The Witcher

Starting October 30th 2007 Atari's / CD Projekt / BioWare new game The Witcher will be available for download from Atari's website:
http://www.atari.com/us/games/witcher/dvd_rom

For anyone that hasn't checked out the game I recommend you take a look at the website.
http://www.thewitcher.com/
http://www.thewitcher.com/community/en/videos/latest/

It looks to have a style that is a mixture of the upcoming games Assassin's Creed (Middle Ages time period setting with smooth moving assassin style combat) and Hellgate London (demons, magic, and RPG elements). Among one of its notable elements is that it will have multiple endings. The Best of E3 2007 and Best of E3 2006 Winner may give Hellgate London some Halloween competition.

For European customers there is a Collectors Edition as well as a Limited Edition available.

 

What kind of game is it Solo? MMO? H&S RPG?( hack and slash ) err what?

 

It just got an 8.5 from IGN, and the reasons it got dragged down were hardly that impacting (load times, confusing story, minor stuff). I might look into it , its now a toss-up between this and hellgate:london for me.

 

I've been interested in it for awhile, but with the millions of games coming out, I have to be picky. I just got GHIII earlier today. I'd like to get a players impression of it though, I don't much like most of the big review site reviews.

 

Can some of you guys post what you think when you get this? It looks really interesting . . .

Thanks!

 

I want to demo it, I won't ever buy a game without playing it some.

Dawn of Magic looked pretty good, but the reviews seem mixed. The demo was pretty interesting

 

looks awesome

 

It is a solo game. It is an RPG. From what I have read from people who played it for reviews hack and slash wouldn't really fit the combat system. It seems like more of a timing fight system. I read that once you start an attack if you press the attack button again too soon you will interrupt the maneuver. Apparently you attack and time your next move based on your characters movements to continue your assault and/or finish off your enemy. Apparently the character has two hundred different attack animations.

It has been out in Europe for a few days, so you may want to visit some of the European related forums to get an idea of what the game play is like.

 

Sounds simiar to shen mu for dreamcast, that was a game that had massive potential.

 

I just got this game and it s quite good, but very badly optimized imo. (It has nothing to do with shen mu, really )

 

Here is a little more information on the Witcher:

For anyone interested in seeing what the combat system is like you can find a demonstration in the combat and tactics video on game trailers http://www.gametrailers.com/game/1053.html

The second post down at the link below is from someone who worked on the game, and it goes into details about why certain aspects of the game are the way they are (including the combat system).

http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=585010&forum=22&sp=120

 

when is this to be released in oz? looks awesome, but some of the gameplay ideas are a bit unusual. (not sure whether its a good thing or not)

 

it s already released, at least in France...and on irc

 

there is an awesome opening cinematic on gametrailers.

 

i really don't care about france if you notice my location, you will find out why i asked about australia.

 

I'm half way through chapter 2 (have played about 10 hours) - and it's great fun! I really enjoy the more mature nature of it.

Sure, it could use more NPC-models and some other tweaks/improvements (loading times especially) but overall it's great fun!

 

IGN gave this game an 8.5.

 

yeah, the only reason it didnt score higher were for really dumb reasons, like loading times and some crashing problems. probably a 9 atleast if you look past those

 

I downloaded The Witcher from Atari (Game publisher) yesterday and it took about 2 hours (avg. about 600 kb/s). This is only the second time I have downloaded a game online (first was Galactic Civ 2) and I can see this becoming the future of the gaming industry. On to the game...

I bought a 8510p (on Ackeron's review) 2-3 weeks back and the 2600HD can play it at max res., 1680x1050 (I think), and everything on and maxed out (excepting AA, which is off). The settings were auto-detected, and so far the fps have been very smooth. From what I can gather there are no DX10 effects and the game has been optimized for DX9, so older laptops may be able to play this game fairly well.

I would describe this game best as an RPG with action elements. If you look at the eurogamer.net review comments you will see a big debate on whether it can be described as an RPG because you cannot create or even choose your character. Your character does grow and become powerful in different areas of your choosing as you level up (examples, points in group style fighting makes Geralt the protagonist more effective at fighting mulitple foes at once). It is actually quite detailed and you can play the game thrice over and have three rather different styles of play depending on how you spent your points. The action elements are in the fighting. You click on an enemy, and you take a swing at him. After a little bit, if you connected, your cursor becomes a flaming sword (or something like that) and you have to click again, to link two attacks together. Basically its all about the timing, and once your character has levelled enough and put points in appropriate attributes, you can have some pretty exquisite ballets of death. I've had plenty of "Wow, I just levelled them!" moments. The combat is interesting and different from other games, and does a good job of getting you involved enough that you don't feel like your watching a movie.

The storyline is without a doubt one of the stronger points of The Witcher. I don't want to give away any spoilers but the game is based on a famous Polish author's works. It is set in a rather grim medieval setting, and though it has the obligatory fantasy elves, dwarves (why are they always Scottish?!) and such I can tell you from how far I've managed to proceed this is like no other fantasy game I have played before. There are few easy good-bad moments like in KOTOR, instead there have been moments where I'm either choosing between bad and worse, or just two plain grey choices. I believe consequences of your choices only play out several hours after you make them so things you do may end up having consequences you will not have expected. The game is an adult one, and there is plenty of cursing and nudity (if you get the uncensored version), so if you're squeamish about these this game is probably not for you.

The Good: Great graphics (for an RPG, don't expect Bioshock or Crysis), Interesting storyline, Combat is fun (bit subjective, some people may not like it), Game devs promise 80-90+ hours to finish (so probably 50-60, still very solid in today's games, not to mention replay values of going back and making different choices and choosing different abilities).

The Bad: Loading times are annoying. I seem to have it better than most people who say upto 1 minute, mine has never gone past 20 seconds but you will see alot of loading screens and this can really break the immersion of the game.

Other minor bad things:
Also, not the best optimized for Vista (XP seems to do fairly well), heard problems with taking all of your system's memory (used 80% of my 3 gigs). They already released one patch so hopefully the next one will come as quick and resolve some problems. Character models are re-used very often, and cutscenes may suddenly drop to 3-4 fps even though the game itself is smooth. I hear unselecting Depth of Field helps alot.

If you like RPGS you should definitely get this game. Even if you don't, it is still worthy of purchase. The graphics, sound, story and general atmosphere are great and unique. It's been awhile since I've been able to enjoy a game so much (excluding Bioshock).

I'd give it a 90-91 as it is right now (with patch 1.1), and if devs can release a patch lowering load times it may go as high as 9.5.

 

The negatives were load times, crashing issues, and throwing too much into a story...

"long" load times are never more than 10 seconds, everyone else other than the IGN reviewer had no crashing issues, and if throwing too much into a story is a negative then I hope that trend continues....

I'm still waiting for HGL reviews before deciding.

 

i think i will get it actually. know to find out when its released in oz (if it isn't already)

 

This game sounds really nice, but one quick question about meaning of "solo", is this game online as in game play wise, like guild wars where you play by yourself online but can have partner if you chose too, or is it oblivion style, single player only?

 

Its Oblivion style, single player only.

 

Here are a couple of interesting reviews about the Witcher for those considering it, or who want to know a bit more about it before buying:

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=650

(This second review contains a bit of a spoiler on the opening of the game and the plot. It also contains complaints of load times which may be related to the reviewer's system settings).
http://kotaku.com/gaming/impressions/the-witcher-loading-awesome-please-wait-316657.php

Users who have optimized their system(s) (multi-core patches, service and background application tweaking) like the people here in the notebook review gaming forum may see quicker loads than the reviewer.

 

haha, "loading awesome: please wait."

 

Didn't really want to buy the game before - but after reading those patch notes, I'm really tempted.

 

Most of those issues will be addressed within a month by patching.

Building on what you said:

You can NEVER have TOO MUCH STORY in a game. That is the silliest idea I have ever heard. Storyline is the best part of a game (when I play it).

Now I'm actually interested in playing it!

 

yes, it is targeted at a mature audience

 

Now I'm interested, only game I own made by Bioware was the first NWN and to date it's the only game in my collection that's a CRPG. Gameplay seems unusual too which is a plus.

Are the recommended system reqs for this game as absurd as the overhyped Crysis or will most recently bought 15" notebooks with a decent card play this without being crippled?

Edit: I've checked the official reqs. When they recommend 7900GTX for best performance I start getting worried fpr my 8600GT. Only just got by the recommended processor as well (T7250 if I'm not mistaken).

 

as Vicious said in his review, his new laptop can play it very well. Your 8600 should play it pretty well!

 

A very solid cRPG, i must say. Bought it immediately when it was released (26.10) and finished the game yesterday (31.10). That may make it sound that game is rather short, but it's more 'coz i just played insane amounts of it in a day. ^^

Can't really comment the performance, since i played it with my desktop with a 8800 GTS.

The Witcher goes all the way to the second place in my best-games-of-all-time, just after BG 2. I really recommend it to anyone who has any interest towards classical computer role playing games.

edit: BTW, the game shut itself like 6-7 times during my sessions while the game was in loading screen.

 

I'm loving this game so much, it just oozes atmosphere. People have compared it to classics like Baldur's Gate (I and II), Planescape, and others. Games of this quality are'nt released very often. Having said that, even after 1.1a, I have had some crash to desktops. About every 3-4 hours so it is just annoying, not game breaking. There is a hotfix for Vista from MS that they reccomend that prevents memory leakage by restricting applications to no more than 2 gigs of ram. This seems to have solved my problems of Cutscenes slowing down and sometimes black screens during cutscenes. It also reduced the amount of crashes I had by quite a bit. I hear it works perfectly on XP though.

 

the guy at the store asked me why i wasn't buying hellgate

 

Here You have some reviews (spoilers possible ) Link
I'm really interested to see how this game will be acknowledged.

Mainly because I love the books on which the game is based on but also because it was made in Poland .

 

Earlier I mentioned I was playing TW almost maxed out everything, but since playing more and progressing into a high population zone I have had to lower my res to 1200x1024 (If I remember right) as the fps was becoming choppy. With this game you really need it to be smooth or you'll end up missing the opportunity to link together some crazy combos (depending on your sword skills).

I think a fair few people will miss out on this because of HG:L coming out which is a shame. Some one asked for an AU release date, I am not sure but it should be imminent since IGN had an AU review recently.

 

Oh, I am so getting this. I have 3 weeks of minimum school and no exams til january. I was gonna spend it on assasin's creed, but it got delayed, so here we are.

 

A couple days back I recall reading posts (on the official Witcher forums) about online stores in Australia that were selling it (the collectors edition), but I'm not sure where on there I saw it.

With a quick search I turned up the following (I'm sure you can find it for cheaper some where else):

http://dstore.com.au/home/Search/Qu...h_term=witcher&utm_campaign=dStoreSearch&ps=1

(The site above doesn't list it being out until November 9th, but I think I saw it at an .AU site with "game" in the name as already available).

 

Anyone know if this game is coming to Asia? I'm hoping for SE Asia by February next year as I doubt the Mainland will import a game with 17+ content.

 

Your best bet is to contact the official Witcher people ( CDprojekt) and see if they can give you an answer. Beyond that you could try a few shopping search engines for China (I hear there is a search site called Smarter that will search in China as will Yahoo):

http://gouwu.cn.yahoo.com/product/u...ource_Shopping_prod_search_prod_search_result
http://gouwu.cn.yahoo.com/product/u...ource_Shopping_prod_search_prod_search_result
http://gouwu.cn.yahoo.com/product/u...ource_Shopping_prod_search_prod_search_result

 

Thanks for the links, but for some reason they don't work for me. I suppose I can always wait until December when I can ask a relative to pass me a European copy.

Do the European versions (specifically the UK) have any censorship? I hear the USA copies tone down the violence and other objectionable material.

 

The way they censored the first *** scene I encountered was hilarious. It was completely obvious that they just put a portrait of a scantly clad medival chick overtop 3/4 of the actual *** scene (the portrait most likely isn't there in the Euro version).

 

From what has been said on the official forum not much was censored, and according to the developers none of the violence was edited. There is an example what was censored, and the degree to which it was censored on this review http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=650 (near the bottom the link is labeled "this screenshot").

 

7900 GTX is the recommended gfx card....damn my poor 8600M GT wont handle it

 

I want a demo, this sounds interesting..

 

I'm playing it on my card...your just fine. Actually the 7800 is the recommended card and 6600 is the minimum card.

 

kewl, how does it run and is it worth the money in your opinion

 

Runs well, although its kind of annoying because the cutscenes run alot slower than the actual game which means you need to lower the settings more so the cutscenes are actually watchable (there are a lot of them).

Is it worth it? I'm going to say yes at this point. Its got great presentation, great graphics, great music, good voice acting, an awesome story (so far), and a good combat system.

The only downside as most reviews have mentioned are the load times and crashes (it has crashed one time for me so far in about five hours of play.)

edit: I'll also add its non-linear and you will have to like RPGs to fully get into it, i.e. it wouldn't be as easy to jump into as say Hellgate: London there is a larger learning curve.

 

its not coming out for another 2 weeks in australia. i am going to cry.

 

Some people have said switching depth-of-field off fixes the problem.

 

this game is amazing, the cutscenes are up to movie quality. i was playing it with a friend and we were both extreamly impressed by the quality of the storytelling. It also runs very well, my friends comp only had an X700 and it ran with max textures, with AF to 6 and everything else medium and the game looked amazing, especially the cutscenes. i dont know what people are talking about, the game is made very well to work on older systems.