The Witcher 2 and Skyrim. One focuses on its atmosphere, its narration and its characters, the other on its freedom and its open universe. The dearest wish of fans of the genre is that these two highly anticipated sequels do not disappoint.The best polish game...

An engaging, immersive adventure with surprisingly fluid combat controls for an RPG - loving it!

This game is everything the buzz promises...and definitely recommend the enhanced edition - particularly for the game guide that's included - it does a wonderful job of highlighting many of the games secrets you're likely to miss but it does so by embedding them into a narrative flow. Wonderfully creative and doesn't just hand it all to you on a plate. The game itself is gorgeous - I have watched the intro sequence over and over again. And when you first encounter the dragon, it's what xbox and big screen tvs were made for! A real pleasure to experience. The story is deep and keeps getting deeper, but is told in such a way that you never feel bored or overwhelmed. There are seemingly endless combinations of alchemy, spells and other uses of inventory which I've ... MoreThis game is everything the buzz promises...and definitely recommend the enhanced edition - particularly for the game guide that's included - it does a wonderful job of highlighting many of the games secrets you're likely to miss but it does so by embedding them into a narrative flow. Wonderfully creative and doesn't just hand it all to you on a plate. The game itself is gorgeous - I have watched the intro sequence over and over again. And when you first encounter the dragon, it's what xbox and big screen tvs were made for! A real pleasure to experience. The story is deep and keeps getting deeper, but is told in such a way that you never feel bored or overwhelmed. There are seemingly endless combinations of alchemy, spells and other uses of inventory which I've barely scratched the surface of yet but the game seems to allow you plenty of time to grow into familiarity with those aspects without being skint on the action in the meantime. Without doubt the most engaging RPG I've played yet. Zavvi have a wonderful deal on this game - the best price I found anywhere! Couldn't recommend it more highly!

Best RPG of the last 10 years.

^^ Please ignore the above review it's ridiculous and incorrect. No way in hell should this game be given a 1 just because the reviewer can't handle the difficulty of the combat and doesn't want to learn. It's also stated that they have not got past the prologue, they have no business reviewing the game if thats the case because the game doesn't open up until chapter one, including the combat system. (which makes things get easier actually) There are some valid points, like the alchemy system but I think it's this way to more closely follow the lore, which there is some meditative preparations to the quaffing. The difficulty is a little inverted. But, that besides this doesn't detract from one of the best experiences I have ever had in gaming in my 20+ years of ... More^^ Please ignore the above review it's ridiculous and incorrect. No way in hell should this game be given a 1 just because the reviewer can't handle the difficulty of the combat and doesn't want to learn. It's also stated that they have not got past the prologue, they have no business reviewing the game if thats the case because the game doesn't open up until chapter one, including the combat system. (which makes things get easier actually) There are some valid points, like the alchemy system but I think it's this way to more closely follow the lore, which there is some meditative preparations to the quaffing. The difficulty is a little inverted. But, that besides this doesn't detract from one of the best experiences I have ever had in gaming in my 20+ years of playing them. The game has one of the best combat systems in a roleplaying game ever, spend some time to get the hang of it and you will "get it" it's definitely the best looking. It is nuanced and looks awesome once you have it under control. It's actually quite similar to Demon Souls with more attacks.You don't need a super computer to play this, but you must turn off the ultrasampling option (FSAA) because it's designed with future hardware in mind and even the best computer will only get 30fps with it on. I am running full graphics on my rig with this option off and my jaw is constantly on the floor.Amazing tone, design, storyline and gameplay. No game is perfect and it has a few flaws but not enough to detract from what is the best game's of this generation.I would suggest using a xbox 360 control pad if you have problems on keyboard because it does work very well with it, but I haven't had issues with either.At some point we should also see a modding sdk out for it and then you can wave any problems you have with the systems goodbye.Game of the year.... No, one of the best games of all time.

Finally, a thinking man's RPG!

Visually stunning, an engrossing and immersive storyline which offers many choices that alter the way the game develops, a plethora of well scripted and believable characters combined with a soundtrack that is aurally fantastic - what more could you ask for-Yes there are numerous complaints about the combat system, but they have generally been offered by RPG players of the hack 'n slash brigade who probably don't take any notice of the story any way. Planning and preparation are the keys to success in this game, so if you don't have just a little bit of patience, or don't enjoy the way great games are written storywise then go play an FPS.The open and non-linear storyline of Witcher 2 may at first appear disjointed, but once key characters immerge and important ... MoreVisually stunning, an engrossing and immersive storyline which offers many choices that alter the way the game develops, a plethora of well scripted and believable characters combined with a soundtrack that is aurally fantastic - what more could you ask for-Yes there are numerous complaints about the combat system, but they have generally been offered by RPG players of the hack 'n slash brigade who probably don't take any notice of the story any way. Planning and preparation are the keys to success in this game, so if you don't have just a little bit of patience, or don't enjoy the way great games are written storywise then go play an FPS.The open and non-linear storyline of Witcher 2 may at first appear disjointed, but once key characters immerge and important information is discovered through conversations and tomes both hidden and purchased from NPCs the story grabs you and doesn't let go!Don't expect to develop your character totally in all disciplines in one playthrough of the game though. You have to work pretty hard for each upgrade. You can chose to develop one particular talent fully or try and strike a balance between them, but chose wisely because only 1 talent point is earned per level and each talent requires 2 points to fully realise. Weapons and armour, if they have the appropriate slots, can be upgraded with runes and enhancements as well.I am totally in love with this game, don't miss it if you are an RPG fan or want to try the genre if you haven't already. Depending on the paths you take you can expect up to 60 hours of gameplay, and you're sure to fail on a few side quests so the replayability factor is relatively high too.What are you waiting for- Give your senses a feast and your PC a boost and go play this game!

Horrible, Irritating Combat

Stay away from this game if you like your keyboard. Combat is clumsy, stiff and unresponsive. The targeting system is terrible with no way to lock on to a particular enemy - you have to rotate the camera until a small crosshair appears on that enemy and Geralt will then swing at him (sometimes he doesnt do so even then). I have missed enemies standing right next to me with a strong attack because Geralt decided to swing the blade over the enemy's head instead of through him. The block button only works some of the time. Frequently, after executing a swing, you must hammer the E key to get him to raise his sword by which time it is usually too late.Some clever person even decided that it should be an option to sheath your blade in the middle of a fight and since ... MoreStay away from this game if you like your keyboard. Combat is clumsy, stiff and unresponsive. The targeting system is terrible with no way to lock on to a particular enemy - you have to rotate the camera until a small crosshair appears on that enemy and Geralt will then swing at him (sometimes he doesnt do so even then). I have missed enemies standing right next to me with a strong attack because Geralt decided to swing the blade over the enemy's head instead of through him. The block button only works some of the time. Frequently, after executing a swing, you must hammer the E key to get him to raise his sword by which time it is usually too late.Some clever person even decided that it should be an option to sheath your blade in the middle of a fight and since the Q key (for signs) is directly underneath the 1 key (sheath the main sword) this happens more often than you might like.The game gives you very poorly written and timed tutorials during the prologue. There is no way to pause it so you can actually read the message (which frequently appears during intense action scenes requiring fast action) and because it comes up on the far right it is quite easy to miss entirely.There is no easing you into the combat in this game. Right from the start you are pitted against large groups of enemies with very few abilities to use against them (or help on tactics for that matter) and the clunky feeling of the combat, coming from the agility of Geralt in the first game, will have you hammering keys in frustration, trying in vain to make Geralt listen to your frantic commands while enemy soldiers (who are faster than Geralt most of the time it seems) hack you to pieces. There are some finishing moves which are cool but they happen far too rarely.I cannot for the life of me figure out whose clever idea it was to engineer the gameplay such that you can no longer drink potions during combat. Find yourself in a tough spot in a fight and need to drink a Swallow potion? Forget it. The game only lets you drink potions when you meditate and, since you have to be in an area that has no enemies within several hundred meters to do this, your chances to drink vital potions are few indeed.I haven't finished the prologue yet but frankly I have no desire to play this game any longer after what I've seen. Such a disappointment coming from a series that had a solid start.On a better note the graphics are nice. Just don't expect to be able to enjoy them much unless you have SLI'd GTX580s or something similar.Final verdict: don't waste your money on this epic fail of a game. If you must have it, wait for a while until it's in the bargain bin. Once word gets out how bad it is I have a feeling it will end up there fairly fast.

Not a walk in the park

Most complaints about the game seem to be based on a few gameplay mechanics the developers have decided to impliment. One mechanic is the inability to drink potions during combat, so if your health is running low you can't just quaff a potion and keep on swinging heedless of taking damage, instead you have to prepare for your battles ahead of time, and during combat have to be far more careful about taking damage. To most this might seem frustrating, especially to a generation of gamers used to easy, low skill hack 'n slash combat, reliant on health potions saving them from their mistakes. Instead you have to work for your victories with a blend of preparation, skill, and patience. To me it offers a much richer fighting gameplay experience, instead of hollow, ... MoreMost complaints about the game seem to be based on a few gameplay mechanics the developers have decided to impliment. One mechanic is the inability to drink potions during combat, so if your health is running low you can't just quaff a potion and keep on swinging heedless of taking damage, instead you have to prepare for your battles ahead of time, and during combat have to be far more careful about taking damage. To most this might seem frustrating, especially to a generation of gamers used to easy, low skill hack 'n slash combat, reliant on health potions saving them from their mistakes. Instead you have to work for your victories with a blend of preparation, skill, and patience. To me it offers a much richer fighting gameplay experience, instead of hollow, mindless hack 'n slash battles. Many may find that fun, but there are too many of those games nowadays, its good to have a change, and have some actual challenge.Tutorials come as popups, but usually during battle, so the player is too busy trying to survive to pay attention. However all you need to know about how to play the game is included in the game manual, and in the in-game journal. It doesn't hold your hand through the beginning levels, you either do a bit of reading before hand, or launch headfirst into the game and learn the hard way through experience.Branching dialogue options in this game are well implimented and carried out. By giving a good piece of advice to one NPC you may later find him in a position where he helps you out in return, wheras if you gave him bad advice he would then be... Er... Unable to offer you his help in return. Little branches like this add flavour and diversity to a genre often plagued by linearity.The graphics are absolutely amazing, and has a wide range of graphics options to suit even those with an average PC.All in all a great game. Difficult, yes, but rewarding, in visuals, story, and feeling of accomplishment. It has a high level of polish (heh) and is an absolute blast to play. I recommend buying this game if you're looking for more than just a single button mashing slaughter fest.RE: LeePressing 'E' to parry only works if you have vigor left to parry. Playing the game more than 30 mins, or reading the manual/journal would have taught you that fact. Also it should come as no surprise that it takes time to bring your sword up to parry, and if you're halfway through a huge swing you cannot bring your sword up as you've already commited to the swing. There are 4 difficulty levels, so there should be no problems finding a difficulty to match your skill.

Pretty Awesome

The Witcher 2 is one of the best RPG I played. The game is based most around the story where the player is playing the hero (Geralt of Rivia) and will be searching for the kings assassin. From there on you will be teleported into this beautiful world like a movie and will investigate how and why all this happened to you. The graphism is stunning as much as the sound atmosphere or the music design but this is not a free roam game but never the less the few maps are big and a lot to explore...Quests with characters environments and even weapons and items are all designed to fit the story rather than the other way around. The quests for example arent of the (kill this many of monster x for a bounty) variety. The contracts you take require you to fight and study the ... MoreThe Witcher 2 is one of the best RPG I played. The game is based most around the story where the player is playing the hero (Geralt of Rivia) and will be searching for the kings assassin. From there on you will be teleported into this beautiful world like a movie and will investigate how and why all this happened to you. The graphism is stunning as much as the sound atmosphere or the music design but this is not a free roam game but never the less the few maps are big and a lot to explore...Quests with characters environments and even weapons and items are all designed to fit the story rather than the other way around. The quests for example arent of the (kill this many of monster x for a bounty) variety. The contracts you take require you to fight and study the beasts until you unlock the necessary knowledge of how to get rid of them for good from there you typically must create a special trap or perform an action unique to that quest. Crafting is designed to work with the fiction as well requiring Geralt to obtain blueprints then collect mundane components like twine and raw metal in addition to the epic components like troll skin. This makes crafting extremely expensive or time consuming at times but it makes the process much more immersive and the reward that much more gratifying. The game have alternate endings depending on player choices throughout the story. I was happy to discover was that the game can be played through two completely different campaigns depending on some choices and that the end game differences are much more substantial than (character x is your friend instead of character y because you took his side.) Not to spoil too much but key characters can be killed kingdoms can be shifted and the information you know about your opponents is all different based on how you play. You may not even meet some characters and you certainly wont know the secrets behind many events unless you play the game through again from the alternate perspective. Bear in mind these arent good/evil decisions either. The developers do a great job making each option in the scenarios seem valid and there was never a clear solution to any given problem I faced. In combat you carry a silver sword to slay monsters and an iron sword to kill men because thats the way a Witcher fights. Potions can only be drunk prior to combat when Geralt is in meditation mode. Why- Because Geralt does all his preparations prior to battle so the gamer plays by the same constraints. I personally found myself completely absorbed by the game world and my place in it. Civilians occasionally insulted Geralt mutant nature and I began to take offense. Going into battle I started to think ahead and plan reading up on the types of monsters I will be facing rather than just jumping into combat. There are occasional breaks from this perspective as you see events through another partys eyes but for the most part you live the life of Geralt of Rivia. The story is very dark with clear themes of racism/rape/genocide ect... In many of the subplots. The characters tend to be rather vulgar but not necessarily in an immature way it comes across that they are more coarse than immature and the dialogue tends to fit well with the oppressive atmosphere of the game world. As you can probably tell from the above points I really loved The Witcher 2 but it is not without its flaws. There are no changes on the controller if you dont like original setup. The interface is a bit difficult at time to manage or some stupid fact like you cant swim but overall this is a beautiful game for a more mature audience than the button bashing kind of game.

Unbelievable

The Witcher 2, without a doubt, has perhaps the best story ever made in the medium of a game. It evolves with every single choice. If you have played the Mass Effect series or many classic RPGs, you would be familiar with this sort of mechanic. But normally, those games would only offer the illusion of choice, i. e. no matter whether you choose Path A or B, you will still encounter the same set pieces, landscapes, boss fights and climax. But in the Witcher, if you choose to go down Path A, the entire story will go down that route too! It's almost like the developers have created two different games that intertwine with one another and really, you would have to play the game twice to see this. That by no means makes the plot seem a little thin, as you would expect. ... MoreThe Witcher 2, without a doubt, has perhaps the best story ever made in the medium of a game. It evolves with every single choice. If you have played the Mass Effect series or many classic RPGs, you would be familiar with this sort of mechanic. But normally, those games would only offer the illusion of choice, i. e. no matter whether you choose Path A or B, you will still encounter the same set pieces, landscapes, boss fights and climax. But in the Witcher, if you choose to go down Path A, the entire story will go down that route too! It's almost like the developers have created two different games that intertwine with one another and really, you would have to play the game twice to see this. That by no means makes the plot seem a little thin, as you would expect. It is so engrossing, with discreet twists and turns you will not see coming. Some characters do seem a little shallow, but there's still a good cast of excellent friends and foes with a great script and terrific voice acting. A minor complaint would be that the sound sometimes is uneven and background noise is often too loud. Plus, CD Project really put some big greedy developers to shame by throwing in a ton of free extras; hours of game play, extended cinematics and longer epilogue. Plus you get some physical goodies too with a paper map, quest guide and a bulky manual. I would buy it twice it is such good value!

Witcher 2

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition is a bigger, better and more ambitious project than the first game. We see that from the beginning of the game, during the prologue. From the start, it sets itself apart from other RPG games as a sort of "mature" game, where you can see the ugly side of society. You start in service of King Foltest, whom you saved at the end of the first game, but after he is killed, you stand accused for his murder and during the rest of the game you have to put the pieces of the puzzle together and find the real culprit. There are a lot of side missions as well, where you help locals to get rid of monsters or solve some other problems. The fighting part of the game is similar to the previous one: you have to adjust the style ... MoreThe Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition is a bigger, better and more ambitious project than the first game. We see that from the beginning of the game, during the prologue. From the start, it sets itself apart from other RPG games as a sort of "mature" game, where you can see the ugly side of society. You start in service of King Foltest, whom you saved at the end of the first game, but after he is killed, you stand accused for his murder and during the rest of the game you have to put the pieces of the puzzle together and find the real culprit. There are a lot of side missions as well, where you help locals to get rid of monsters or solve some other problems. The fighting part of the game is similar to the previous one: you have to adjust the style depending on the size and speed of your opponents. There are still two swords that Geralt carries: steel for human and silver for monsters. The role of magic is assigned to Witchers signs, and you can make different potions from the ingredients that you take from plants and dead monsters. There are three types of skills that you can develop: swordfight, use of signs and alchemy. To keep you occupied while not on missions, there are also mini-games, which can help you earn some more money to spend on different pieces of equipment.

[Rewarded Review] mature action rpg that stands out among rpg's

Witcher 2 is a fantastic game.What is excellent:graphics and combat animationsdifficult gameplay that keeps you on your toes--even basic creatures can still kill you late in game if you start getting sloppy and think you'll just overpower them. In addition, there are a lot of different styles to combat that you can use, keeping it fun and freshstory is great, and how it is affected by your choices as well. you are on one side or another for the entire second act of the game depending on your choices. related to this, the game should have good replayability because you will want to see what other choices would have yieldedWhat is not perfect:it is tedious not having some sort of fast travel option. if you are at the far end of the woods looking for herbs or ... MoreWitcher 2 is a fantastic game.What is excellent:graphics and combat animationsdifficult gameplay that keeps you on your toes--even basic creatures can still kill you late in game if you start getting sloppy and think you'll just overpower them. In addition, there are a lot of different styles to combat that you can use, keeping it fun and freshstory is great, and how it is affected by your choices as well. you are on one side or another for the entire second act of the game depending on your choices. related to this, the game should have good replayability because you will want to see what other choices would have yieldedWhat is not perfect:it is tedious not having some sort of fast travel option. if you are at the far end of the woods looking for herbs or monsters, you will have to run all the way back.on a related note, sometimes picking some herbs, talking to the right person, etc. is difficult. and the doors and climbing ledges can get tiresome.audio--voice work, sound effects, and music are all great, but somehow the sound mixing is a little off because the Witcher is often hard to hear clearly while everything else is loud. I set sound effects and music to a middle level, and kept dialogue at max to help with this.On the whole, this is a great game. A real changeup from rpg games like Dragon Age, Oblivion, Skyrim, etc....it isn't as open world, and you will always be on your toes in combat because you can quickly be overwhelmed if surrounded, but I like that. It is nice to feel tension at each combat, instead of thinking "now I have to waste 2 minutes killing these things." Be warned, mature means mature here.