On the Subject of The Witcher 2 (Part 1.1)

Denise Milani

I'm currently waiting for the 1.1 patch (due any moment) to see if it fixes the main problem I have, namely having to reset my manly 30" monitor to 1920x1200 before starting the game. Otherwise it just "um"s and "ah"s and eventually drops back to the startup menu. If I do reset the screen res I can get it to start, and from what little I've seen it looks great, but I want the best possible experience and I'm happy to wait. I've also read that the shitty securerom drm is affecting performance (and massively increases the loading time) for non-GOG/Steam versions so hopefully that'll be something else which is addressed in the patch. When will publishers learn that hurting paying customers with stupid crap like that is not clever?

Still, I was impressed with how quickly the game makes up for the lack of tits in the packaging by having Triss show up very, very naked almost immediately.

On the Subject of The Witcher 2 (Part 1)

Celebratory Tits

And so to one of my most highly-anticipated games of 2011; the follow-up to the superb, 2007 Bennett Cross winner The Witcher has arrived.

In this first part of my review, I shall be setting aside such trivial matters as gameplay, graphics, storyline, dialogue, tits, soundtrack, tits etc and concentrating on the much more important issue of packaging.

That's right, it's a COLLECTOR'S EDITION!

And what a CE it is, too. It's a big fucker, about 3 times the size of the original Witcher CE. Heavy, too, for reasons which will become obvious.

Nicely understated box. No idiotic publicity hyperbole.

Even more (or less) so on the back.

Like with the WAR CE, a large proportion of the weight comes from the hardback art book. This is another classy tome like the original Witcher art book, although with a hard cover and less nudity (sadly).

Beneath the art book is some papercraft model or other. I hesitate to "spoil" the effect by actually opening it. Maybe I should have bought 2 copies - one to keep for best. Then again this isn't the cheapest CE in history, so perhaps not.

A couple of DLC armour codes and some stickers later, and we're into the real guts of the box.

The Geralt bust. The other major contributor to the package's extreme weight. I would have preferred a model of a naked Triss or similar, but you can't have everything. Not to mention I'm not a huge fan of the (in my opinion entirely unnecessary) Geralt redesign in TW2, and this rubs it in your (my) face somewhat.

Nice, chunky game box. This would constitute a CE in itself for many games.

Game, game guide and bonus stuff. More on that later.

"How to Play Cards and Dice". A cute little guide book. But why would you need that?...

...aha! A set of dice, in a nice little Witcher pouch. That's why.

And then when you're done with the dice, there are some Witcher playing cards.

They look very classy, although again I'm hesitant to break the seal.

Nothing left in the box except some authentic Witcher dust.

In fact the weight of the bust played hell with the moulding in the box. The weight, combined with some less-than-gentle shipping no doubt.

And so that's it. Or is it? I happened to break open the bonus dvd box.

Only to find another papercraft model, and a map (complete with some long-overdue tits).

The game DVD box has a weird letter thing, in a fancy envelope, and a little coin which I almost missed on first inspection.

Cute.

For completeness, a better view of the stickers.

And so this time that really is all. In fact the more I got into it, the more impressed I was. The dice and cards are my favourite elements, and overall this collection is firmly at the Tabula Rasa end of the spectrum (i.e. good) rather than the WAR end (promises much, ultimately disappointing). Definitely one of the best CEs I've encountered, let down only by the price and the lack of pictures (or models) of tits. 9/10.

On the Subject of Portal 2

Big boobs never get old, unlike Portal

It's a new Valve game and therefore PC gamers are obliged to bow down and worship at the feet of The One True Developer.

I played the original Portal through again recently. My main impression was that it was incredibly short; enough time had passed for me to have forgotten most of the finer details of the puzzles but it still only took a couple of hours to complete. And the first half of it was tedious tutorials. As far as I'm concerned it has minimal replay value, partly because it's ultimately a puzzle game and so once you've solved it there's nothing left to do, and partly because the "hilarious" quirky robot humour gets old very quickly.

And I know Portal 2 has a co-op mode, but how is that going to offer any more replay potential, other than twats trying to show off how good they are to players who are playing levels for the first time? Who gives a shit about finding alternate solutions to puzzles once you've already found one? No doubt there'll be a lot of downloadable levels, but that's just more of the same except without any sort of narrative layer.

Of course as a puzzle game it's riding the current gaming zeitgeist of everything being treated like a challenge and a competition, which is why so many people are blown away by it. That, and the Emperor's New Clothes appeal of Valve's so-called "storytelling", whereby players mistake the lack of narrative clarity for another layer of gaming complexity, where you somehow have to be good at the game to understand the story, just like with Half-Life 2. In reality there's simply not a lot there beyond the (admittedly well-constructed) atmosphere and polished gameplay.

I fully intend to pick up Portal 2, but I will wait for the inevitable Steam sale. Portal 1 was nowhere near a full-price gaming experience, and despite claims that the sequel has substantially more content I don't believe it has the lasting appeal of more conventional games. The forum hysteria has already died down, again because of the limited scope and longevity of the game.

So yeah, a new Valve game. And just like with L4D2, another "more of the same" sequel. Even the more oblivious gamers are beginning to notice the lack of any substantial new content coming out of Valve in recent years. Still nothing on the future of Half-Life, whether it's more HL2 episodes (so much for smaller chunks = faster turnaround) or perhaps HL3. I don't argue the fact that they're still putting out games with a massive degree of polish, they're just running low on innovation and substance. Their increasing focus on multiplayer, especially co-op which as I've noted in the past is several years too late given modern gamers' rabid sense of competition and basic inability to co-operate, is disappointing because it's resulting in increasingly vacuous gaming experiences.