inwoker said:
Was witcher main choises really hard for you? Did you struggle to help fanatic elves? Their leader clearly don't understand what life is. He also don't know how to remove hatred for nonhumans. Maybe by removing humans? He only creates bigger evil. Any day I would choose order.
You're getting it wrong. He's supposed to tick that way, because there's really no other believable way. Do you actually see Palestinians reacting peacefully to Israel's encroachment? This game isn't about black nor white, it's about the ever confusing grays our world is really about.
Also don't you find the Order suspicious? Hunting down monsters for free, yet packing heavy armor and fine steel? Who finances these guys, and more importantly,
with what gold? Even Geralt states this is odd when he first meets Siegfried in the sewers.
"Unfair competition" indeed.
inwoker said:
Later, right before Alvin dissapeareance, did you want to choose either elves or humans. They both were stupid idealists to me.
They're not stupid, and they're not idealists. Only the leader's minions believe their façade: there are, ultimately, greedier things at play.
inwoker said:
Next. Abigail and villagers. Fuck man. Why in sane mind I would choose to help 'burn witch' which did nothing bad and why she must care that villagers are stupid people.
The 'Abigail and villagers' situation is one of my favorite moments in the game. Both sides have strong arguments against their innocence. The humans have committed crimes, but then again some of them could have been mere coincidences: Odo murdered his brother, the Echinops in his garden are a dead give-away, and he even makes a confession out of it, but Abigail had a doll of his form and shape in her hut. Abigail claims she only sold him the poison, and there's nothing inherently evil in that, so why did the Beast haunt her?
Haren Brogg made deals with the Salamandra, but only because they threatened to kill him, or worse. But maybe he's lying as well, and thinks of nothing but the profit.
Mikul's a backstabbing bastard, but he does nothing unlawful. The whole deal with his girlfriend's death is used against him by the witch, but remember the your meeting at the tavern when you went for the key? There's a bunch of thugs threatening Shani there who say Mikul's girlfriend screamed a lot when they raped her. Maybe she killed herself because of that; Mikul actually cries when you inform him of her death. Abigail could just have lied to save her skin!
Then there's the Reverend, who ultimately sends Alvin to the Salamander hideout, perhaps unknowingly or under threat, and sent his daughter (Carmen) away when he found out she was pregnant. Were you a zealous priest, wouldn't you have done the same? He's a shady character indeed, but there's no strong proof he's the bastard Abigail says he is.
And doesn't Abigail give herself to you just before you're to pass judgement?
That's the beauty about this game, it makes you think, it makes you doubt. Like a good movie, or a good book, the second time you go through is even sweeter than the first. It's a believable world because everyone in it is in for him or herself, and they'll do anything to come out at the top, whether it is through mischievous deceit, unscrupulous politics, or plain violence.
inwoker said:
That situation with giving weapons to Scoiatel... I defend some weapons. Some guys came, we are freedom fighters, we are oppressed by humans, give us toys to fight for freedom, yes/no?
The bastards actually tell you there's food in those crates! Man I love this game. Then again, shouldn't you give the 'supplies' to them? I mean, they say they
paid this Haren guy. But they could also be lying, actually lying in waiting for someone to get rid of the Drowners.
inwoker said:
Some of the consequences were far-fetched. Like that first that depends on will you fight creature or go directly to professor. Like Berengar one. Like cockatrice and Sigfield. I had feeling they were thrown-in for game to have more c&c.
Those are thrown in merely for flavor, to keep you on your toes, to say the least. They're the less spectacular ones, when you unknowingly let fate (or consequence) weave its threads, still a reminder of what can happen when you get to call the shots. Call if butterfly effect, out of a more correct term, but it still applies to many worldly happenstances. Things seemingly out of our control may actually be in it.
inwoker said:
And yet I consider Witcher good game. Nothing spectacular, but sum of it's parts is good.
There's another moment in this game that really made me tick: it's when Thaler sends you to fetch a letter inside the Princess's quarters at the Narakort Inn. Thaler is the head of Temerian intelligence, and he may very well have known the exact location and existence of said letter.
Or he could have planted it. Why did he send a Witcher to fetch the item? He was the only neutral choice. But he also was an excellent tool at hand: getting a famed monster hunter on your side by forging a forgery and making Geralt believe the royal edicts were false would mean weakening the Princess and Count's power, knowing Geralt's past relationship with the King. As coincidence would have it, he later uses this as an excuse outside the inn to pledge for innocence and accuse de Wett of forgery, when
he could have perfectly been the forger. He does in fact have vast amounts of knowledge on the subject, being the head of Temerian intelligence as he is. You see? There's that shady gray showing up again.
My only complaint about The Witcher is that Geralt does most of the thinking for you. He is the one making deductions, finding out why the murder suspects are innocent, while you merely collect the data for him. I would have loved to have had the possibility of drawing my own false conclusions, even with "irrefutable evidence" at hand.