The Witcher: Play by Play

In my continuing effort to not get stuck on one type of game, I'm continuing the "Play by Play" series with 2008's "The Witcher: Enhanced Edition." I really knew very little about this game going into it. The only reason I have it is because a friend of mine really liked it and I recently found it on the cheap on Steam. Hopefully it'll live up to the hype.


Let's take a quick look at other 2007/2008 games to get a better context for the technical aspects of the game. I say both years because the original game was released on 2007; the edition I have came out the next year. The games mentioned here are the ones I have personal experience with.

2007 brought us S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, Resident Evil 4, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, and the Orange Box.

2008 brought us Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Grand Theft Auto IV, Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Spore, Bully, Mirror's Edge, and Left 4 Dead.

A whole bunch of good games came out during this time, as you can see. Hopefully they can provide some context, although the little bit of the Witcher I have played so far seems very unlike any of these.

I started playing the game this afternoon, although I'm pretty sure I did more watching than playing. There's an opening "prologue" cinematic, then you start the game with another cinematic (although this time rendered by the game, so not as pretty). When you start playing, you are pretty much dropped straight into the action, which was alright, but it was a bit jarring since I am not used to this type of control scheme. I had expected wild hacking and slashing with a giant sword, but instead, it's borderline turn-based. It'll take a little getting used to.

I had to stop playing in the middle of the opening scene, though, so I'll reserve more comments until I've had a chance to play around in the game a bit more.

I've had a chance to get a little more game time in, and I've got a better idea of what's going on now. I've finished the Prologue and killed a few evil dogs in Chapter 1. So far, it's been pretty fun. I've gotten more-or-less used to the combat system (although the camera's a bit tricky at times), and the world I'm being introduced to seems pretty interesting. The graphics also look nice, especially the environments.

There are, of course, things that are getting on my nerves already. At least I get to have fun writing criticism about them. To simplify, I'll break things down into categories.

Story
The premise for the story and the characters themselves seem alright so far. It's mostly weird pacing that's throwing me off. For example, the main character- Geralt- gets found in a field, has no memory of anything, and suddenly, he has to help defend a fortress... but everyone is expecting him to do all the work. Already? Homeboy doesn't even know where he is. The whole prologue just seemed very forced, as if they just tossed it together as a quick tutorial level. I'm all for tutorial levels, but this one just seemed weakly presented.

The most ridiculous pacing issue comes right before the end of the prologue. Geralt has to get a bunch of ingredients to heal some soceress/old girlfriend who was wounded during the opening battle. While he searches, she's completely helpless and immobile. Once he gives her the potion, she's still laying in bed, looking and sounding ill. However, seconds later, she's ready to give Geralt some thank-you sex. That sure was one fast-acting potion.

One thing about game stories that often annoys me, and is present here, is when simply clicking on one dialog option sends you immediately onto the next place. I wasn't quite finished exploring the area I was in... Hello? No, don't send me to Chapter 1 yet! No...

I anticipate story issues ironing themselves out now that I'm more into the thick of it, but we shall see.

Cutscenes
There are simply too damn many. This could go under the previous section, but I thought it deserved its own section. I'm pretty sure I've watched more of this game than I've actually played. I very much prefer story to unfold more organically. I don't want to watch a five minute movie every time I advance the story.

Menu Screens
Again, there are too damn many. I'll probably get used to them eventually, but there are a lot of them and each one has a crazy number of buttons and options. It could have used some serious streamlining.

Specifically, there's the skill tree menu for leveling up. I'm not sure what the pattern is there, but it sure isn't linear, and there are quite a few options that refer to things (types of magic, I think) I've never seen on a skill tree.

Characters
The characters themselves seem pretty interesting, but it's really funny to watch them move while they talk to Geralt. There are some crazy arm and head movements going on. I'm not sure why they look up so much; I'm sure Geralt isn't 20 feet tall.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/22-The-Witcher



(pufferfish)

General Specific wrote:http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/22-The-Witcher



(pufferfish)

Oh, I've definitely seen this. I'm a big fan of Yahtzee.

I'm starting to think this game is going to be a pretty huge time investment. If that's good or bad, I do not yet know, but these last few games, I've cranked through pretty quickly. The thing is, I already have a whole bunch of missions, and I barely even know where I am. The map is... unhelpful. I'll just have to stick with it a bit and hope I get over the learning curve.

Really, all I did tonight was talk to people in an Inn. And then I got into a couple fistfights in the Inn. I was truly amazed at the blood produced by simply punching a guy in the face. Each punch resulted in a shower of blood more traditionally reserved for high-caliber gunshot wounds. I don't even remember the swordfights being that bloody. I'll have to keep watch.

The little "fight club" I ran into reminded me of playing Fable. Thinking more into that, this really seems like a very serious and more complex version of that game. I really enjoyed the lightheartedness, simplicity, and length of Fable. We'll see what that means for my enjoyment of The Witcher.

After a couple crashes due to a bad save file, I managed to play a bit this afternoon. I had a chance for some more leisurely exploration, as I finally didn't have anything specific burdening me. I also took some time to figure out the menu system a little better. I'm willing to learn it, but I don't appreciate how much it looks like a dozen people worked on it without actually talking to each other.

In my wandering, I was able to encounter to quite a few NPCs. I noticed that a bunch of them were exact copies of each other. I thought we were to a point in game design where NPCs could be more individualistic. It just seems lazy to fill a town with a dozen sets of triplets. It's especially odd when there is at least one (and probably more to come) very unique NPC... a fellow who appears to be a punk rock dwarf.


During my NPC encounters, I talked to the ones that actually had specific dialog, and I started to see an annoying pattern of getting kicked out of a conversation against my will. It seems that, for some characters, going through all the steps in one part of the dialog tree ends the conversation automatically. To ask any other questions that had been listed, I have to reinitiate a conversation. It's not a big deal, but it wastes enough time and repeats enough greeting dialog to be irritating.

There's a really big plot point that I don't really understand: Why did no one give Geralt some lessons about his personal history before sending him out to save the world? All the other witchers were being very cryptic about things, but it seems like sending a guy with only two weeks worth of memories out into the world is a bad idea.

Let's talk about items and their descriptions for a moment. In an RPG, knowing what you're working with is very important. The more you know about your items, the better off you are. With The Witcher, I'm realizing how incredibly little I know about the stuff I'm picking up.

Description-wise, most of the items are sufficiently detailed. Just sometimes, especially with weapons, I'd like to know more. I'd like some numbers by which to compare things. My default sword has no numbers attributed to it, I picked up a sword that was -20% damage, and I picked up a dagger that was listed as 1-6 damage. Where's the consistency in that?

Other items- potions, food, and weapon upgrades (treating your blade)- are time-sensitive. Some of them say generally how long they last (short, long, etc) and some don't. Personally, I'd prefer to have a good idea of how long an effect will last before I do anything.

I'd also like to know something about the value of the things I'm picking up. Inventory space is pretty limited, so it's nice to know when you dole out that real estate based on both usefulness and value of an item. Not that merchants are easy to come by; at least not any of the general store, buy anything types you usually find early on in games. Also, dealing with them seems to be a complete rip-off. The money you can make off an item is around 25% of what the merchants will sell it for. At least no one complains when I help myself to anything in their barrels, cupboards, and wardrobes. But now I'm rambling.

The point is, things are much more complicated and confused than they need to be. Like I mentioned regarding the menu system, though, these descriptions seem to have been developed by a bunch of people not on the same page.

Fighting is a pretty big part of this game. It's based more on clicking at the right time than anything else, which is okay once you get used to it. The more I fight, though, especially against a group, the more I wish the timing-based combat was more like what they had in Batman: Arkham Asylum. There, it was very fluid and you could see what was going on. I should probably play around with the three different views more to get a better view of fights. But, for the most part, it's just me staring at the sword icon to see when I can swing, which is not a very entertaining way to fight.

I am now 10 hours into the game, and I think I'm just about to finish Chapter One... This is clearly going to be a very long game. Part of that is probably the large number of major and minor quests available, but I think another big part is the only method of travel being on foot. Geralt is able to run at a pretty good clip indefinitely, but it still gets a bit dull. It would be nice if there was a fast-travel system in place. I would also like to see fewer dead ends around; certain areas seem to be designed to trap the character for no discernible reason. Jumping and climbing are not in the cards here, so even low obstacles can keep you from streamlining your travels.

Although there are many quests, it seems that all of the main ones are actually the same. Once you complete a stage of one of them, they basically all get updated. I suppose some of them are probably limited to a chapter while others stretch over more of the game, but it does clutter up the journal a bit.

I've got one big thing to accomplish (I think) before finishing this chapter. I just hope that I can finish up a couple side quests afterward, but I have a feeling the cutscenes will whisk me away to the next chapter. Too bad I can't go back and finish stuff without loading a save that would lose me a lot of progress. I'm cornered into the cutscenes!

I've made it into Chapter II of the game. Each chapter seems like it could almost be a game unto itself. I spent about 11 hours in Chapter I, despite how small the area was. There were a bunch of quests, and it had a clear story arc. Certain quest lines continued into Chapter II, of course, but once again, I almost immediately ended up with a ton of quests for this one town. There's a lot to do, and it seems like almost all of it is necessary (or at least incidentally connected) to level up high enough.

It's certainly a very detailed game, story-wise. I just wish the world were a little more detailed, as in less copy-pasted. Many buildings and characters are identical to each other. Even named characters sometimes have unnamed twins.

Speaking of names, there's a color-scheme that I think is a good idea. By holding down a key (Alt on PC), labels pop up. Common characters, buildings, and containers are labeled in Blue. More prominent characters are labeled in green. Children are also green, but I'm not sure why. Perhaps it is impossible to kill green characters? And enemies are in red. Pretty handy system.


Another system that's pretty interesting and innovative is how potions work. Instead of taking a health potion after getting injured, you take it at the beginning of the battle. The potion ups vitality regeneration so you heal faster while you fight. Various potions, food, and weapon upgrades are almost all time-sensitive. A ham sandwich will increase vitality regeneration for nine minutes, a whetstone will increase sword damage for an hour, and so on. It's an interesting step away from your standard red and blue potions that restore stuff instantly.

Well, that was a pretty positive review, wasn't it? Overall, the game is pretty darn good. I was kind of hoping for something shorter, but I think I'll be able to stick it out as long as it keeps the good storytelling up.

I haven't played this in over a month, and I kind of regret it. I almost didn't even want to start up the game. There's a lot of the story, which was already overly-complex, that I don't remember, and there are so many quests piled up in my Journal that I have no idea where to start. This is definitely not a game to take a break from, but I suppose that's the case with most RPGs.

I played around for a little while, though, and remembered the basic controls at least. We'll see if I can get back into it in the near future.

It's not looking like I'll be finishing this anytime soon. I wish it could have held my attention, because the game has a lot of good qualities. I think it was just a little overwhelming. I'll probably give it another shot in the future, but right now, I just have absolutely no desire to continue.