Review Of Monsters, Men and BROche

[GarfunkeL]

Good one, would read again.

 

[Reptilian Shapeshifter]

No matter what the tone, everything they described about TW2's gameplay was true. I played it, and those were my impressions as well.

VD and VoD should team up more often. This is indeed far superior to anything Yahtzee has ever done.

 

[Tycn]

Would be better without the fucking krautspeak subtitles.

 

[Sceptic]

If there's one thing that never ceases to amaze me around here, it's how easily the "you're just butthurt" card gets played.

(in before "butthurt detected")

Anyway great work, this fulfilled admirably its job of being an entertaining and very well written piece. I'd still like someone to write a review of the game please.

 

[felipepepe]

I'd still like someone to write a review of the game please.

Why? All the info is there, good points explained, bad points made fun of, can't think of any aspect of the game left out.

 

[Jaesun]

I'd still like someone to write a review of the game please.

Why? All the info is there, good points explained, bad points made fun of, can't think of any aspect of the game left out.

Exactly. I don't get why people think this is not a review. It goes over every aspect of the game quite specifically.

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

I'd still like someone to write a review of the game please.

Why? All the info is there, good points explained, bad points made fun of, can't think of any aspect of the game left out.

Exactly. I don't get why people think this is not a review. It goes over every aspect of the game quite specifically.

Could be that "reviews" usually try to be more direct in their statements than the subtlety sarcasm provides. Leaves a reader with an uncertainty about whether this was serious/true.
Even though I very much liked it the way it is, I'm thinking the sarcasm overload and the resulting butthurt will prevent it from sinking in for those who actually need to take a more critical look at the game and where CDPR is taking what they claim to be their target genre.

 

[torpid]

Great review -- as others have said, it's funny while still being extensive and detailed. The Codex needs more of this kind of good stuff.

While the extent of Dragon Age 2's influence on Sapkowski’s work isn’t clear,

: x

 

[made]

that wasn't even subtle irony - the best kind you have. That was rather ham-fisted - any idiot could see through.

You see, subtle irony is much harder to pull off and rarely worth the extra effort for something only a couple self-proclaimed elite individuals would appreciate. You don't want to confuse your audience, leaving them bewildered and wondering what your intentions were. The two VDs have masterfully recognized the level of irony the Codex can take, and scaled their review accordingly. It even got the skyway seal of approval - and what higher praise could there be? We all know how demanding and hard to please he is.

 

[commie]

Can't wait to post a Codexian review of AoD full of hearty lols about the shitty Mortal Combat finishing moves(something suitably snarky about being able to lift a guy over your head on a spear etc.). I'll have to make sure to also direct VoD to all the 'this game sucks' reviews from internet non-entities so he posts them as news.

 

[bhlaab]

Wait you spend the entire review being cunty about everything in the game and then at the end you say "But seriously folks it's not that bad" Is this some kind of sick double-troll?

I'm less sure about the game's quality after reading the review than I was before

 

[Forest Dweller]

Was expecting to read a decent review, and instead got two guys trying too hard. Maybe we should get Brother None to start writing our reviews.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

VentilatorOfDoom, are you really this cynical in real life? I mean, goddamit, here I was hoping for a quality, unbiased review, like we got on numerous occassions. Man, I am disappoint.

I'm a totally nice bro irl.

Was it necessary to have so much snark in it? I find it really infuriating that you perpetuate the image of us, Codexers as spoiled malcontant grandpas with onsets of Alzheimer. For example: a sizeable part of your review concerns things that aren't in the game but could have been. Man, with this approach I could have reviewed every classic as shit. "Wouldn't be cool if" rarely works for game designers, and works even less often for game reviewers.

ORLY? Maybe you want to point out this sizeable part in more detail, the part where the review concerns itself with things that are not in the game?

Also the part with monstrous damage in boss fights as advertised by this video is most likely a hoax. I finished the game three times with various builds. I DID come close to dealing this much damage in a single strike, but only after I edited the dragon to have like 500 hp (instead of the default 2000) with no armour reduction. You could also edit weapons, talent tree to do the same damage. It's trivial, really, more than in any other game I know.

It doesn't matter. 2-3 hits might be an exaggeration but the point has been made. In my last game I had the dragon at 0 HP within seconds, which was a problem because she was at 0 HP before the fight on the rooftop even started which meant the cutscene didn't trigger. How many hits? 5-6? 7-8? It's hard to tell because you just mash your button for a while. It's also irrelevant.

I once commented on your cynical know-it-all tone in your interview with Gop. Goddamit, man you really wasn't trying to be professional now, right? Yeah, sorry, I forgot I was being trolled.

And now you feel that once again the respect is lacking?

One more thing - your conclusion. This was actually the most well-written part of the whole review. But, why on earth was it so inconsistent with the rest of the content? If all the threads you pulled simply led to the conclusion that, as you written, TW 2 is a good game, but not an RPG you would have saved the validity of your article. Hell, if you said that TW 2 was shit that would have been more honest. As it is you spent something like 70% of review sniding at some features (which I recognise as quite legitimate) and 30% on praising some aspects. The hell a reader can infer that TW 2 is any good, I have no clue.

You did realize that irony or not, snarkiness or not, points have been made? Do you want to dispute any of those or do you prefer to whine about the tone again? Because if the latter I'm not interested.

VentilatorOfDoom. Till now I really could not fathom how anyone in the right mind could invest so much effort on a trolling attempt. Yet I see it with my own eyes here. I refuse to believe that it is anything other than the equivalent of kiting the general Codexian populace. Because if it is not trolling than we have fallen farther than I ever imagined. Anyhow, congrats Ventilator - you really got me raging for a moment.

You know what I consider "having fallen farther" than imagined? A Codex where mentioning a flaw in TW2 equals "bashing the game for no reason".

Why did we decide to do the review in this very specific style? Very few Dh'oine know the entire truth behind all of this.

It was a rainy tuesday. I and my faithful dog Dackel, who is actually a Weimaraner but I call him Dackel because he was sooo cute and dackelig when he was a whelp, were browsing the internets searching for a newsitem to post. This happened not long after Vault Dweller released his Dragon Age II review on the Codex, which was a well received piece because it didn't bash a potato game and merely denied the due respect to RPG design god Mike Laidlaw. But I digress... Dackel and I were browsing the webs when I stumbled upon a comment on RPGWatch made by Brian "Dhruin" Turner, who implied - referring to VD's DA II review - that the Codex doesn't do "real" reviews. See?

And rage I did.


How would The Codex finally gain the mainstream gaming journalist recognition that was our due? Some steps had to be taken. The right opportunity presented itself when in a surprising turn of events Vault Dweller offered to review TW2 together with me. It's a well known fact that I possess an uncanny mastery of the german language - not unlike Goethe - but I'm lacking the same mastery when it comes to english. So I just utilized Vault Dweller. We would just do what everyone else was doing! Praise all the dumb shit!

As for the conclusion, I blame VD. I sent him no less than 23 emails begging him to keep the consistency BUT HE WOULDN'T LISTEN.

Does this explanation work for you?
I can give you more to choose from:
- We did it for teh lulz
- We just wanted to do something fresh, instead of dryly analyze the game

Pick whatever suits you best.

 

[MetalCraze]

Actually I was the one who disagreed because I really don't like combos.

I know

I like less variety with more depth, than a lot of variety with less depth. I do agree in adding challenge, but in other ways like smarter AI, manual control over blocking/attacking direction a la M&B, timed parrying windows, enemies with weird patterns that you have to learn, etc.

Well it isn't like in my example you needed to randomly mash buttons to win as fast as you can. Which is exactly what you do in TW2.

And yeah TW2 needed a smarter AI that could've at least chase you, not forget you the moment you are out of its script sphere. Another retarded thing is that all challenge in TW2 is that enemies have more HP than you which makes no sense. I mean you are a bad enough dude to dispatch a dragon with a single hit in the very beginning of the game but not a mere human?

CDP was doing a console slasher and failed. The combat in M&B is meh for this. Slashers are about 100 of enemies attacking you while you genocide the shit out of them in spectacular and EXTREME!! ways.

 

[latexmonkeys]

Can't wait to post a Codexian review of AoD full of hearty lols about the shitty Mortal Combat finishing moves(something suitably snarky about being able to lift a guy over your head on a spear etc.). I'll have to make sure to also direct VoD to all the 'this game sucks' reviews from internet non-entities so he posts them as news.

Really now? Why are you taking this review so personally?

 

[RK47]

LOL @ Butthurt.

Why, really? Does it matter if they're trolling the game past 2 months its release date? Is the dovetail sales chart going to count a lot once the price has dropped by half over Steam or Gog?

It's the Codex, nothing is sacred.

 

[Radisshu]

HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE WITCHER THE BEST ZELDA CLONE OF ALL TIME!??

 

[Quilty]

The sad fact is, the review is more interesting than the game.

Sure, you could have written a serious, straight-faced review that listed all the pros and cons. But when you get retarded, chewed up, filthy-ass lemons, with shit and hair all over them, you don't make a lemonade so your children can drink that foul shit. No, you fucking laugh at those lemons.

 

[latexmonkeys]

How would The Codex finally gain the mainstream gaming journalist recognition that was our due? We would just do what everyone else was doing! Praise all the dumb shit!

The review was spot on and hit the nail precisely on the head! Irony aside, it was eerily similar to game reviews and promotional material from more mainstream venues where the worst examples of devolved mechanics are lauded as innovation. As for the criticisms of a somewhat hamfisted delivery, well, sometimes there just isn't any other way. Excellent review!

 

[treave]

Had VD & VoD done this with, say, Oblivion, the butthurt wouldn't have been anywhere near as strong and the same people claming that this wasn't a 'review' would be lauding their literary skills to the heavens.

 

[Tormented Seph]

There are several NEGATIVE aspects that were not mentioned in the review:

- the delay in the response of the game controls (especially for the parry, dodge and the use of Signs)

- the targeting system malfunctions in the combat system (very bad)

- some plot-holes and the partially failure of the imported savegames:

1 --- Who fuck is the murder of Foltest in the final cutscene of the first The Witcher? Nobody talks about him....fuck!

2 --- Why is Shani gone, WHY? .............FUCK!!! I loved her!!!

3 --- Why do we start the game in the bed with Triss? (I have imported a savegame about a romance with Shani, not with Triss!)

4 --- Who fuck is the fourth character seen in a flashback? (We see Geralt, Letho, Auckes, Serrit, and.....who fuck is him??? King Foltest's first assassin? .....fuck!)

5 --- What is the final Geralt's Idea about "The Wild Hunt"? (in the final dialogue with Letho he says "I have an idea about it, but it's not your concern....".....WTF!!!! I want to know if is lore-approved or not!!!)

6 --- Why did the ending isn't like in the first? Where are the explanation of all the events and C&C???

7 --- Why the Iorveth Path is more coherent (with the "Witcher's Code") than the Roche Path?



So, you two guys (VD & VoD) were too generous with the "Untouchable Polish God"!!! : x

 

[Shannow]

While the extent of Dragon Age 2's influence on Sapkowski’s work isn’t clear, most players will find the gameworld eerily familiar: non-human races like elves and dwarves being treated poorly for no good reason, scheming sorcerers being met with distrust, and religious zealots attempting to widen their influence and maybe even start a little inquisition here and there. Throw in genetically enhanced monster slayers right in middle of it and you’ll get the full picture.

Only that the gameworlds don't feel similar at all, despite some shared features. Not to mention that Sapkowski's setting is decades older than DA's and you suggest that CDP are the ones copying getting inspiration from Bio.

The whole Geralt + amnesia angle while still shit is handled far better than in TW1.

You also fail to mention that it is now a real action RPG/adventure and that the direct controls are far better suited to the genre than TW1's.
(And 6 skill lines for swords in TW1 especially the differences between silver and steel were quite stupid, IMO. A single line makes far more sense. But that's my personal opinion.)
You also make it sound as if the game were mostly made up of QTEs like agains the crayon. As bad as they are (especially the unavoidable ones) there aren't many and most are optional. No mention of other mini-bosses like the endregena queens, trolls, elementals, arachni, etc that require you to play the game well (at least without broken builds).

Overall you give the impression that TW2 is just a dumbed down version of TW1 + EPIC story + awesome button = in codex words: banal, shit, boring. But there are also improvements and some of the "dumbing down" is also actually an improvement (IMO eg: swordskills, controls, lack of "stances"). For the far superior gameplay alone I like TW2 far better than TW1. (Still not even close to even Gothic 3...)

Adrenalin sword skills don't always kill the whole group of attacking enemies (don't know if bug) and usually you've killed them anyway before you're charged.

And yes, despite the game's numerous flaws (some of which you failed to mention) and bad design decisions the game feels like a work of love. Don't see any reason to be ironic here. And in my opinion it was (is, in my case) an enjoyable experience. Best action-adventure/RPG since Risen.

 

[Regdar]

What this review lacks is a comparative analysis of Gothic III's and TWitcher 2's combat. Other than that, great review.

 

[felipepepe]

CDP was doing a console slasher and failed. The combat in M&B is meh for this. Slashers are about 100 of enemies attacking you while you genocide the shit out of them in spectacular and EXTREME!! ways.

The Dynasty Warriors series has better story & controls and allows you to trully genocide the whole China while feeling AWESHUM². Dynasty 6 even has bigger skill trees than Wicther 2, just saying...

 

[Crooked Bee]

Funny review. Witcher 2 is a nice enough game, but definitely overrated.

Also, I've never played any of the Dynasty Warriors games. I guess I should give one of them a try.