Definitely the first Witcher. It was so goddamn amazing - blew me away so much that I forked out $3000 for a brand new PC just so I could play Witcher 2 in Ultra Super Sampling mode. The story was that I went to Hong Kong to work for a year in 2008, had an accident during the weekend where I broke my leg in a casual basketball game, so had to take a long break from work. I'm not a huge gamer, but since I was living at a friend's place during my stay, and he had a spare decent PC which he lent me, I decided to find some computer games to download to pass time. I'm from Australia, before arriving in HK, having walked through Harvey Norman, EB games and other retail stores I have seen Witcher Enhanced Edition, but never once did it ever interest me since I have never heard of the series. But I was so damn bored sitting in an apartment doing nothing all day, I decided to download whatever game I could find using Megaupload and that's when I came across Witcher. Immediately, I got hooked... I was so blown away in fact, a quarter way through the game (i think it was when I first just entered Vizima after finishing the swamp area) I decided to delete it, ask my mate to take me to the Golden Computer Centre to buy the real thing, reinstall it and replay it again right from the start.
The atmosphere, character development and story telling of the game was simply next level stuff. Everything in the game just came together so well, the story was deep and brilliantly told in an immersive world that had a perfect blend of open and linear filled with unique characters. Every single quest, and seriously I mean every single one of them got me intrigued, as I was always desperate to find out what happens next thanks to the excellent (and ridiculous) dialogues and twists. Despite the deep story line, what I loved also was that the game never treated itself too seriously as well, because I don't remember playing a video game where I laughed as much as Witcher 1. The random silly hook ups and some of the dialogues were just pure comedy gold - I especially loved the quest where you had to recite a poem with Dandelion. And how about the ending? Rounds up perfectly while leaving you wondering whether Jacques was Alvin. Quite an emotional roller coaster too, because I ended up with Shani rather than Triss, so was suppose to father Alvin. Then just when you thought everything has ended... boom! Comes one of the most epic cinematic scene of all time to provide a perfect introduction to what's to come in the sequel - The Assassins of Kings.
Witcher 2 and 3 are both exceptional, from a technical perspective it is definitely a better game than Witcher 1. But Witcher 1 easily tops it for me, and will always have a special place in my heart. I rate it as one of the best games I have ever played alongside Final Fantasy 7, Crash Bandicoot, Warcraft 3, Dragon Age Origins and Monster Hunter.