Last year was a terrible year for RPGs on the PC. There was almost nothing released, and the titles that were ended up being fairly underwhelming. However, there was one game that was strong, yet it had problems that kept it from being the best game it could have been. I am, of course, talking about The Witcher, a game that received a fair amount of praise for being something different. Well, here we are in the fall of 2008, and the situation for RPGs seems even worse than ever before, though flawed. Thankfully, CDProjekt has done something that happens very rarely in the gaming industry, and has actually gone back to fix any problems and add additional content to the very game they released last year. Thus, The Witcher: Enchanced Edition was born. Instead of merely doing just actual content changes, the developers have also included all-new videos, the soundtrack, and other goodies in this release, and more importantly, it’s all free for owners of the original game in a large patch. How many other developers have done something like this?
You may not know this, but The Witcher is actually not an original PC franchise, but is in fact based on a number of novels featuring the main character, Geralt. The word “witcher” is actually an odd translation choice for the equivalent of 'warlock' from Polish, and in this series refers to a group of individuals that are adept in the fields of fighting, alchemy, and magic. The universe of the series has many elements and ideas that are shared among many in the fantasy genre, and is fairly easy to delve into without knowing too much about it. One of the interesting things about the The Witcher is the way that it welcomes you to this entirely new universe by throwing you right into the middle of the story fairly quickly while pacing you through the standard tutorial phase of the game. Since Geralt himself has amnesia and has forgotten many things, particularly his own past and how witchers operate, the game conveniently disguises certain dialogues as a means to explain what you need to do, and how to do it. I found the HUD to be very confusing when I first started, but after playing for a while the game gives you all the information you need in a nice, sequential manner without throwing it all at you in one fell swoop, which is a big problem in a lot of games today.
The very beginning of The Witcher is merely a prologue to the main story, but it happens to have some of the best moments of the game. An army of bandits commanded by an evil sorcerer lays siege on the witcher headquarters, and Geralt is thrust right into the middle of the action. This is where the actual gameplay begins. Fighting is simple and somewhat more demanding than, say, Diablo, but you will still be clicking along quite a bit. Instead of merely spamming left-clicks, though, you need to time each click to have effective combos; there are also different stances that change how Geralt attacks. An original dodging system that lets Geralt jump or roll out of harm’s way is an original game mechanic, and all you have to do is double-click where you want to go. No fantasy RPG is complete without magic, and spells are cast with a right-click, which means you won’t even have to leave your mouse to enjoy everything.
After slaying dozens of crazed minions and having some fast-paced fun, everything after seems to unfortunately become mundane in comparison. The first chapter, taking place after the prologue, is a very slow zone, and the game becomes nothing more than a series of fetch-quests for a while. The game picks up later quite a bit, and it does keep the frenzied gameplay that you experience in the beginning, but there are long stretches where you must talk to different people, doing tasks for them in order to proceed.
The problem with exploring and talking to people is that the game has to load for each area you enter, including houses and inns. While short, the load times make it annoying to get things done more quickly. Interestingly enough, every NPC has its own dialogue, which is very cool to see. While The Witcher doesn’t have the best voice actors around, it’s still commendable that CDProjekt would even bother when many other games don’t. The art style and visuals of the game are also incredibly nice, and while it certainly doesn’t hold up to something like Oblivion, graphically it does a good job, and even the load screens contain some fantastic pieces of art, almost making you not care about seeing them so frequently. Well, almost. The engine seems fairly scalable being the same engine that powered Neverwinter Nights 2, so you shouldn’t have to worry too much about specs, either.
Overall, The Witcher is a great game when there are enemies to kill and the story is actually progressing, but when everything slows down it really doesn’t work out so well. The new additions in the Enchanced Edition are certainly a large incentive to pick up the game this time around, especially when you factor in the non-game content. This game is as good as it gets for most RPG fans on the PC, and The Witcher is sure to give you an enjoyable experience despite the pacing issue.
Thunderbolt score: eight out of ten
Players: 1
Subtitles: Yes
Online: No
Comments
Patrick Coakley on Friday 26th September 2008
Thanks for the clarification. It was really confusing because I was hearing different things, and I don't exactly speak Polish.
Soul on Thursday 25th September 2008
Well, word 'witcher' actually it's not the equivalent of 'warlock' from Polish. In polish it's 'wiedzmin' and it comes from 'wiedzma' (witch), so it's probably the best translation. more info on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witcher
Add your own +