Review The Witcher 2 Review

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: CD Projekt; Witcher 2, The

<p>GameCritics critically critisize <strong>The Witcher 2</strong>, <a href="http://www.gamecritics.com/richard-naik/the-witcher-2-assassins-of-kings-review" target="_blank">rating it 5.5/10</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then there's the actual combat, which is even more problematic than the potion-chugging prep work. Even with the simplified controls, Geralt's actions are extremely sluggish, and there's often a slight delay between when I press a button and when he actually does something. Such a delay can be a massive headache when being attacked from behind does 200% damage, or when I need to throw a bomb to stop an incoming group of Rotfiends.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Worse still, the game has a nasty habit of spiking the difficulty, especially when facing multiple enemies. When up against a large group, there will inevitably be a&nbsp;<em>ton&nbsp;</em>of running around in circles using ranged attacks and bombs (a practice commonly known as kiting), which gets old very fast. I am generally a fan of games that challenge me as opposed to holding my hand,<em>&nbsp;</em>but&nbsp;<em>Witcher 2&nbsp;</em>was one of the few games where I simply got too aggravated to continue on the Normal setting.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>A correctly-made "hard game" has to have mechanics that are&nbsp;smooth&nbsp;and easy to use, so that it can present a challenge to the player by asking him to master those mechanics. For example, I am an unabashed&nbsp;<em>Mega Man</em> fan, and when I die or mess something up playing one, it is because I failed, not because the game failed me. My experience playing&nbsp;<em>Witcher 2</em> was the exact opposite.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>The story of the&nbsp;<em>Witcher 2</em> is a sleepy, tired, Tolkien-esque fantasy slog with some softcore porn thrown in. I had a hard time keeping an interest in the game's world (yes, including the porny bits), and it didn't help that the writers assumed a lot of familiarity on my part regarding its details. Based on a popular series of fantasy novels,&nbsp;<em>Witcher 2</em> presents a lot of people and places that a player won't necessarily be familiar with, and then doesn't do much to introduce them or provide illuminating context. I'm certainly the kind of player that loves digging into a game's lore, but even that didn't help much since the available lore doesn't shed much light on anything. It still feels like there's a lot of stuff that I'm just "supposed" to know. The massive gaps in exposition sapped most of the&nbsp;<em>Witcher</em>'s potential dramatic weight, leaving me scratching my head far too often.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Poland - you know what to do.</p>

 

[J_C]

What is this...I don't even...

 

[Quilty]

I definitely agree with this. Though, to be honest, I understand when people fervently defend the game; everyone must be starved for some RPG goodness. It's a shame twitcher2 fails to deliver on most points.

 

[Mrowak]

Poland - you know what to do.

: x : x : x : x : x : x


And so on. You know the drill... yawn. You know, that trolling attempts by mods start to get boring after a while.

Anyway, VentilatorOfDoom here's the list of review scores for TW2 from numerous sites.

I challenge you to report on all of them - each in a separate newspost + thread.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Anyway, VentilatorOfDoom here's the list of review scores for TW2 from numerous sites.

I challenge you to report on all of them - each in a separate newspost + thread.

I've posted quite some reviews, most with excellent scores, so I think it's ok to post one with a mediocre score too. Direct your anger towards GameCritics.

 

[Mrowak]

Anyway, VentilatorOfDoom here's the list of review scores for TW2 from numerous sites.

I challenge you to report on all of them - each in a separate newspost + thread.

I've posted quite some reviews, most with excellent scores, so I think it's ok to post one with a mediocre score too. Direct your anger towards GameCritics.

I shall follow you advice and readily employ the ever noble Codexian practice of trolling their comments section, good sir.

Or not. I just can't muster enough enthusiasm to even reply to that senseless drivel called "review".

 

[Mastermind]

Butthurt detected.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

I am generally a fan of games that challenge me as opposed to holding my hand, but Witcher 2 was one of the few games where I simply got too aggravated to continue on the Normal setting.

Hahahaha.

 

[Multidirectional]

I am generally a fan of games that challenge me as opposed to holding my hand,<em> </em>but <em>Witcher 2 </em>was one of the few games where I simply got too aggravated to continue on the Normal setting.

I'm not saying Witcher 2 has very good combat, but what the fuck? How can it be too hard on Normal for anyone who has relatively moderate experience with games? Even on Hard difficulty it's only challenging until you learn to use all the tricks (not that you even need all of them), yet this dude is raging about Normal.

 

[Shannow]

Controls: When they are sluggish it makes me too. But "only" signs and bombs suffer from that. Everything else is pretty fluid.

Difficulty: Pretty badly balanced but once you get the hang of combat it's not that difficult. I'm perfectly fine on normal and I'm not a good twitch-gamer. Once high-level skills are unlocked it actually gets too easy.

Story: It's not great, but gets its job done. There's nothing Tolkienesque about it. I agree with far too much yapping about stuff I the player don't know or care about. Not as bad as TW1, but they simply shouldn't have gone with Geralt + "Amnesia". They didn't do a good job of it and it simply doesn't work.

Rating: 5,5/10 is pretty fair... on a scale from 0 to 10. On a "modern" scale that probably translates to 8/10 *shrug*

The reviewer's still a moron.

 

[commie]

(a practice commonly known as kiting)

WTF? Some kind of faggot speak?

Who wrote this shit?

Richard Naik

Ten All-Time Favorites Games
In no particular order: Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask(N64), Mega Man X(SNES), Team Fortress 2(PC), Dragon Age: Origins(PC), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic(PC), Metroid Prime(GameCube), Chrono Trigger(SNES), Starcraft(PC), Super Mario Galaxy(Wii), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time(PS2), The Longest Journey(PC) and many more

Five Current Favorites Games
Persona 3(PS2), Team Fortress 2(PC), Mega Man X(SNES), Demon's Souls(PS3), Fallout 3(PC)

Ahh it all makes sense now. Butthurt Bioware fanboy who likes FO3 as well is butthurt.

 

[Jools]

Butthurts gonna butthurt.

Also, "a sleepy, tired, Tolkien-esque fantasy slog with some softcore porn thrown in" fits Dragon Age 1/2 way more than TW2.

Another self-proclaimed game-journalist hack I guess.

 

[Marobug]

I think 5.5 is actually pretty generous.

 

[Needles]

My concise review of Witcher (1, haven't played 2)

 

[aries202]

I never got the whole idea or concept behind the tolken-esque fantasy either; to me Witcher games are not tolken-esque at all. Maybe he thinks the tolkien-esque comes from the fact that there are dwarves and elves in it? If so, he probably did not pay much attention....at all... (sorry, to be so harsh...)

However, I can certainly see the drawback from not playing the first game as it seems required to do so to understand what is going in Witcher 2.

 

[Morkar Left]

GameCritics critically critisize The Witcher 2, rating it 5.5/10.

After reading this line I already knew that the game was just too difficult for the reviewer

I never got the whole idea or concept behind the tolken-esque fantasy either; to me Witcher games are not tolken-esque at all. Maybe he thinks the tolkien-esque comes from the fact that there are dwarves and elves in it? If so, he probably did not pay much attention....at all... (sorry, to be so harsh...)

If someone talks about Tolkien nowadays you can assume he only watched the movies and remembers only the excessive fightscenes and orc slaughtering. I haven't played the witcher 1 nor witcher 2 nor read anything of the books but even I get easily that the witcher has probably nothing in common with tolkienstyle fantasy...

 

[Jools]

I never got the whole idea or concept behind the tolken-esque fantasy either; to me Witcher games are not tolken-esque at all. Maybe he thinks the tolkien-esque comes from the fact that there are dwarves and elves in it? If so, he probably did not pay much attention....at all... (sorry, to be so harsh...)

Again, he is a retard. What The Witcher surely doesn't have is the whole "do great deed to save the world" thing right off the beginning, which instead is the Tolkien formula, used and abused by just so many videogames from all times, bioware ones in primis. But yeah, he probably confuses "high fantasy" with "Tolkien-esque". He probably only saw the movies, anyway.

However, I can certainly see the drawback from not playing the first game as it seems required to do so to understand what is going in Witcher 2.

You're right, BUT so should a REAL sequel be, as opposite to using the same game name and adding a "2" at the end for the mere sake of sales. You can't just pick The Two Towers and read it and expect to know what's going on... Hell, whereas DA2 actually lets you do that, even ME2 is worth shit if you haven't played ME1 (note: they're both worth shit anyway, it was just an example).

 

[commie]

The Witcher 2 has a boring Tolkienesque derivate plot yet somehow Dragon Age Origins which is one of his favorite games of all time doesn't?

Eh, just another internet turd trying to make a name for himself. Shame on VoD for bringing this entity recognition.

On the other hand, maybe I should get on Fecesbook and start tearing down Codexian sacred cows. I'm sure to be picked up by VoD's news services.

 

[Licaon_Kter]

their scoring system is messed up

like in TW1 review, the game is bad because:
*same NPC model
*PC can't jump fence
*NPC dialog ends sometimes even if i have more to ask
*voice tone of PC is indifferent
=final score 5/10

like WTF? it would have been 6 if the PC could jump fences or what?

it keeps a scale ( 0-10 ) yet the text does not convey that score
and the thing is their scale gets compared to those of others, which is really the problem actually

say CODBLOPS gets a 6/10
DA1 gets an 8/10
DA2 gets an 2.5/10
Amnesia gets an 10/10

oh, WAit...hey, on a second thought why aren't these reviewers praised on Codex ? :D

 

[ArcturusXIV]

Game reviewer lacks common sense. People that want to play this kind of game, want to play this kind of game. Obviously, he is not a classic RPG fan, or this would have made sense.

I understand annoyance at delay/dodging in combat. I also understand his comments of "cliche," as I'm sick of standard races such as dwarves, elves, et cetera anyway. Well-represented, they are fine, but EVERY BLOODY GAME has to have them in generic fantasy worlds, and even switching their roles, so that elves are underclass citizens does not change the fact that you've just reversed roles (linear logic) as opposed to creating something new (lateral logic). Developers need to start goldmining the tomes of history for different concepts, racially, different mythologies from European fare, even something Norse or Arabic would be more interesting than standard European "There be Dragons!" derp.

And just reversing elves role from upper-class to lower-class does not prove you're original, it is like a Christian becoming an atheist because HIS God is incorrect, instead of examining lateral philosophies like Zen Buddhism and Confucianism. Indian Mythology... So on.

There are plenty of possibilities to create "fantasy" that diverges from cardboard cliche...

But it is not done by warping a concept into something evolutionary, or reversing a role--it is done by creating something revolutionary--creating a new role, new mythology, new idea, and generally new concept, that doesn't fit into a common archetype or genre role.

 

[Metro]

Beyond the muddled, unclear opening, another major problem presents itself in the combat system. The complex system from the original Witcher...

lol what?

 

[Jools]

Game reviewer lacks common sense. People that want to play this kind of game, want to play this kind of game. Obviously, he is not a classic RPG fan, or this would have made sense.

I understand annoyance at delay/dodging in combat. I also understand his comments of "cliche," as I'm sick of standard races such as dwarves, elves, et cetera anyway. Well-represented, they are fine, but EVERY BLOODY GAME has to have them in generic fantasy worlds, and even switching their roles, so that elves are underclass citizens does not change the fact that you've just reversed roles (linear logic) as opposed to creating something new (lateral logic). Developers need to start goldmining the tomes of history for different concepts, racially, different mythologies from European fare, even something Norse or Arabic would be more interesting than standard European "There be Dragons!" derp.

And just reversing elves role from upper-class to lower-class does not prove you're original, it is like a Christian becoming an atheist because HIS God is incorrect, instead of examining lateral philosophies like Zen Buddhism and Confucianism. Indian Mythology... So on.

There are plenty of possibilities to create "fantasy" that diverges from cardboard cliche...

But it is not done by warping a concept into something evolutionary, or reversing a role--it is done by creating something revolutionary--creating a new role, new mythology, new idea, and generally new concept, that doesn't fit into a common archetype or genre role.

You would be right in the vast majority of cases: I for one would like someone come up with something kinda original, and a lame example are the Draenei from WoW (lore-fucking and far-fetched, but they make an nteresting concept for a race). Yet, it is not fair to criticize TW2 for not coming up with something original, as the game is based on pre-existing books, and the books, written ages ago, featured the "classic" fantasy races, althought slightly churned up in their roles. It'd be like criticizing a LOTR game for having banal, trite and stereotyped races...

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

shitty games get shitty reviews

 

[Drakron]

Richard Naik

Ten All-Time Favorites Games
In no particular order: Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask(N64), Mega Man X(SNES), Team Fortress 2(PC), Dragon Age: Origins(PC), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic(PC), Metroid Prime(GameCube), Chrono Trigger(SNES), Starcraft(PC), Super Mario Galaxy(Wii), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time(PS2), The Longest Journey(PC) and many more

>Missing what the word "ten" means by listing twelve titles and implying there are even more.

Critic or English Major Gaming "Journalist" ... we report, you decide.

 

[jiujitsu]

Well, TW2 is an action game. It looks great. I had fun with back to back playthroughs. It's NOT a classic RPG. It's an action RPG plain and simple.

The review, however, made it sound like the reviewer just sucks at playing action games. That or he needs to LEARN2PLAY. Fuckinewfag comes to mind. I beat it once on normal with sword tree and I barely ever needed potions. Then I beat it on hard mode with full alchemy tree and I frequently enjoyed the tremendous benefits of potions. Drinking potions is part of this game. Prep is part of this game. It's like complaining that you have to use the sprint feature in a Call of Duty game. "It's so stupid that I can't make the jump across this rooftop without using sprint! 1/10!" - A Faggot (nofensJaesun)

Most of the difficulty I experienced the first time I played on normal wasn't even an issue when I played through on hard mode. Reason being: I LEARND2PLAY. I made a ton of bombs the 2nd time and drank potions more often. I knew how to move around and not get hit whilst picking off guys one by one when fighting multiple enemies.

I suppose they have an Easy mode for people who suck at games and are unable to learn(retards). It's funny how most gamers refuse to try out a game on Easy mode because it hurts their pride, but then complain when normal is too difficult.