On the Subject of The Witcher 2 (Part 2)

I've now spent a little time with the game, although it has been somewhat abbreviated by my PC's recent decision to start locking up randomly (which I hope a motherboard replacement will fix, because nothing else has).

By far the biggest disappointment has been the use of quick-time events during some combat scenes (generally fistfights rather than the regular armed combat). I hate QTEs, I think they're lazy and cheap and ruin any sense of immersion, and I'm not about to give TW2 a pass on them simply because I'm a Witcher fan. I don't know if this game has a similar boxing mini-game to the first Witcher, but if it does and they use the QTE mechanism, I'll be very disappointed. I know QTEs let the designers chain mocap or whatever into a more fluid and cinematic visual experience, but it is absolutely at the expense of gameplay. You definitely lose marks for it, CD Projekt.

Anyway I've only just reached Chapter 1, which is where the "proper" games appears to begin, after the extended prologue/tutorial section. The new combat system took a bit of getting used to; it's not really any better or worse than the old "click to chain" system but it took a while to learn the rhythm of it. Although at worst it just turns into a parry/strike/parry/strike loop. Once you get the hang of it (and the fact that you now have to meditate to drink potions) it feels fairly fluid and natural.

As I'm only just getting to the more open portion of the game there are a lot of aspects I have yet to encounter, like crafting, quests etc. It's definitely a pretty game though, and has the same authentic feel as the original. I'm still not sold on the Geralt redesign, he's too much of a lantern-jawed jock now, but at least it's the same voice actor as before.

Anyway, assuming I can get my machine to behave itself, and if I can tear myself away from a recent obsession with SWAT 4, I'm looking forward to getting stuck further in, QTEs aside.

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.