Review The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review

[Sander]

That big, eh?

Anyway, the binary choices aren't available to everyone and are filtered by your choices. That makes them good all of a sudden? BG2 had plenty of such choices, but I don't recall it being heralded as the next coming of Jesus.

Is anyone doing so? Fact is, this is one of the most choice-oriented games of the past years with significant consequences. TW2 does a whole lot better than the competition, and that's a good thing. It's more consistent about punishing/rewarding you for your choices. Yes, it could've been better in this regard, but let's not shit all over it for not being a hardcore RPG - something it never tries to be. It is clearly an action RPG with significant elements of choice and consequence. And I don't think BN ever treats it as anything different in his review.

No, it doesn't. It's linear as fuck, but it has a nice fork which, apparently, hypnotizes people.

It has two major forks, the second one very late in the game, and it has a number of minor choices with different consequences throughout the game.

But according to your definition that's all flavor, which is much too broad a definition of 'flavor' for my tastes. Whenever it doesn't affect the main quest line in a major, major way it's just flavor by your definition. So disregard sidequests, which are a major part of the gameplay, disregard anything that isn't big enough (like, I don't know, an entire subgroup being murdered), and disregard anything that doesn't change any gameplay. If you do that, then there's only one fork.

But if that's your definition of non-flavor choices and consequences, you're essentially saying that all you care about in your game is the one major questline, and even that only to the point where it affects actual gameplay instead of just cutscenes and dialogue. I play games like these fully, and I enjoy a good sidequest as much as a good main quest, and it is rewarding for me when a sidequest carries some consequences that you see at some point later in the game. And that can be through adding different gameplay or giving me another encounter with a character or a note on what happens with a country in the future. For me, that's all part of a game that has consistent choices and consequences, and it's not just flavor, it's important because it reinforces that what you do throughout the game including in minor encounters matters in some way, somewhere.

 

[KalosKagathos]

Those that you posted are not who you like better , but who you think is right , what is right to do.You never gain anything from any of these choices.It's not biowhore where you either side with bad guys and gain moneh or side with good guys and gain rep or some shit.

Choices without consequences: the great innovation of the Polish RPG industry.

 

[anus_pounder]

You can let Sile DIE ? Shit, bros. How do I do that? I let her blow up in BRO's path and the game gave me a gameover screen.

 

[Pablosdog]

Are you still admin of Nma Bn? I haven't been there in so long, last time I was there I didn't even recognize a single user.

 

[Mrowak]

Those that you posted are not who you like better , but who you think is right , what is right to do.You never gain anything from any of these choices.It's not biowhore where you either side with bad guys and gain moneh or side with good guys and gain rep or some shit.

Choices without consequences: the great innovation of the Polish RPG industry.

Why so much bitter angst, brother Kalos? Is it because, by general Kodex Kool Konsensus, we still treat jRPGs as inferior?

 

[Pablosdog]

Of course it is, those gods of RPG development Bethesda haven't given you their offering yet :roll

Brother None was the admin of NO MUTANTS ALLOWED you dumb fuck.

 

[KalosKagathos]

Why so much bitter angst, brother Kalos? Is it because, by general Kodex Kool Konsensus, we still treat jRPGs as inferior?

Nah, just making fun of a dumb post. I don't know what The Witcher 2 C&C are actually like; the terribad combat prevented me from playing past the prologue.

 

[FatCat]

Nah, just making fun of a dumb post. I don't know what The Witcher 2 C&C are actually like; the terribad combat prevented me from playing past the prologue.

That makes you even "dumber" than me , gratz

 

[Brother None]

You can let Sile DIE ? Shit, bros. How do I do that? I let her blow up in BRO's path and the game gave me a gameover screen.

Yup. Right near the end. Not sure what bit you're referring to.

Are you still admin of Nma Bn?

Yup.

 

[Excidium]

You can let Sile DIE ? Shit, bros. How do I do that? I let her blow up in BRO's path and the game gave me a gameover screen.

Yup. Right near the end. Not sure what bit you're referring to.

I think he's referring to that part where she tries to teleport using the machine that Letho sabotaged. I let her blow up and the game proceeded as normal...you even have some lines with Letho about it. Maybe he did something wrong.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

If it has a fork it's not linear by definition. It also has more than one fork, for instance in your choice in the castle in the prologue determining how you escape the dungeon. Act II isn't linear for most of it until you hit the ending "ghost battle/siege of Vergen" nodes, before that you can do various main quests running simultaneously in any order which isn't particularly freeform since you still have to do them all, but it's not exactly corridor style either. Then there's Act III, which either has three main quest paths for one choice or two main quest paths for another.

Pick a handful of sidequests in any order= non-linear design? I take it, NWN2 is a non-linear game then?

I probably would. I think I complimented Fallout 3 on using standard dialog, though I didn't review it. Any positive step is a positive step, and I have to note it exists if I'm reviewing because my readerbase cares about it.

Since Skyrim will be the next best thing here's hoping that afterwards dialogues in RPGs will return to their previous design. We can then congratulate the devs on this awesome innovation.

Hmmm? It's got plenty of comments, about half of this thread only all the posts there are about the review

Sorry, just noticed the 0 replies to the newspost.

Is that last bit a quote? I feel I've read it somewhere.

Very possible, it's obvious enough that someone else might have figured it out earlier.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Anyway, the binary choices aren't available to everyone and are filtered by your choices. That makes them good all of a sudden? BG2 had plenty of such choices, but I don't recall it being heralded as the next coming of Jesus.

I do. Is comparison to BG2 a bad thing now? I'm not a big BioWare fan but hey, you could do worse.

You definitely could. No arguing here.

If it has a fork it's not linear by definition.

Then 99% of games are non-linear. Including BG2.

It also has more than one fork, for instance in your choice in the castle in the prologue determining how you escape the dungeon.

Enlighten me. It's not the "don't kill the knight and he'll help you escape" vs "kill the knight and his mother will help you escape", aka green shirts vs red shirts, is it? Or was there some alternative route I didn't find?

Act II isn't linear for most of it until you hit the ending "ghost battle/siege of Vergen" nodes, before that you can do various main quests running simultaneously in any order which, last time I checked, was the antithesis of linear.

Oh please. Every Bio game has "do minor quests in any order". Doesn't make them non-linear, does it?

Does it really matter whether you do the coin quest first or the execution sight? No. Non-linearity has always referred to the freedom to decide what to do vs being forced to follow a strictly defined path. TW2 gives you very little of the former. The big choice is nothing but a choice of which strictly defined path you'd like to follow now. It's hardly different from, say, choosing a campaign in Warcraft 2, which certainly doesn't make WC2 non-linear.

Yup. Linear as fuck. Can I just ask, how often did you finish this game? Because I wasn't as impressed with it first time out as second time out, let me tell you.

Twice. I liked it more on my first playthrough.

Yet you asked, literally, "how does it affect gameplay". In one path, I can spend time saving a bunch of non-humans. In another path, I can check up on the madam. How exactly do you define that if not "gameplay"? Is there some other word for this activity?

Dragon Age 2 is loaded with such choices. Safe some mage or not. Help a templar or not. Take your sister with you or not. Etc. Doesn't make it a game worth playing, does it?

Same here. What's the difference between the pogrom and the celebration, other than some visual gratification? Well, I suppose that saving non-humans is vastly preferable to looking for the madam, on account of the latter being a very dull quest, but that's about it.

Out of curiosity, did you like the Megaton quest in Fallout 3?

In that paragraph he explains how the consequences of the choice have no further consequences. It's true, it doesn't matter if you save the non-humans or check on the madam. A clever step ahead, because we're not actually discussing whether that matters or not, we're discussing whether the quest unlocking it has enough consequences to not be flavor.

Hence the comparison with DA2. Early in the game you can choose the mercs or the smugglers. You get different quests (oh my) as a result of your choice, different armor, and more different quests down the road. Does your choice matter? Not. At. All. Why? Because it has no effect on gameplay even though you get different quests, greetings from NPCs, and armor.

Same here. If the result of your choice are two different outcomes that "don't matter", in your own words, then the choice is nothing but flavor.

And that's fine, as duly noted. Differing definitions, it is what it is.

We can certainly leave it at that.

 

[mikaelis]

I got a feeling that the second fork you are mentioning is saving Triss. What do you mean by that? In my first walkthrough (Iorveth's path) I saved here thus, having ambassador killed by his own people etc, etc.
On my second (though rushed) playthrough through Act 2 and 3 (Roche path) I decided to save the kids first, but she appeared at the end near Letho anyway.
I was also checking how at least some minor choices close to the end of the game changes the ending and never got to the situation that she actually dies.

So, can you tell me which pathway leads to that?

Also, to add a bit to the discussion: whole Operator sidequest can also be quite easily missed, like I obviously did it. So, all in all the game is not "linear as fuck". Surely, you end up in pretty much the same spot at the finale. But your way to it can be different even within two main plots of Act 2. Plus you can miss plenty of context on the way. Sure, some can say I was not vigilant enough, and rushed through the game. But still, it shows that all the content is not given "straight into your dumb face" (like pretty much most of the recent games).

 

[Brother None]

I feel more mouth-stuffing coming up, so I'd pre-emptively like to remind both of you that I a) praised the Witcher 2 for its main big choice and the scope of impact it had, not the C&C mechanics of smaller quests and b) never referred to this game as non-linear (except in that fork remark, but that's just me being smarmy, it isn't mentioned at all in the review except to make fun of the industry), only dismissing the "linear as fuck" label as needlessly derisive. Just keep that in mind before you type out your replies.

Pick a handful of sidequests in any order= non-linear design? I take it, NWN2 is a non-linear game then?

Main quests. And that is just for the first half of Act II. And I said specifically it's not non-linearity, but that it's "not corridor", which is an image conjured up by linearity.

I'm not saying this is the biggest C&C game ever, but look, here's a basic, main quest-only, off-the-top-of-my-head-and-prolly-missing-stuff C&C map:


This is a linear game, yes, an action RPG, but is that "linear as fuck"? We're not exactly taking all the plot nodes and just putting them in a row or parallel like most BioWare games. So what standards are we holding TW2 up to?
Take out the Triss-choices if you're annoyed by their limited consequences (I know I was, and made note of it in the review), and feel free to add in the various sidequests that span multiple acts. And I repeat for clarity for those who haven't replayed it multiple times, the two different paths share all of two main quests in Act II and the sidequests in Act III.

Since Skyrim will be the next best thing here's hoping that afterwards dialogues in RPGs will return to their previous design. We can then congratulate the devs on this awesome innovation.

It's not innovation. Is all this mouth-stuffing necessary? I'm getting a bit tired of correcting every post.

I will not chastise developers for making sound developing decisions just because those have been done before. That is a ridiculous attitude. When they do it, be it basic C&C or basic dialog trees, and they do it well, it's worth noting as positive because my readerbase will generally enjoy it. It's that simple.

Very possible, it's obvious enough that someone else might have figured it out earlier.

It's more that it sounds like a catch-all description for any RPG, especially action RPGs, that doesn't really address TW2's specific imbalances at all. Setting out to not spend skill points once you've mastered the system is just fault-seeking, but hey, if you've got something to prove, prove it, I say.

Enlighten me. It's not the "don't kill the knight and he'll help you escape" vs "kill the knight and his mother will help you escape", aka green shirts vs red shirts, is it? Or was there some alternative route I didn't find?

Heh. You're basically handwaving away every time the game offers you a different path and then shouting "see it's linear as fuck!" Pray tell, why is it irrelevant that the dungeon escape plays out differently? That's not saying the changes are significant, but you make it sound like a palette swap, which it's not.

Oh please. Every Bio game has "do minor quests in any order". Doesn't make them non-linear, does it?

I know, I edited it.

As for the WC2 comparison, I don't even know where to start on that one. Sure, let's the dismiss the fork and the fact that this game plays out completely differently based on your choice because strategy games have campaign select screens. Alright.

Doesn't make it a game worth playing, does it?

Man this is getting tiring. Again, the topic is not "worth playing" or "quality of play" or "good quest". I did not bring up this example, nor do I think it was a particularly admirable choice, but when it was brought up WOD dismissed it as a flavor choice, I had to interject. You yourself asked if there were gameplay changes. There are. Are they impressive? No. But what, you want to make arbitrary boundaries about how deep gameplay changes need to be to no longer be flavor? Where will that get us?

Out of curiosity, did you like the Megaton quest in Fallout 3?

Liked it? No. Are you going to claim this is a cosmetic choice too? It's a better candidate than hit/don't hit Iorveth, since you don't lose any quests in Megaton (funny that).

Why? Because it has no effect on gameplay even though you get different quests

I'm sorry, but unless both sets of quests are mirror images, I'm having a different gameplay experience based on my choice. Exactly what kind of definition of gameplay are you using where "different quest" isn't "different gameplay"? Unless every quest is just hack 'n slashing, but that's not the case in this example from TW2 (dunno about DA2).

 

[Black_Willow]

Shame that for VD picking different rewards for completing quests (weapons, skills etc) are the only gameplay affecting C&Cs.

 

[made]

Nice try, potatohead. No matter what you do, the game starts at the prologue and ends at the finale. Everything in-between is just fluff. R00fles!

 

[Mrowak]

All that discussion seems to be pointless until we find answers to qustions that were posed indirectly in this and previous TW2 thread.

1). Where exactly is the boundary between fluff C&C and meaningful C&C? Let us provide the examples of meaningful C&C from other C&C heavy Codex approved classics - MotB, Fallouts and Arcanum and... Sengoku Rance .

2). How much are C&C important in a good RPG? While certainly games sporting them are among the most liked here in these parts, there are classic titles which do away with C&C (Betrayal at Krondor, M&M series, Wizardries, Dark Sun, Realms of Arkania, Planescape: Torment etc). Can we have a genuine RPG experience without shocking profound C&C?

3). How to provide meaningful context for C&C in story-driven games? How much of the story being changed is enough for C&C to be valid? Is changing the story enough of a change to be regarded as meaningful?

4). While not exactly innovative TW2 at least recycles some of the means of implementing C&C we have seen before. What are they? How should they be improved in the sequel?

5). Bearing in mind that The Witcher series is always going to be story-driven games with gameplay options tailored towards Geralt's own personality (think: a lawful good paladin won't suddenly start slaughtering a village for no reason - so there's no option for that), how to introduce more meaningful C&C into the picture?

6). Connected with the previous question: How to reconcile C&C and story? While Fallouts and Arcanum are C&C classics, one can hardly commend them for good intrigue - that's partially because C&C were so numerous and lacked appropriate context in the larger scale of things. Debatably, MotB and TW2 did it much better, despite limited number of C&C.

I feel that without establishing clear answers to these we will never breach the stalemate and the whole discussion will again turn into inane hatespeak I am personally sick of.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Shame that for VD picking different rewards for completing quests (weapons, skills etc) are the only gameplay affecting C&Cs.

And where exactly did I say that?

You want an example of a gameplay affecting choice in the Witcher's context? How about:

If you trigger the pogrom, your dwarven buddy will die unless you manage to save him. There. Not some meaningless no-name non-human scum, but a key-fucking-character with whom you have a relationship and whose death will actually affect at least one quest.

 

[Havoc]

It's 0:00 here. My reading skills are 0. Couldn't read the whole thing, so I skipped to the tl;dr part.

You didn't suck enough CDPR-cock.
I give you:

: x : x : x / : x : x : x : x : x

Next time make me . Thank you.


Serious note: will read the whole thing when I get a chance.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I feel more mouth-stuffing coming up, so I'd pre-emptively like to remind both of you that I a) praised the Witcher 2 for its main big choice and the scope of impact it had, not the C&C mechanics of smaller quests and b) never referred to this game as non-linear (except in that fork remark, but that's just me being smarmy, it isn't mentioned at all in the review except to make fun of the industry), only dismissing the "linear as fuck" label as needlessly derisive. Just keep that in mind before you type out your replies.

Right. Sorry, you simply brought back a 60-page debate, which split the Codex into two camps.

I'm not saying this is the biggest C&C game ever, but look, here's a basic, main quest-only, off-the-top-of-my-head-and-prolly-missing-stuff C&C map:

Um, no. No, no, no.

Aryan vs Louise? An example of non-linearity? Surely, you jest. You HAVE to deal with Aryan (kill or tell him to surrender), after which everything plays the same and you end up in prison and HAVE to escape. The only difference is whom you run into and the number of guards you have to fight. The path is the same.

Butcher or Beer? I'd call it multiple quest solutions for the coin quest, not quests. You acquire the coin and the password either by killing some guy or by bringing a drunk to his 3 friends. Etc.

 

[RK47]

It's linear, yes. But I enjoyed it compared to other RPGs released so far this year. VD despise the 'non-linear' praise the game was given, when it clearly doesn't earn it. The more I play through it, the more I discovered that some paths are forced. Cedric's death is ALWAYS displayed, no matter which choice you picked. While some broke down into Geralt trusting the wrong person, or killing important individual or not, I like the consequence. But I can't imagine CDPR live up to its promise in the third game. Perhaps cameos and passing mention would suffice. Or as VD said 'if you kill Green King, Green soldiers will attack you. If you kill Red King, Red soldiers will attack you.' well. That's C&C isn't it? I mean, it doesn't have to be epic all the time.

What BN gave is an example of different outcomes to some quests..it isn't really an example of non-linearity. But I think the 'Meaningful C&C' tends to be overstated by some posters, there was plenty and sufficient impact in TW2, compared to ....what RPG exactly in the last 2 years had this? Dragon Age? Mass Effect 2? The Witcher 2 is better in this regards, let's give credit where it's due. Again, it's wrong to label TW2 is non-linear. It was very clear from arrival at Flotsam that you have to kill the Kayran, no matter what.

It wasn't perfect, but a definite improvement over the first game. I think if they add a lot of non-linearity, the game narrative is going to suffer at some point. And as someone mentioned, the difficulty curve that was very high at the start and took a nosedive by chapter 2 is completely true due to some bad skill balancing.

Still, great game, great developer. Will buy what they make again.

 

[RainSong]

You want an example of a gameplay affecting choice in the Witcher's context? How about:

If you trigger the pogrom, your dwarven buddy will die unless you manage to save him. There. Not some meaningless no-name non-human scum, but a key-fucking-character with whom you have a relationship and whose death will actually affect at least one quest.

dont worry BN, I got this...

I have explained how this one choice results in -> the town being in a different state -> Triss having different dialog and learning different things (different plot information) -> one side-quest being opened and one being closed, an optional extra path in the main quest and the best you can do is this less consequential example?

 

[Rivmusique]

Of course it is, those gods of RPG development Bethesda haven't given you their offering yet

Brother None was the admin of NO MUTANTS ALLOWED you dumb fuck.

I already addressed this:

So sorry, didn't realize you were internet famous

Also, it's great to see that the fangirls get butthurt by something their hero doesn't even care about

 

[KalosKagathos]

Nah, just making fun of a dumb post. I don't know what The Witcher 2 C&C are actually like; the terribad combat prevented me from playing past the prologue.

That makes you even "dumber" than me , gratz

To clarify: I didn't find it to be too difficult. I found it to be too shitty.

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

You know, "reviewers" really should start adding "in my personal, completely subjective opinion" at the start of each such statement. Otherwise Either way, it just makes for an awkward exchange of arguments over a matter with no clear lines of judgement. Like this:
* Binary "choose your own adventure" is now an RPG worthy of praise? What exactly is the player's function, besides flipping a coin once in a while and fighting from cutscene to cutscene?
* Repetitive, twitch-based, clunky and unbalanced combat is how "evolved" RPGs, like W2, should do it? Fuck yeah!
See? Awkward.

 

[Konjad]

Shame that for VD picking different rewards for completing quests (weapons, skills etc) are the only gameplay affecting C&Cs.

And where exactly did I say that?

You want an example of a gameplay affecting choice in the Witcher's context? How about:

If you trigger the pogrom, your dwarven buddy will die unless you manage to save him. There. Not some meaningless no-name non-human scum, but a key-fucking-character with whom you have a relationship and whose death will actually affect at least one quest.

No, VD! There's no consequences! The game's shite, because it's not my old arcanum or fallout! Remember how many quests had so many choices and consequences of them was in one of the codex's favourites - Baldur's Gate II? It was pinnacle of consequences! So don't say TW2 has any meaningful ones, compare it to the best.