MatGeo
12-16-2007, 7:55 AM
The Witcher
Good day, fellow Warboards members.
I recently got my hands on The Witcher, a RPG made by CDProjekt, and distributed by Atari.
The game, is based on the novels of the polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. He’s the man that came up with the idea of a “witcher”. The Witchers, are an organization of men, who undergo rigorous training, and are forced to consume certain mutagens, which augment their power. They can see better in the dark than regular humans, they are stronger, have faster reflexes, they heal faster etc. Of course everything comes with a price, and in this case, it’s infertility.
What do they do? Their job is simple, they get rid of monsters, not necessarily by killing them. Sometimes, if they can turn the monsters back into humans they will do so(werewolves, striga etc.).
http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/6449/geraltxx8.jpg
The main character is Geralt of Rivia, a white haired witcher nicknamed “The White Wolf”. His most famous deed, was to lift the curse of a princess who had become a striga(a terrifying monster which came out only at night). In order to do so he had to spend a night, from dusk till dawn with her.
Now that’s the background of our character. In the game, we have the classic “Famous hero thought dead, returned with amnesia” scenario. He is found in the forest, by his fellow witchers and is taken to their stronghold, where he will learn(or remember) how to fight.
The Stronghold is under attack, and many die. The attackers escape with the mutagens used to train witchers, leaving the fortress devastated, killing a friend of Geralt, and wounding another.
By now, you’ve probably realized that the point of the game will be to find the attackers and kill them.
I won’t say much more about the story, as I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible.
Now, the main character and his skills.
Witchers, use two swords as main weapons. A steel one, for beasts and humans, and a silver one for monsters/specters and other magic creatures. They use “Signs” for support, attack, defense, escape etc. These signs are a form of spells, which consume Endurance. They are 5 in number:
Aard - telekinesis, it enables you to push objects or people back. You can stun or knockdown enemies with it.
Quen - protection, it creates a sphere which absorbs physical damage around Geralt. With some talents the sphere can affect enemies who hit it.
Yrden – this sign serves for ambushes or escapes, you can determine a portion of ground where the enemy receives certain negative bonuses(slow, poison etc.)
Igni – fire, this enables you to cast offensive fire spells.
Axii – control, this enables you to temporarily turn foe into an ally(assuming the enemy isn’t too powerful), scare off enemies, etc.
Here is a demonstration of the Igni sign:
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/8683/ignize1.jpg
Sadly, these signs are overall for support, meaning you can’t win the game using magic. Melee will be the main way of fighting. Signs are helpful in combat and non-combat situations. Example: The Aard sign can knock back or stun enemies. When enemies are stunned, or down you can perform a Coup de Graçe(finishing move) which instantly kills an enemy. Aard, is also useful when your path is blocked by objects, as you can push then out of the way.
Now for the fighting, although you can use an additional 2 weapons besides your swords, I find the swords to be the most efficient for one simple reason. With the swords you can use fighting styles. There are 3 styles:
Strong – good against any type of enemy deals high damage, best used against heavily armored enemies.
Fast – good against agile enemies which will prove difficult to hit using strong style, deals moderate damage.
Group – good against big groups of weak enemies, deals low damage.
The silver sword, deals less damage than the steel one but does significantly more damage to monsters, thus I advise switching between them.
Another very interesting feature, is that after Geralt starts attacking he will hit the enemies and after a certain number of hits, the cursor changes into a flaming sword, when that happens if you click again, he will continue the attack sequence in a very elegant and natural way, not giving opponents a chance to retaliate. You can do this up to 4 times. Here, is a demonstration of the fast style at the second or third sequence:
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/4545/witcherfaststylewr4.jpg
Witchers, rely a lot on alchemy to brew potions with different effects.
Potions can restore health and endurance, they can improve your damage at the cost of the ability to parry or dodge, they can give you sight in the darkness, they enable you to see invisible enemies, improve chance to dodge or parry etc. Though, this comes at a cost, the more potions you consume the more your toxicity level rises, which affects you.
Of course you can’t just make potions out of thin air, you have to gather the ingredients, and to have the formulae for a specific potion. The formulae can be won though quests or bought. You will often have to buy books in order to be able to identify certain plants which you will collect later.
Speaking of potion, depending on the difficulty level you chose they can become vital or optional.
Of course all heroes must rest, this is called meditation and it enables Geralt to sleep or rest for a certain period of time chosen by the player. During meditation you can brew potions, and invest talent points. These talent points are of 3 kinds: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. You gain bronze talents from the beginning of the game, silver ones from level 15 and gold ones from 30. Bronze talents can be invested in basic skills, silver ones in intermediary skills, and gold for advanced ones.
I have one more thing to mention: Geralt has a witcher medallion, this trinket vibrates when enemies are near or if places of power are near depending on how the player sets it. This setting can be changed during meditation.
Now this medallion, also has a psychological impact upon the player sometimes, meaning that when you are forced to choose who to help, you choose, kill the others and when you return to the ones you help, the medallion vibrates even though there are no enemies near, it makes you wonder whether or not you made a correct decision.
Now for the world, it’s a bit different from other RPGs since you don’t have the classic “Nice town surrounded by dark forests where evil creatures lie” and when you have to make choices for quests it’s really hard to find a good option or a bad one, usually both of them result in something bad in the end. In this world you aren’t safe even in the cities…at night at least, you will often meet assassins or monsters coming to get you. As a fantasy world it has non-human creatures (witchers are non-humans as they are mutants), dwarves, elves, dryads etc.
Unlike many other RPGs you don’t have the humans, dwarves and elves fighting some evil beasts. You have the humans, which hate non-humans and which care only about their political struggles, persecuting the other races. Example: I ended up in prison, and I met an elf who was sentenced to be hanged the next day because he was a non-human, so it’s obvious that racism is present.
I was speaking about decisions. Some decisions will not only puzzle you, or make you regret choosing them but they will also affect the outcome of the game.
SPOILER WARNING
I was in the sewers searching for a monster and I met a knight which was after the same monster, he asked me to allow him to tag along, and I saw no reason not to do it. Later in the game, after many quests, I find myself in need to exit the region of town I was in, but the guards wouldn’t let me, s this knight shows up and tells them to grant me passage and also gives me a ring which I can show to guards and they’ll let me pass avoiding bribery or fighting.
The level design is impressive especially on highest settings.
One thing that disappointed me a lot was the lack of NPC models. Some characters like innkeepers or gamblers have the same models as regular beggars or thugs etc. The more important characters of course have their own model.
The personality of the people is interesting, you will often find them in the streets talking about different things with one another and they have very human-like reactions in certain situations. Example: It was raining in the town, and this was the reaction of the citizens:
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/9581/citizenshidenc5.jpg
Notice how all of them are hiding from the rain. Also certain NPCs don’t always have the same place, meaning you can usually find them in a certain place at a certain hour, but at night they go home, and during the day you can see them walking around on streets.
Geralt also has natural reactions when he gets close to people, I’m talking abut shoving NPCs feature also present in Assassin’s Creed. Also if you piss off certain characters they may refuse to talk to you, so be careful what you say.
The soundtrack is nice, appropriate for the world in general.
Now, for the miscleanous features.
Fist Fights – In inns, you can engage in fist fights for money. Fist fighting goes on just as regular fighting, except you can’t use signs.
Drinking – This is a very important part of the world. Often you will have to drink with certain NPCs in order to gain information, or to convince them to pay you more for a certain task. Some NPCs have drink preferences and won’t want just any beer. Of course drinking too much has it’s downfall: getting drunk, affects your movement and fighting. You can get rid of it by resting for a certain period of time.
Poker Dice – This can be a good source of money, and it’s good entertainment. This is a minigame, it’s played similar to poker. You roll the dice and get 5 numbers, which end up in formations just like in poker: a pair, 2 pairs, 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, full house etc. The only new formation is 5 of a kind showed in the following screenshot:
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/871/pokerdicetq3.jpg
After you roll the dice you bet, choose which dice you want to re-roll and continue the game. There are 3 rounds, whoever wins 2 of them wins the game.
This may be inappropriate for younger readers
Sex – Yes, in this game you can have sex. Of course it only shows a couple of suggestive images in the background plus a “Sex Card” which is basically a half-nude picture of the woman you’re having sex with. There are a total of 24 sex cards in the game, though you won’t be able to obtain all of them since some of them depend on some choices and making one choice leads to one card making it impossible to obtain the other. No screenshots as the mods wouldn’t agree.
Now you’re probably wondering why I haven’t said anything about the bad aspects of the game. Well I’ll start now. There’s one MAJOR downside. Load times. When you switch from area to area the loading screen will drive you mad.
It’s a real pain when I load a save, and I have to wait a lot for it to load, while playing the game on medium setting with a 3 GHZ processor, and 2 GBs of RAM, this issue should be fixed in the next patch.
Voices, are another big problem, because even though the producers said they were going to use "professionals" to translate the game into English they are still poor.
Sometimes Geralt doesn’t respond to commands, and this becomes very annoying especially when running from someone/something, but this doesn’t happen too often.
All of these will probably be fixed in future patches. The only problem I don’t see getting fixed any time soon is with the models, and the voices.
Easter-eggs
The game is full of them. You have a private investigator called Raymond Maarloeve, a character which studied at the Academy of Oxenfurt , a beast which asks a question: What creature walks in 4 legs, 2 legs, then 3 legs during it’s life, and only the one that answers this question may have a chance of defeating it. You have the village of the brickmakers who worship “The Lords” creatures which are inspired from Lovecraft’s stories (they look similar to Cthulhu). And many, many more.
Overall, it’s a very good and entertaining game, but far from perfect.
Rating:
Graphics – 9/10
Sound – 7/10(voices)
Gameplay – 8/10(load times)
Lore/Storyline – 9/10
Overall – 8.25/10
Good day, fellow Warboards members.
I recently got my hands on The Witcher, a RPG made by CDProjekt, and distributed by Atari.
The game, is based on the novels of the polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. He’s the man that came up with the idea of a “witcher”. The Witchers, are an organization of men, who undergo rigorous training, and are forced to consume certain mutagens, which augment their power. They can see better in the dark than regular humans, they are stronger, have faster reflexes, they heal faster etc. Of course everything comes with a price, and in this case, it’s infertility.
What do they do? Their job is simple, they get rid of monsters, not necessarily by killing them. Sometimes, if they can turn the monsters back into humans they will do so(werewolves, striga etc.).
http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/6449/geraltxx8.jpg
The main character is Geralt of Rivia, a white haired witcher nicknamed “The White Wolf”. His most famous deed, was to lift the curse of a princess who had become a striga(a terrifying monster which came out only at night). In order to do so he had to spend a night, from dusk till dawn with her.
Now that’s the background of our character. In the game, we have the classic “Famous hero thought dead, returned with amnesia” scenario. He is found in the forest, by his fellow witchers and is taken to their stronghold, where he will learn(or remember) how to fight.
The Stronghold is under attack, and many die. The attackers escape with the mutagens used to train witchers, leaving the fortress devastated, killing a friend of Geralt, and wounding another.
By now, you’ve probably realized that the point of the game will be to find the attackers and kill them.
I won’t say much more about the story, as I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible.
Now, the main character and his skills.
Witchers, use two swords as main weapons. A steel one, for beasts and humans, and a silver one for monsters/specters and other magic creatures. They use “Signs” for support, attack, defense, escape etc. These signs are a form of spells, which consume Endurance. They are 5 in number:
Aard - telekinesis, it enables you to push objects or people back. You can stun or knockdown enemies with it.
Quen - protection, it creates a sphere which absorbs physical damage around Geralt. With some talents the sphere can affect enemies who hit it.
Yrden – this sign serves for ambushes or escapes, you can determine a portion of ground where the enemy receives certain negative bonuses(slow, poison etc.)
Igni – fire, this enables you to cast offensive fire spells.
Axii – control, this enables you to temporarily turn foe into an ally(assuming the enemy isn’t too powerful), scare off enemies, etc.
Here is a demonstration of the Igni sign:
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/8683/ignize1.jpg
Sadly, these signs are overall for support, meaning you can’t win the game using magic. Melee will be the main way of fighting. Signs are helpful in combat and non-combat situations. Example: The Aard sign can knock back or stun enemies. When enemies are stunned, or down you can perform a Coup de Graçe(finishing move) which instantly kills an enemy. Aard, is also useful when your path is blocked by objects, as you can push then out of the way.
Now for the fighting, although you can use an additional 2 weapons besides your swords, I find the swords to be the most efficient for one simple reason. With the swords you can use fighting styles. There are 3 styles:
Strong – good against any type of enemy deals high damage, best used against heavily armored enemies.
Fast – good against agile enemies which will prove difficult to hit using strong style, deals moderate damage.
Group – good against big groups of weak enemies, deals low damage.
The silver sword, deals less damage than the steel one but does significantly more damage to monsters, thus I advise switching between them.
Another very interesting feature, is that after Geralt starts attacking he will hit the enemies and after a certain number of hits, the cursor changes into a flaming sword, when that happens if you click again, he will continue the attack sequence in a very elegant and natural way, not giving opponents a chance to retaliate. You can do this up to 4 times. Here, is a demonstration of the fast style at the second or third sequence:
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/4545/witcherfaststylewr4.jpg
Witchers, rely a lot on alchemy to brew potions with different effects.
Potions can restore health and endurance, they can improve your damage at the cost of the ability to parry or dodge, they can give you sight in the darkness, they enable you to see invisible enemies, improve chance to dodge or parry etc. Though, this comes at a cost, the more potions you consume the more your toxicity level rises, which affects you.
Of course you can’t just make potions out of thin air, you have to gather the ingredients, and to have the formulae for a specific potion. The formulae can be won though quests or bought. You will often have to buy books in order to be able to identify certain plants which you will collect later.
Speaking of potion, depending on the difficulty level you chose they can become vital or optional.
Of course all heroes must rest, this is called meditation and it enables Geralt to sleep or rest for a certain period of time chosen by the player. During meditation you can brew potions, and invest talent points. These talent points are of 3 kinds: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. You gain bronze talents from the beginning of the game, silver ones from level 15 and gold ones from 30. Bronze talents can be invested in basic skills, silver ones in intermediary skills, and gold for advanced ones.
I have one more thing to mention: Geralt has a witcher medallion, this trinket vibrates when enemies are near or if places of power are near depending on how the player sets it. This setting can be changed during meditation.
Now this medallion, also has a psychological impact upon the player sometimes, meaning that when you are forced to choose who to help, you choose, kill the others and when you return to the ones you help, the medallion vibrates even though there are no enemies near, it makes you wonder whether or not you made a correct decision.
Now for the world, it’s a bit different from other RPGs since you don’t have the classic “Nice town surrounded by dark forests where evil creatures lie” and when you have to make choices for quests it’s really hard to find a good option or a bad one, usually both of them result in something bad in the end. In this world you aren’t safe even in the cities…at night at least, you will often meet assassins or monsters coming to get you. As a fantasy world it has non-human creatures (witchers are non-humans as they are mutants), dwarves, elves, dryads etc.
Unlike many other RPGs you don’t have the humans, dwarves and elves fighting some evil beasts. You have the humans, which hate non-humans and which care only about their political struggles, persecuting the other races. Example: I ended up in prison, and I met an elf who was sentenced to be hanged the next day because he was a non-human, so it’s obvious that racism is present.
I was speaking about decisions. Some decisions will not only puzzle you, or make you regret choosing them but they will also affect the outcome of the game.
SPOILER WARNING
I was in the sewers searching for a monster and I met a knight which was after the same monster, he asked me to allow him to tag along, and I saw no reason not to do it. Later in the game, after many quests, I find myself in need to exit the region of town I was in, but the guards wouldn’t let me, s this knight shows up and tells them to grant me passage and also gives me a ring which I can show to guards and they’ll let me pass avoiding bribery or fighting.
The level design is impressive especially on highest settings.
One thing that disappointed me a lot was the lack of NPC models. Some characters like innkeepers or gamblers have the same models as regular beggars or thugs etc. The more important characters of course have their own model.
The personality of the people is interesting, you will often find them in the streets talking about different things with one another and they have very human-like reactions in certain situations. Example: It was raining in the town, and this was the reaction of the citizens:
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/9581/citizenshidenc5.jpg
Notice how all of them are hiding from the rain. Also certain NPCs don’t always have the same place, meaning you can usually find them in a certain place at a certain hour, but at night they go home, and during the day you can see them walking around on streets.
Geralt also has natural reactions when he gets close to people, I’m talking abut shoving NPCs feature also present in Assassin’s Creed. Also if you piss off certain characters they may refuse to talk to you, so be careful what you say.
The soundtrack is nice, appropriate for the world in general.
Now, for the miscleanous features.
Fist Fights – In inns, you can engage in fist fights for money. Fist fighting goes on just as regular fighting, except you can’t use signs.
Drinking – This is a very important part of the world. Often you will have to drink with certain NPCs in order to gain information, or to convince them to pay you more for a certain task. Some NPCs have drink preferences and won’t want just any beer. Of course drinking too much has it’s downfall: getting drunk, affects your movement and fighting. You can get rid of it by resting for a certain period of time.
Poker Dice – This can be a good source of money, and it’s good entertainment. This is a minigame, it’s played similar to poker. You roll the dice and get 5 numbers, which end up in formations just like in poker: a pair, 2 pairs, 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, full house etc. The only new formation is 5 of a kind showed in the following screenshot:
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/871/pokerdicetq3.jpg
After you roll the dice you bet, choose which dice you want to re-roll and continue the game. There are 3 rounds, whoever wins 2 of them wins the game.
This may be inappropriate for younger readers
Sex – Yes, in this game you can have sex. Of course it only shows a couple of suggestive images in the background plus a “Sex Card” which is basically a half-nude picture of the woman you’re having sex with. There are a total of 24 sex cards in the game, though you won’t be able to obtain all of them since some of them depend on some choices and making one choice leads to one card making it impossible to obtain the other. No screenshots as the mods wouldn’t agree.
Now you’re probably wondering why I haven’t said anything about the bad aspects of the game. Well I’ll start now. There’s one MAJOR downside. Load times. When you switch from area to area the loading screen will drive you mad.
It’s a real pain when I load a save, and I have to wait a lot for it to load, while playing the game on medium setting with a 3 GHZ processor, and 2 GBs of RAM, this issue should be fixed in the next patch.
Voices, are another big problem, because even though the producers said they were going to use "professionals" to translate the game into English they are still poor.
Sometimes Geralt doesn’t respond to commands, and this becomes very annoying especially when running from someone/something, but this doesn’t happen too often.
All of these will probably be fixed in future patches. The only problem I don’t see getting fixed any time soon is with the models, and the voices.
Easter-eggs
The game is full of them. You have a private investigator called Raymond Maarloeve, a character which studied at the Academy of Oxenfurt , a beast which asks a question: What creature walks in 4 legs, 2 legs, then 3 legs during it’s life, and only the one that answers this question may have a chance of defeating it. You have the village of the brickmakers who worship “The Lords” creatures which are inspired from Lovecraft’s stories (they look similar to Cthulhu). And many, many more.
Overall, it’s a very good and entertaining game, but far from perfect.
Rating:
Graphics – 9/10
Sound – 7/10(voices)
Gameplay – 8/10(load times)
Lore/Storyline – 9/10
Overall – 8.25/10