Review Detailed Witcher review at Game Informer

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: CD Projekt; Witcher, The

<a href=http://www.gameinformer.com>Game Informer</a> has posted a very detailed - I counted at least 4 paragraphs - <a href=http://www.gameinformer.com/NR/exeres/337DAC2C-E17E-4D4C-9BF7-39414EA34ADA.htm?CS_pid=647012>review</a> of <a href=http://www.thewitcher.com/>The Witcher</a>. The score is 8/10.
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<blockquote>The Witcher’s traditional structure is a bit of a weak spot, but it falters more in its overwrought attempts to convince you that you’re in an unconventional fantasy world. You are supposed to feel that Geralt is burdened with decisions that are morally ambiguous, like whether to defend his employer’s medicine crates or let elves take them to treat their ill. It’s nice to get away from the standard good versus evil mechanic, but The Witcher’s method often forces you to select the lesser of two evils; it feels like nothing you choose matters since you can’t effect any kind of desirable outcome. Players should be rewarded in some way for their choices, not given a lesson on the inevitability of failure.</blockquote>Can someone clarify what this gentleman is talking about?
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[vrok]

He's whining that you can't be a paladin, and that almost all "good" actions have some negative consequences. What you choose DOES matter, just not in the generic D&D fantasy way that he would like.

*spoiler*

The specific choice he's talking about results in either denying the elves (and consequently forced to kill them) access to the crates despite their attempts to convince you that they're poor and need food because of human persecution. Or let them have the crates without a fight and resulting in them killing off some NPCs in the next act with their newly acquired weapons (yes, they lied). Though at least one of them is a drug dealer, I guess his paladin witcher doesn't condone murdering drug dealers.

It was exactly that kind of consequence that made me think "awesome!" however.

 

[MetalCraze]

I say fuck media-whores. They're ruining the last remains of RPG genre. They're retarded.

 

[cardtrick]

Wow . . . that's a deeply awful review. I have no real idea what he's talking about in any of it, and I doubt that he has played past Chapter I, given that the screenshot is from the intro movie and his one example of choices/consequences comes early in Chapter I (possibly within your first hour of play).

It's certainly true that The Witcher forces you to choose the lesser of two evils, but that's hardly a bad thing. Your choices do matter, although a more legitimate complaint would be that it's often (but certainly not always and probably not even most of the time) difficult or impossible to predict all of the ramifications of your choice in advance, and you may not see the results for many hours, but even that I think is arguably good.

Now, Codexers no doubt will have certain issues with the choices&consequences: they are significant, and cause some branching within the plot, but the branches merge back into the trunk later on. There are only three endings (although there is a preliminary slideshow dependent on smaller choices made throughout the game). Also, the results of your choices are presented in kind of a hamhanded way - through a slideshow of really nice handpainted images with a voiceover talking about the consequences of your actions. These will occur at various times throughout the game, whenever your character learns of the results of a significant earlier choice. At first, I thought this was pretty dumb, and kind of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-y, but then my perceptions shifted and I started to see it instead as similar to the Fallout ending slideshow, only distributed over the course of the game, which is actually quite nice. Perhaps a more significant problem is that choices boil down to usually two (and at most three) options. (Although, refreshingly - so much about this game is refreshing - at least this is obvious. There are no Bioware pseudo-choices.)

Also, there are very few examples of the really subtle choices & consequences that you get in, say, MOTB - times when you may not even realize that you made a choice, and only later understand what happened when you see the results (the lich, for example). That's not to say there are none - the main plot in Act 2, for example, involves a great detective quest that takes place over the course of the whole (loooong) Act and involves gathering various clues. It's easy to miss some of them, and there are various results to your investigation, some with negative consequences; obtaining the "best" result requires talking to multiple suspects repeatedly, performing several small quests, reading a book on conducting an autopsy, reading a rather obscure book on a peculiar breed of fly, investigating a locked area, which will require either a bribe or doing a favor for someone you may very well not think of, and choosing the right options (this is pretty obvious, admittedly) during an autopsy, which means that most players will probably achieve a suboptimal result, missing out on some positive consequences.

Anyway, the point is that this is a great game, and this review completely fails to do it justice. It addresses neither the weaker points nor the stronger points, and only talks about things that you can discover after playing for a couple of hours or reading a preview of the game.

 

[Brother None]

Aren't GI online reviews always summaries of their magazine ones?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Quite possibly. However, since I'm not a subscriber of this fine magazine, I wouldn't know and there is nothing in the article that implies that a bigger and better review is inside.

 

[Bluebottle]

It’s nice to get away from the standard good versus evil mechanic, but The Witcher’s method often forces you to select the lesser of two evils;

It's nice to get away from water, but doing so often forces you to be dry

It's nice to get away from being a games journalist, but that often forces you to be smart

 

[Brother None]

Quite possibly. However, since I'm not a subscriber of this fine magazine, I wouldn't know and there is nothing in the article that implies that a bigger and better review is inside.

Neither am I, neither am I.

There's some really lolkewl The Witcher content on GameBanshee, by the way /pimp imp

 

[Vault Dweller]

Link? I checked the front page and the news, but didn't see it.

 

[Brother None]

Link? I checked the front page and the news, but didn't see it.

It's on the front page, I'm just talking about the The Witcher Week, Day One and The Witcher Week, Day Two. Buck's preview is pretty well-written, too. Day Three of the week should be up today, I think.

 

[DraQ]

The Witcher’s traditional structure is a bit of a weak spot, but it falters more in its overwrought attempts to convince you that you’re in an unconventional fantasy world. You are supposed to feel that Geralt is burdened with decisions that are morally ambiguous, like whether to defend his employer’s medicine crates or let elves take them to treat their ill. It’s nice to get away from the standard good versus evil mechanic, but The Witcher’s method often forces you to select the lesser of two evils; it feels like nothing you choose matters since you can’t effect any kind of desirable outcome. Players should be rewarded in some way for their choices, not given a lesson on the inevitability of failure.

Can someone clarify what this gentleman is talking about?

I believe he is essentially complaining about the game not being your happy candy land, only he does so in a somewhat eloquent manner.

 

[Annonchinil]

I think his point is that if all the choices lead to failure that you can't predict then why bother?

 

[Texas Red]

Its obvious that the reviewer hasnt played long enough and neither does he care much. Their magazine or website or whatever the fuck it is, is probably filled with FPS fans and Final Fantasy lovers, and they review TW only because they have to, as quickly as possible.

Game journalists are fucking irresponsible sub-people with no morals. Their fuckery harms other people and they promote piece of shit products. Its because of these reviewers that games are not accepted as art. How many console kiddies would view that "review" and decide that TW is not worth it, and rather pick up some McDonald's like crap?

If a bunch of angry forums members complain about whore journalists, it has no effect. Decent developers should write some manifesto or something to spread awareness. Right now the majority believes without a single doubt everything Gamespot or IGN writes.

 

[roshan]

The dumb fuck is basically complaining about having to choose between different degrees of evil, rather than having clear good and evil options.

 

[Bradylama]

Players should be rewarded in some way for their choices, not given a lesson on the inevitability of failure.

"That's life!"
That's what all the people say.
You're riding high in April,
Shot down in May.

 

[Texas Red]

Id like to be rewarded for being a lazy fuck I am. Its my choise after all.

 

[Smeciak]

I really coudn't belive what this guy wrote. Oh boy. Be rewarded for a choice? What a hell. Being rewarded for a choice has nothing to do with Sapkowski's world and real world in fact too. And as far as I know RPG should be as close to original (in this case to the books) as possible.


I will shorten one of Sapkowski's novels here, so spoiler for those who want to read the books and I think novels will be translated in English:

**SPOILER**
Geralt walks into a small town or even village. Then he knows there are some bandits there who want to kill many people. But for now they sit in tavern and do nothing. Noone exept our witcher knows what are they planning. So he kills all of them. After that he is thrown out of this town, considered a murderer and gained a nickname: "Butcher from Blakiven". But killing all of this bandits was necessary to save other people. Novel is called "Lesser evil".
** END OF SPOILER**

Someone should toss this novel in face of reviews author. And then say: "learn to read". Oh, that one made me really angry.