The Witcher The Witcher The Witcher The Witcher. Play it. I just finished it only a few moments ago. Leaving behind that amazing universe and saying goodbye to Geralt, Dandelion and the other characters left me with a lump in my throat.
It's basically an actionRPG set in a dark universe where, to quote the developers, "no good or evil exists, only choices and their consequences". It has considerably less moral choices than most other roleplaying games, meaning that you wont encounter a subquest around every corner that offers you multiple solutions (ala most Bioware games where you can't take three steps without running into another good/evil/indifferent dilemma). To compensate (and this is a great compensation), the choices you do get to make have far-reaching consequences that sometimes come back to haunt you several chapters after you make them. And as mentioned, none of the choices are clearly good or evil. It's all murky gray. It's a very mature game, and even if it occasionally ventures into the realm of romantic adventure, it rarely stays there for long.
The protagonist is also great character. He's the kind of anti-hero you can't help but love. Yes, this is one of the rare RPGs that wont allow you to choose a race and make a character from scratch, since you'll be playing as Geralt, the witcher . Many of Geralts personality traits are set in stone, and some people would probably tell you that Witcher isn't a proper RPG because of this, but you get to make choices regarding Geralts core beliefs at many points during the game, so despite the fact that you can't alter his hair color you still get to have a say when it truly matters. I personally think the game has a struck a perfect balance with this, since you get to roleplay and at the same time get a protagonist full of personality and a world that responds to him accordingly. In some ways comparable to Planescape where you had The Nameless One.
The Witcher also has some fun combat. The combat system in itself is very simple and actionrpg-ish, but what makes the whole combat aspect stand out is that you need to prepare for battles. This is done by studying the monsters you're going up against to find their weaknesses (ie. which combat style are they susceptible to and which blade coatings can you use to weaken them), and preparing various potions that increase your stats and gives you a variety of advantages. For instance, I once prepared a potion called Black Blood that would insta-kill any vampire trying to drink my blood, thus allowing me to eradicate a whole lair of vampires simply by letting them attack me. Another time, I used something called Necrophage Oil (a blade coating that doubles your damage against undead) to eradicate a bunch of troublesome ghouls that I couldn't have brought down otherwise, and so on and so forth. On the hardest difficulty, utilising potions, blade coating and bombs is a necessity and add immensily to the strategic aspect of the game, making you consider which remedies to use for which task. It must be said, though, that this is only on the hardest difficulty level, so if you get the game, play on hard. It's a much more fun experience.
Anyway, there's a lot more to the game that I don't feel like describing right now because it's eight in the morning and I'm tired like a motherfucker. The Witcher is just a great game that has an engaging story, characters you'll come to like and some good RPG aspects that makes you feel in charge of how the story develops. It's in my top three, easily.
