While I had a hunch my post would bring out some *RAGE*, I never thought it would be 5 pages worth. Not that it was my intention, I actually wanted to give you all my impressions on the game as I kept playing. But at least I know now why trolling is such a coveted art to master.
I've played through Chapter I now (autosaves held) and will be giving my impressions of the game up to that point, but first I'll answer some questions.
Q: Why all the hate on the graffix, mang?
A: Because I've been out of the loop in video games for several years now, and as far as I can tell, the only real developments in video gaming since 2004 have been in the graphics department. I wanted to know where games stood today in terms of graphics. I'll admit I made an error by thnking that The Witcher was an example of 2010 graphical capabilities, being a 3-year old game using a 4+-year old engine and such. Risen will propably give a clearer answer to this. (Thanks to those that replied to that question, BTW.)
But from a quick glance, while some things look better than ever, some things actually look worse than they've done in older titles that had to settle for 2D-graphics, sans acceleration doohickeys and all that stuff. I'm looking forward to the game that actually gets shadows
right, for example.
Q: Why are you playing on Easy, you wuss?
A: Because I had
no idea how the combat system worked in the game. Seeing as the game is made by people living right next door (so to say) to the people that made the Gothic games, I feared I'd be getting Gothic-wise combat, or worse. Also, I had no idea whether the game was combat-centric or not. (But all things considered, I should have guessed the answer to that one.)
Almost right from the start I knew that I'd be restarting the game, and after playing through Chapter 1 I will be doing just that. Maybe. But at least then I'll play on Medium.
It's also the reason why I'm not commenting on the combat system at all.
Q: So what game(s) did Iceland produce? (ha!)
A: The first Icelandic game was an educational title from 1997 called The Time Traveller. It's in Icelandic, so nobody really cares.
The second Icelandic game is called EVE Online. Chances are good you've heard of it.
There have also been a handful of iPhone/Flash-based games released by Icelandic companies, the only one I can recall at the moment is
Peter Und Vlad.
Moving along now...
# The game does pick up considerably once you start playing in Chapter 1. My fears of the game being confined to tiny playable areas due to engine limitations were fortunately quashed. Unfortunately the game only achieves 2.5 dimensions. That technological obstacle was overcome before some forumites here were born, why the regression? Does the Aurora engine really suck that badly?
# As far as game starts are concerned, The Witcher has one of the worst. It starts out by demonstrating almost every aspect of the game in the worst conceivable manner, with the emphasis on the most uninteresting parts. I understand perfectly that many people tried out the game and dropped it shortly afterwards. It's easily on par with Fallout 2 and the Temple of Trials.
# Like so many posters have pointed out, TW has both C&C and a morally ambigious protagonist, instead of the "You must be either a saint or a sinner! Choose NOW!"-school of gameplay design. Well, that's great. Seriously. Shame the English localization mars the experience.
# Even with one update to the English translation of the game, I can clearly see the "cuts" that were made. I'm not just talking about "Lost in translation"-cuts, but bits of (spoken) text important enough to make the story flow at a normal pace. Instead it sputters and jumps like a warped record. A good example is Abigail's sudden appearance in the cave towards the end of Chapter 1. Only the bare-bones version of an explanation is given. The Witcher is the most poorly translated game I've played in many MANY years.
# But unexpectedly, a good point comes out of this: The game forces you to *think* a bit harder about things. In a good way. Remember the group of kids in Chapter 1 who kept talking about playing these violent kiddie games? Because of them, I knew exactly where to go to find the secret bandit hideout when that quest came up. For where else would kids learn such language? (No, I haven't used the "Quest GPS"-thingie that seems to be included with the game.)
# The alchemy system looks promising, and I like how the game handles readables and the journal. But the inventory system and the character advancement? Crap. Total and utter crap. You've all harped about how unimportant the character advancement system is, so I'll focus on the inventory system instead.
Like to be expected, the game offers limited inventory space. Fair enough, been done before. There are also specialized inventory slots, and at least 1 quickslot for potions and/or bombs. It even allows duplicate items to be stacked in a slot, up to 10 at a time. But here's where it fails: When it comes to weapons and armour, you only ever have 1 inventory slot. Sure, you have 3 kinds of weapons, but you can only ever carry 1 of each. Want to carry a torch? Can't carry a dagger while doing that. You can't even carry a dagger in any of the other designated weapon slots should they be free. Nevermind that you have enough room in your satchels to carry 300 canine skulls, you can't ever fit a dagger in there. Strangely enough, the alchemy bag has a much higher stack allowance than the regular inventory, why can't it be equal?
To make things even worse, there are very few places where you can store your stuff. In the first chapter I could only find Olaf's storage "service", so I used that extensively. Until the game decided that Olaf must die. And with his passing, all my stuff unexplicably disappears forever. His inn is still there, it looks perfectly fine, it isn't on fire...and yet not a single atom of my stored stuff can be found.
This isn't bad design, this is stupid design. Retarded, even. It's so stupid that it's the biggest reason against me wanting to carry on playing the game. Knowing that I'll be struggling and juggling with the inventory for the rest of the game isn't exactly motivating me to play on.
# Which leaves the story as the only real reason for me to keep playing. And with the translation job so botched up, that's not exactly a shout of encouragement.
# So where does the game stand, after playing this far into it? Right in the middle of mediocrity. Everything The Witcher does, has been done better before. It has no redeeming qualities to make it stand out, no real reason for anyone to play it. It isn't a bad game...it just isn't a good one either.
