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 But this is what the developers had in mind, to revolution an overused brawling system by forcing the gamer to change his strategy for every enemy he encounters in this grim universe.
Our hero can also learn magic if he ever gets bored, ranging from telekinesis to outstanding fire power. When leveling up, the player needs to meditate at a fireplace, where he gets the option to upgrade either his attributes, his fighting styles or magic powers, each of these unlocking powerful new features or combos, Diablo style. But some features are only unlocked through quests, as if Geralt would have to relearn what he has forgotten. This is one of the advantages of “The Witcher”: players can hardly get bored. As you advance through the storyline you always learn new things, from alchemy to skinning, you can even play mini-games like fist fights and my all time favorite, dice poker. The items you use, varying from swords to blunt weapons or daggers can all be enhanced trough spells or coating and the hero itself can be buffed through the use of poisons. These things all have an impact on the game, adding a drop of reality to it.
This is what makes the witcher’s universe so interesting – realism. Monsters only lurk outside at night so you don’t just simply hunt them and during the day most areas are safe and people tend to their chores.
You can get drunk and finish all the quests with a shaking, blurry screen camera. You can be a lady’s man and have several love affairs (which unlock concept art bonuses) or a total loner. A thing that I would consider normal is that most NPCs in the game can actually die and this really affects the game universe, which somehow reminds me of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. For example, I got rejected several times by a beautiful gal at the local inn in Act I.
After saving her from a couple of goons at nighttime she offered to show her gratefulness to Geralt in a nearby deserted barn the next night.  But then I got killed and had to reload the game. When I wanted to redo the quest (was really curious how the affair would end up) the lady and the goons got attacked by a ghoul which killed them all instantly. The quest was no longer available and everybody at the inn was missing the girl’s presence. This is just one of the things that would make me play The Witcher over and over again.
Another would be the choice system similar to the one in Knights of the Old Republic. Bioware has really gotten into this trend of alternative storylines, but an odd thing in witcher is that you can’t seem to find the moral truth under any of the decisions you make. They all seem to lead to a bigger or lesser evil, which makes the game even more interesting.
Happily, the game camera is well suited to its purpose and almost never experiences glitches. You can play in three different ways, depending on what you like most: an isometric camera similar to the one in Neverwinter Nights, a top down free camera resembling the one in Knights of the Old Republic and an over the shoulder angle which reminds of most action games.  All spells, potions and fighting styles are available trough keyboard quick-slots and the quest tracking feature is absolutely exceptional. The user interface is smooth and highly functional (though the object inventorz szmbols are rather small) and I found the medallion in the top left corner of the screen a nice addition. It vibrates when it detects forms of magic or hostile creatures and when Geralt’s life nears zero it induces a lot of thrill by making a heart bump sound and blurring or desaturating the visual effects, which makes it almost impossible to save your character.
Tickle my sight, play me a tune
Like Neverwinter Nights 2, The Witcher makes use of an updated version of the Aurora engine. But this time the devs really outdone themselves at optimizing the game experience. The engine has been modified to support motion-captured animation, physics effects, new mechanics and combat system, additional graphical effects (glows, advanced dynamic shadows, blurs). The renderer has been unified and it now features an additional light manager tool which allows the use of per-pixel lighting, dynamic omni–lighting day night light cycles.
Another thing that makes The Witcher stand out is the top-tech post-processing pipeline that is able to combine image filters and special effects (up to now each was stand-alone) :selective motion blur or blooming that add a lot to the cinematics of the game.
As a result, the game runs smoothly even on a 6600 Geforce LE while still looking extremely well. Loading times are small, cutscenes are made with the game engine and even though HDR and anisotropic filtering can be disabled trough the game options, they will always be active in these intermezzos. |
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