 The Witcher review
“This is the game they've always wanted to make in a genre they love and a universe that inspired them”.
So far, 2007 has been a pretty disappointing year for fans of role playing games. Many titles promising to continue the epic wonder of the genre only managed to cut off gamer enthusiasm through high or absurd system requirements. Bear Neverwinter Nights 2 in mind: while reigniting the flame of the Dungeons & Dragons system through the 3.5 set of rules and trough a fresh new storyline, it also experienced huge drops of performance even on dual core computers with SLI rendering capabilities. To this time, the over increasing number of patches didn’t solve Neverwinter Night’s 2 issues completely.
Truth is, it was a shock for everybody when Bioware gave away the Aurora engine (based on which the first Neverwinter was made) to the new set of developers at Obsidian, practically giving up the future of one of the most beloved games of all times.
“The Witcher”, is an RPG based on the writes of Polish novelist Andrzej Sapkowski. On the official website, this intro will strike you: “the game they’ve always wanted to make in a genre they love and a universe that inspired them”.
Witcher knows not..
You start off as Geralt of Rivia, a renowned witch slayer, finding himself alive after a five year disappearance during the Great Wars.  While some people might complain about the impossibility of personalizing their character’s look and feel, Geralt has such a noir gloomy background that most players would surely enjoy uncovering his past and especially the way he relates to others. The introductory movie plays a huge role in shaping his personality and in giving an overall impression upon witchers: they are outcast and almost extinct, mercenaries who depend on poisonous potions to magically enhance their skills and survive and Geralt, as one of the best, is almost inhuman. Fighting werewolves is child’s play and, just as the evil he smites, this dark hero likes to rest in coffins in await of the dawn.
The story so far is sort of cliché. I couldn’t shake the “been there done that” feeling when I found out that the most valuable of heroes seems to be suffering from amnesia. The player is given a you can run but you can’t hide sequence which ends with the witcher passing out. He is apparently saved by other witchers who take him to Kaer Morhen, the last fortress in which their kind stand. The fortress is soon attacked by powerful mages and it is at this time when the witcher has to shed light upon his past trough fighting the forces of evil. While shaping up the story, this prologue is also a built-in tutorial for the game’s fighting system and user interface.  The tutorial can be deactivated through the options menu.
What saves the storyline is the extreme detail of each character, who seems have a deep story of his own. We get a high variation of acquaintances from punk dwarves with Hungarian like names (Zoltan Cinay), to bald elves, indigo prophecy children, inviting witches or female ambitious mages. Your enemies feature an exotic look, bearing tattoos, pierces or burns and are almost always accompanied by boss-monsters (like the 2 story tall frightener). In a sort of way, characters inside of “The Witcher” are either goons or real superheroes, and never tend to fall in other classic categories. Everybody seems to know Geralt and each time the hero has to remember the way he related to another character in the game, cutscenes get a dramatic feel.
Thrill me, kiss me,.. hack me, slash me?
If you are looking for a fast paced mindless dungeon crawler “The Witcher” is not the game you are looking for. Though this is an action-adventure RPG, it features a whole new combat system: you have to time up your mouse clicks to create more than four-in-a-row combos, so hack and slash would not work. Add to this the fact that Geralt can use three fighting styles (group, strength and fast style) each suitable for different kinds of enemies and you’ll soon realize that combat is a challenge to new players. |
