Review Zero Punctuation: The Escapist still hates The Witcher

[Crolug]

I am guessing the whiners here did not play the game on Hard. If you ever decide to, we will see if you still regard the monster contracts as easy. Many times it became a fully planned affair where you would have to think about what potions to use, when to use them and how you could go about fighting different beasts, not for the hell of it; because you wouldn't win without this kind of preparation.

In any case, I have found this game to be the best RPG since Arcanum. And Geralt has been an excellent character. If only it had more nuanced combat, along with a more open map, it would totally thrash Gothic 2, though I would probably put it on par at the moment, with each having different strengths.

You've said it. Hard is the only way this game should ever be considered to play. And still, imo, it's way too easy from about half-game. Last boss is a walking in the park, maybe some mods should balance hard level more...

 

[Fyz]

I am guessing the whiners here did not play the game on Hard. If you ever decide to, we will see if you still regard the monster contracts as easy. Many times it became a fully planned affair where you would have to think about what potions to use, when to use them and how you could go about fighting different beasts, not for the hell of it; because you wouldn't win without this kind of preparation.

I suppose meaningful arguments on the game's flaws does equal whining.

Anyway, following the advice "combat is piss easy on medium" i chose hard. Te be honest i don't find it hard at all, i can use the same tactics till mid chapter 4. Potions could have added an interesting aspect to it, but actualy most of the time, i never had to mix anything else than the healing and the nightvision one.
I found myself 'seriously planning' what potions i had to use only twice. The first i mixed an potion against poisoning, when fighting a mob, that did some serious poison damage, the other time i used an energy regen potion against the golem, so i could burn him faster. Nothing really worth calling planning.

If combat would actualy require more thought on what potions you need to use it still wouldn't make the grindquests good, but at least there would be some challenge in them. So far it's only "hm a quest, well i suppose i'll bring some healingpots just in case".

Then again, maybe the combat difficulty gets harder after mid ch4, but from what i've heard, it only gets easier.

@Zetor
Did you play the localized or the english version?

 

[Gnidrologist]

I am guessing the whiners here did not play the game on Hard. If you ever decide to, we will see if you still regard the monster contracts as easy. Many times it became a fully planned affair where you would have to think about what potions to use, when to use them and how you could go about fighting different beasts, not for the hell of it; because you wouldn't win without this kind of preparation.

I think no one said monster contracts are easy and it's irrelevant in any case. The point at question is them being tedious fetch quests without a sparckle of creativeness. And all that does setting the game on hard, is boosting monster hp and damage variables. That does not make combat less reppetitive. Guzzling potions before a fight does not make it strategic or what not.

I like Witcher myself fairly well. It's a nice beautifully crafted, ritch game with distinctive atmosphere, some interesting characters and occasional c&c goodies. Definitely one of the highlights of the past few years, but come on guys. Seriously. Combat good in TW? And this comes from people, who trashed Bioware's/Obsidian's rtwp systems. Whicher's fighting is really like playing a whac-a-mole. Just click...click...click and whatch Geralt play the game. Learn the right timing and you have mastered it. The fact, that you have to basicly play a jack of all trades doesn't help either. There are no way and no need to specialize, just pupm all the point in strong/group/mainly silver styles (cause there aren't many people to fight and they are pussies anyway) + add some igni and inteligence (for alchemy) to have that extra edge. It gets old really fast.

If only it had more nuanced combat, along with a more open map, it would totally thrash Gothic 2, though I would probably put it on par at the moment, with each having different strengths.

Naah. G2 beats TW in every aspect except for c&c part.

 

[Zetor]

I am guessing the whiners here did not play the game on Hard. If you ever decide to, we will see if you still regard the monster contracts as easy. Many times it became a fully planned affair where you would have to think about what potions to use, when to use them and how you could go about fighting different beasts, not for the hell of it; because you wouldn't win without this kind of preparation.

Rose-colored glasses much?

Igni kiting kills everything in this game [the hardest fight, for me, was the beast in ch1 -- and only because I didn't have my 'toolbox' at that point]. You can use a near-infinite amount of buffs by meditating for 1h to clear the toxicity, and if you get in trouble, shieldsign + white raffard's + white honey + reapply swallow, repeat as needed. Sometimes one of those bombs that stun/fear everyone around you when it gets bad. KD resistance potion against a certain boss, that's about it. Heck, the koschey [sp?], the "really really badass boss" was a straightforward a hack-n-slash fight with no thought involved.

Also, the difficulty of the action sequence [which, as it has been stated by others, is nothing special if you have a rudimentary sense of rhythm] has nothing to do with this being a 'great' RPG or not. And a tedious inventory management 'minigame' doesn't make a game challenging, it makes it annoying.

Just because you think TW is the best thing to happen to the CRPG scene in the last 10 years or something doesn't mean you can just ignore its flaws; I personally enjoyed the game [most of it] and am going to replay it as a completionist taking the squirrels' side, once I get one more gig of ram and my computer doesn't keel over from loading the merchant quarter [thank you, level designers].


Fyz: I played the UK version... I don't do localized versions. Actually I bought the hungarian version of Hellgate out of curiosity... and it sucked. Then again HGL sucks by itself, so that's no big surprise.


-- Z.

 

[MasPingon]

Naah. G2 beats TW in every aspect except for c&c part

I would say the story, dialogs and a feeling of a living world are much better in TW. Gothic 2 gives you more possibilities and an open world to explore. Matter of taste, I like them both

 

[Fyz]

Fyz: I played the UK version... I don't do localized versions. Actually I bought the hungarian version of Hellgate out of curiosity... and it sucked. Then again HGL sucks by itself, so that's no big surprise.
-- Z.

Some years ago I decided I would never play localized games. Games were bad enough already, to make them even worse with poor translations.
I think it's time to get back to my old habits.

 

[Ausir]

The English version *is* localized. You should play the Polish original if you don't want a localized version.

 

[avatar_58]

Yep, shame. I finished the UK version and frankly it doesn't seem as bad as people make it out to be. Would I have preferred Atari not fuck it? Sure, but I won't avoid the game because of a few issues.

I mean fuck - it's not even close to the rape-induced translations squaresoft imposed on FFIV and VI when they first came to the US.

 

[Au nature|]

I am guessing the whiners here did not play the game on Hard. If you ever decide to, we will see if you still regard the monster contracts as easy. Many times it became a fully planned affair where you would have to think about what potions to use, when to use them and how you could go about fighting different beasts, not for the hell of it; because you wouldn't win without this kind of preparation.

In any case, I have found this game to be the best RPG since Arcanum. And Geralt has been an excellent character. If only it had more nuanced combat, along with a more open map, it would totally thrash Gothic 2, though I would probably put it on par at the moment, with each having different strengths.

Game mechanics wise, I don't see this "planning" as anything special as it's just one step above from color-coding monsters...you just have to do your homework before you take them on or (from the sounds of it) give them a fair go, get your arse kicked, then reload to an earlier save and "plan ahead."

The woman you roleplay on these forums has more personality than Geralt, sapper_astro. :wink:

He's on the line with Sam Fisher and the game is on par with Gothic 2.

 

[RGE]

I thought his "first impressions" were funny and on the money. I still plan to get back to The Witcher, but I got sidetracked by Syndicate Wars right when I was about to head out into the Vizima swamps (and now it's Bloodlines again). I guess I bored myself with all the running around collecting alchemical stuff and such. Or maybe I've just had my fill with fantasy RPGs.

One thing he didn't poke a stick at was the annoying manner in which my playing the game is sometimes interrupted by cutscenes, and then I'm supposed to fight for my unprepared life the moment the cutscene ends. But perhaps he never played that far, or perhaps he, as the console fetishist that he is, actually likes cutscenes.

And I bet that he never tried to escort the barmaid while also doing the "light the candles" quest, thinking that he'd cover two quests in one fell swoop. I tried that, and was greeted by two packs of barghests at crucial points, one pack going for the barmaid, and the other going for Geralt. And if the barmaid pack dies first, she initiates a cutscene during which Geralt is killed mercilessly by the barghests who're there for the candle quest. And those barghests who're after the barmaid have to die quickly, because otherwise she dies, so it was reload fest 2007. That's comedy right there. You can laugh while I curse and want Polish heads on pikes. :evil:

 

[Gnidrologist]

And I bet that he never tried to escort the barmaid while also doing the "light the candles" quest, thinking that he'd cover two quests in one fell swoop. I tried that, and was greeted by two packs of barghests at crucial points, one pack going for the barmaid, and the other going for Geralt. And if the barmaid pack dies first, she initiates a cutscene during which Geralt is killed mercilessly by the barghests who're there for the candle quest. And those barghests who're after the barmaid have to die quickly, because otherwise she dies, so it was reload fest 2007. That's comedy right there. You can laugh while I curse and want Polish heads on pikes.

Heh, yeah. That's one point i don't like about TW. It's too damn scripted and sterile when it comes to gameplay. Many compare TW to Gothic series, but in my book they are nothing alike. Particulary the freedom you get in Gothics and absolute restrictedness you have in TW. Basicly, you can only do what is ment for you to do. No sidesteps alowed.
It's probably the aurora engine's fault mainly, but even if so, i can't appricate CDproject's design choice in this matter.

 

[MasPingon]

And I bet that he never tried to escort the barmaid while also doing the "light the candles" quest

I doubt he went that far

 

[Crichton]

One thing he didn't poke a stick at was the annoying manner in which my playing the game is sometimes interrupted by cutscenes, and then I'm supposed to fight for my unprepared life the moment the cutscene ends. But perhaps he never played that far, or perhaps he, as the console fetishist that he is, actually likes cutscenes. Rolling Eyes

I concur. I was really irked when, after making such a big deal about using potions before a fight, there's like 5 min of cutscenes, dialog and more cutscenes before Geralt confronts the beast. I have no opportunity to prepare for the beast after the trial, so I can use potions / oils while it and it's buddies chew on the witch or just do without. I didn't want the witch to die, so I used the "blizzard" stuff and did without the oil. Later I found out that it was all for naught; the witch was an oblivion-style NPC, strike her down and she becomes more powerful than you can possibly imagine (gets back up at the end of the fight anyway).

Re: the barmaid, I didn't try to place the candles at the same time, so I didn't encounter that one. But when I first tried the quest, I had no idea where she lived, no way of asking her and no map point that I could find. So I just wandered around until she eventually said that she was home. I'm guessing that I was supposed to know that she wanted to go to the clump of houses with the church because it's TEH VILLAGE as opposed to all the other little clumps of houses.

 

[Elwro]

Hm. I had the location of the proper house clearly marked on the map.

 

[Crichton]

Hm. I had the location of the proper house clearly marked on the map.

Then maybe I just missed it, sometimes it seems that I get the text from an adjacent map note if two of them are too close. I'm playing the US version patched to 1.2.

 

[Hazelnut]

Try the 'track this quest' button on the journal screen after highlighting the quest.

 

[amorax]

Cut the guy some slack. So what? He doesn't know how to wittily criticize The Witcher? Where's the problem? He's just another one fooling around...

He's getting paid for it. But all he did was saying "Fuck this shit. This game sucks and everyone who likes it sucks. I can't be even bothered to play it. Instead, I'll go and dub over the painkiller intro."

Failture.

Where does he say that everyone who likes the game sucks? And he did mention that this was just his first impressions of the witcher. Also, he gets paid because he's funny, not simply because he's reviewing games. You sound more like a butt-hurt TW fanboy to me. Either that, or someone who's trying to hop onto the 'lets hate on yahtzee' bandwagon before it's too late.

True. The guy is a complete loser.

Says the guy with 2509 posts on an RPG forum.

Only because there are so many morons in the world does he have a lucrative job.

Quit with the pretentious prattling already. You aren't making yourself look any smarter by hopping on the 'everyone but me and a select few others are dumb' bandwagon.

 

[Spec]

I laughed when I watched it and thought to myself: "No one takes this seriously, it's obviously humorous trolling for the sake of humorous trolling."

Apparently some people do.

HUGE IRONY: The issue of poor tone recognition is also responsable for many SERIOUS reviews giving the witcher bad marks for writing.

 

[dagorkan]

WAAAH!

Sorry, did I insult your boyfriend?

 

[vrok]

Either that or he got upset because you indirectly called him a moron.

Quit with the pretentious prattling already. You aren't making yourself look any smarter by hopping on the 'everyone but me and a select few others are dumb' bandwagon.

That bandwagon with the name Yahtzee on it? That one's a ripoff. The Codex has been riding around in its very own 'everyone but me and a select few others are dumb' bandwagon for quite a while. Feel free to post the very same words on the Escapist though.

 

[RGE]

Where does he say that everyone who likes the game sucks?

At 3:30, where he says that "you might have a better time if you're incredibly boring and haven't had a sexual encounter in decades". And then he says that if that is the case, his dad should stop watching his reviews!

So he's calling it a review after all! Get the pitches and torchforks!

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

You are doing it wrong RGE, this is how you do it:

So he's calling it a review after all! Get the pitches and torchforks!

 

[Crolug]

So he's calling it a review after all! Get the pitches and torchforks!

Oh dear Lord, you are going down Yahtzee, you asshole, right next to Corvus guy, where your true place is... :twisted: