the Inventory/Menu issue.

And I compared Oblivion to NWN2 in the false assumption TW ran on NWN2's engine. My bad.

Interesting side-note: If TW runs on NWN1/Aurora, which is 100% Linux-capable, is TW also capable of being run on *nix/Linux?
 

entropy3ko

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WW said:
entropy3ko said:
Let's say more than 1-2 minutes is already too long.
A minute is a very long time if you have to wait.

I do not think it's only a question of RAM... They probably just messed up in the programming :p
1-2min? Are you serious?
With my 1 gig of RAM the city loads in 30sec. There are 3 things that may have gone wrong:
1. You didn't patch the game and are still running on 1.1 (1-2min was the time for me with the 1.1 patch).
2. Your Windows is messed up (happends all the time).
3. Your hard-drive will soon kick the calendar.
4. Your PC can't handel it (care to post you spec?)

Messed up programing? Son, do you even know on what engine is TW running?
Was just wondering. 30 seconds for a loading time is reasonable. Not really short but, ok.

My PC is more than sufficient to run the witcher (higher anyway than the minimun specs), although I am thinking to buy a new GPU (I have my mind on a Ati 3870 HD).

and to all who nagged Yahtzee, a quote from the next review on CoD4:

And now, since this review has left me with a lot of surplus bile, let me close by requesting that if any more of you would like to tell me how to do my job, then please get hurled out of a plane, and land anus first on the spire of Winchester Cathedral.
Zero Punctuation

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The camera in NWN 2 is very irritating.
I find that I often have to change the camera perspective to get good vision of the situation. Apart from that is a good game. And after the patches (the game itself downloaded them) I have experienced no bugs so far. All in All I like it. Not a shining star perhaps, but not bad either.
 

WW

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Jan 24, 2008
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Whoracle said:
...except for the Inventory/Menu issue.
Granted - inventory sucks balls, no question about that.

Whoracle said:
Interesting side-note: If TW runs on NWN1/Aurora, which is 100% Linux-capable, is TW also capable of being run on *nix/Linux?
No idea.

entropy3ko said:
and to all who nagged Yahtzee, a quote from the next review on CoD4:

And now, since this review has left me with a lot of surplus bile, let me close by requesting that if any more of you would like to tell me how to do my job, then please get hurled out of a plane, and land anus first on the spire of Winchester Cathedral.
Just saw it. He was positive to a game, some may not like that. But CoD4 really deserves the praise.

I knew that basterd was reading this (basterd not in the bad sense).
Wait, hold it - I saw it a second time and I think he was refering to the aspect that he made a positive "review" (like I sad above).
 

entropy3ko

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WW said:
Take your time...
Well actually I was already annoyed at the endlessly dreary intro cinematic... that fight with the monster should have really been cut back a little
 

WW

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entropy3ko said:
WW said:
Take your time...
Well actually I was already annoyed at the endlessly dreary intro cinematic... that fight with the monster should have really been cut back a little
They won an award for that intro from someone - but yea, it's very looong.
 

Um...TE

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Jan 23, 2008
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Even though I loved the game, I almost quit the demo halfway through because it took me awhile to learn to control movement and camera position. No, it's not nearly as awful as NWN2. And yes, the prologue is almost one big cut scene. Much of Act I is generic with a poor ending (you'll see it when you get there - that's where you'll learn that you can click through cut scenes). Look at Act I as teaching you the game mechanics and some combat strategies. There are a couple challenges, though, so poke around a bit and don't be in too much of a rush to get into the city. By Act II you know how to complete the "bring me a shrubbery" notices without distracting from the main quest line.

Some people really played the alchemy to the hilt, learning which exact components had various secondary properties, etc. I simply collected crap and brewed whatever I could when the opportunity presented itself. It's a trade between learning useless information and just playing (I chose the latter). Same with spending skill points - I just picked what looked fun, rather than try to maximize my character's power. That turned out just fine.

The very end of the game has an awesome twist - one I didn't see coming because I hadn't read the books.
 

OveR-

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Feb 10, 2008
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this guy is a whiny little ***** who probably cant enjoy anything in life. but hey, since he can make for a living from that, good for him. a lot of people nowadays like to listen to people bashing games and whining (for example angry video game nerd). its pretty obvious that he doesnt like RPGs. lots of people agree that the witcher was one of the best RPGs in a long time, and i can agree! and please dont say that oblivion or some other game was better. the only thing that made oblivion a "good" game was all the hype it had gotten from morrowind... i dont think anyone really enjoyed that game for more than a couple of hours.
also how can you think that dialogues with voices are boring, do you prefer having the dialogues written, like in Neverwinter nights 2? thank god they have voice dialogues. if you dont want to listen just click past them. also why is he complaining about the oh-so-many fighting styles to switch from, there are not two, but three (3!), its what makes this game special, upgrading them gives you different combos. how fun would it be to just click all the time, the gothic 3 fighting isnt all that either. i should make a living bashing review writers!
 

entropy3ko

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Jan 17, 2008
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WW said:
entropy3ko said:
WW said:
Take your time...
Well actually I was already annoyed at the endlessly dreary intro cinematic... that fight with the monster should have really been cut back a little
They won an award for that intro from someone - but yea, it's very looong.
It was very well done, superb graphics, but they really made that battle against that monster (a striga I think it is called later in the game) way to long.




Anyway....:

------------
THE WITCHER: SECOND IMPRESSION


Here in a fun lovin' city in the noth of the Netherlands where I live (I'm not Dutch though) The Witcher was sold out, so to get it I had to perform a dark ritual and summon a demon from hell to bring it to me. I used Yahtzee recepie:

What would you get if you took the corpse of J.R.R. Tolkien, ground it into a fine powder, and snorted it off the doughy breasts of a prostitute suffering from Tourette's Syndrome? Well, first you'd get a throatful of dead writer, then the police would probably want to talk to you, and you'd no doubt make an enemy of Mrs. Tolkien. What you probably won't get is The Witcher, because it's a video game, and more easily acquired from your local electronics retailer, you idiot.
and indeed no Witcher. The demon brought me 'The Lord of the Cockrings'.

After doing some research I found out the 'proper' recepie:

Take Andrzej Sapkowski (the writer of The Witcher fantasy books which in Poland are more popular than Halo 3), put him on top of a bunch of X-men comic books, a playboy, a dead wife-beater and a DnD book and set the whole in a blazing fire while dancing around whith a hooker (which is easy to find here) and the Demon brings you the Witcher.

Ok 'nough joking. Although the joke was meant to explain the game. The game is inspired by the Books of Andrzej Sapkowski (which I have not read so I will not talk about fidelity) and treat the arguments of eracism and conflict very much as you see in X-men. Instead of mutants you have 'non- humans' ie elves, dwarves, dryads, etc... although GERALT is actually a mutant, and is often called a frek, like the mutants in X-men.
Although I must say that it is not TOO bad, actually, although the story starts a little boring it gets a little more interesting as you progress in the game. It is certainly better than most plots around and at least it is trying to combine different genres.

I did not find the sexual part or the huge cleavages mysoginistic. The mysoginistic part was that often women talk about that they were beaten by their husbunds... and Geralt does not seem to give a shit at all. It's like the most normal thing in the world.
Although if we go back to the past it was so, then I guess it's not the game that s mysogynistic, it's only Geralt who does not give a shit and only thinks about satisfying his primordial urges.

I unfortunately must disagree with Yahtzee about the complexity of the game. Yes the manual was thick (which I used to smack the demon I summoned back to hell empty handed) but I did not read it. The tutorial/prolougue part of the game made everything quite clear.

One thing that really annoys me is the Inventory Screen. Small Icons, you can not sort your items... it's very unfriendly to use in my opinion. In the end you only collect ingredients and potions in there and making the icons a little bigger, maybe with the name next to it it would have been helpful.

I agree on that 'reaserch' BS. Often before you can do a quest, harvest certain ingredients, etc... you need to research a certain plant, monster, etc.. by reading a book about it which will put and entry in your journal where it talks about monsters or ingredients.
The concept is good, I like the concept very much BUT: the problem is that to aquire a book you must pay 200-500 orens (the currency in the game) and your reward is rarely more than 200-300 orens for doing a job...
Maybe it is because Geralt is a platinum blond (ok he's a albino due to the mutation bla bla bla) but he has no sense of economy. Actually the best way to make money is to play dice-poker or fistfight.

And here we enter a part of the game I likes, the mini-games. Although not really exceptional, they were fun, especially because you can earn much needed money with them. they certainly beat the pointless sex in the game. You have a few minigames like 'fist fighting' or 'dice-poker' a combination of Yahtzee (ironically LOL) and poker.
There is not much to say about them, but they are useful and a little fun if you are tired of dicking around cities and swamps in search of monter XYZ.

The Sex: pointless add-on to the game. If you complete certain quests and make the right dialogue (although it is hard to go wrong) you have sex whit a woman in the game. The sex is even less explicit than in THE SIMS 2!!! And the Sims is a game rated for kids. I felt somewhat cheated in this aspect. It's like you work really hard to score a girl and then you find out she only wants to watch 'Bambi' leaving you with a photo of herself showing the tits.
OK, you do not buy the Witcher to watch porn, but why adding sex to a mature game and then censore it totally like this? More than in the MTF Sims! It is better to leave it out entirely like in other RPGs then.
In my opinion it is better to leave out something than put it in in this way. In conclusion: it will not make you MASS ERECT!

The combat. Ah the combat! The people who say it is not a click-fest need to be smacked. Indeed it is a click-fest. ok you can use a 'sign-power' or drink a potion along with it but basically it's a click-fest. Basically it's a click minigame. You click on the enemy and then when the cursor gets 'flaming' you must ckick again to do a combo.
It gets boring especially when you have to fight the same kind of enemies over and over again or you have to fight a particularly tough opponent, like a golem which took a LOT of clicks to kill.
Besides Geralt is sometime a real pushover... (at least at Medium Difficulty)
Then what is the point of having other weapons other then the two swords? in the end you end up using either the steel or the silver sword anyway and the other weapons are basically useless in combat.


The running around is also sometimes annoying, lettting me wich that Geralt had a car... or at least a bicycle.

The quests are not too bad though. Sometimes it is hard to figure out what you actually have to do, but at least they are varied enough (not counting the 'collect part X of monster Y for dumbass Z after reading book Q).

Some NPC are funny and even sick and twisted, although the reaction of Geralt is often very mellow, perhaps the mutagens that turn you into a Witcher contain a lot of Hash, or perhaps he's thinking about that cute woman passing by...

One bad thing about NPCs: they mostly look alike. A little more variation in faces, body, clothes would not have hurt. 'All dwarves look alike' they say... and INDEED they do! Except Zoltan who cut his beard just to be different, still... Same applies for elves, druids, 'Salamander' thugs, Stormtroopers... oops sorry.
I think the graphic designers missed the point here: instead of making the grass look totally realistic, it would be better to spend a little more time on making the NPCs a little more varied.

IN CONCLUSION:

The Witcher is an ok game, it has his good points, like story (but certainly not good as the one in Dreamfall), setting, voice acting...
It shines especially in the graphics, but apart from that it is an average RPG. And sometimes it also gives me the MMORPG feeling...

I must agree with Yahtzee in the end.
Do not get me wrong: the game was and stil is fun for me (since I have not completed it) but I can totally understand that if someone is not a big fan of the genre, he/she will not like the Witcher.

In the end the score is an 8.0. A Must-Have if you like cRPG and it is a good game if you want something different than the usual DnD/Forgotten Realm stuff, but if you do not like the genre that much you beter stay away from it.

and yeah: Patch 1.2 saved the game. The loading times are fine with it...

PS: although I do like the Witcher, I like Yahtzee review of the Witcher more. And it's free.
 

entropy3ko

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SomeBlackGuy said:
Wow i'm surprised that this review has more whining then the Halo one...
It's not surprising. Either you like the Witcher or you hate it I guess. Since our beloved Charismatic Stallion hated the game all who loved it whined about it. Like with Halo (although Yahtzee did not really hate Halo 3 as much as the Witcher)

Although, being a RPG lover, I do like The Witcher somewhat (like not love...) I perfectly understand Yahtzee feeling regarding this game. It's a fair game if you are an RPG freak (like me) but I am not surprised if some people hate it guts.
 

Lee Christie

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Mar 18, 2008
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I actually went out and bought The Witcher after seeing this review. Yahtzee unintentionally made it sound so fun I could tell I'd love it. And I really did LOL at "THIS IS A MUMORPUGUH!" Love the Yahtzee-avatar's eyes when he realises that.

I wonder why he puts himself through so many RPGs when he doesn't like them (well okay he said he hates J-RPGs, and The Witcher is western, but he seems to play J-RPGs too. Anyway I'm not criticising, he can play what he wants and I might not have heard of The Witcher if it wasn't for this review. And he's funnier when saying negative things anyway. :p

BTW the combat is harder than he makes out. You have to repeatedly click on the enemies getting the timing right to build up combos and you'll need potions, and blade-coating oils and such. It feels like Fable - but hard. Fable was far too easy.

Can't wait to see the next review.
 

Enigmatism

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Mar 23, 2008
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In defence of Yahtzee: I think he did play the game, and isn't just writing out of personal hate of a genre. Sure, he was wrong about the combat a bit, but I'm sure that he simply couldn't fit the complex mechanics of timing-based combat with how fast he was going. As for The Witcher, I haven't seen it myself, but it sure does seem interesting: a mutant named Geralt of Rivia (not from Rivia) who fights monsters and is on a quest to remember his identity seems interesting. Plus, it's based off of a novel series. Anyway, about the review (first impression). I think you may have taken a wrong turn, since from what I can recall, none of the main quests involve researching, decapitation, or giving body parts to stationary NPCs. In fact, the primary side quests and main quests lie more along the lines of unclear moral decisions (picked this up from a friend) and not strictly about killing. So, if you only count the very minor quests, it is a MUHMORPUGER
 

non_entity

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Jan 26, 2008
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I usually love Yahtzee's reviews, even if he bashes games I like, it's funny and seems competent. Was a bit shocked about the Witcher review, but we were over that.

I really hope he'll review The Witcher Enhanced Edition, the re-release in May.

The devs fixed many of the aspects Yathzee critized (fighting, alchemy, inventory system, ...), also the loading times will be dramatically reduced afaik.

This edition will also be available for the same price as the normal version and be available for download as a sort of huge patch (including all stuff like map of the world, soundtrack cd etc.) for free! for all the players who already have TW - which is imho a really great move by the delevopers.
 

xing110222

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Mar 6, 2008
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umm i need help , witch one was it were he said" i will take ttwo of my own vertebreen bend over and gnaw on my ass"
 

SteampunkWench

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Apr 2, 2008
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I shit you not, I have a T-shirt that has those exact words...

it was the most mind blowing birthday present of my LIFE!