Gaming The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Review

I really should start playing the first one...

 

Just wanted to throw in my cents about the racial diversity as I've understood it in discussions around the internet. Basically the sentiment is that the world is mostly based on Eastern European history and folklore, and perhaps mostly Poland's. That is to say, that there traditionally never many black or otherwisely colored people in that area of the time, or even today as I understand it, with 97-98% of the polish population being white.

I'm no expert, and really this is a non-issue for me, but this is what I've found on the net. Also I found a dark skinned (as in a black person) succubus in the game, so I suppose the game does not deny the existence of people with different color, its just portrayed as VERY rare, which would be true to the historical background that the game is built on.

Other than this I agree with the review, one of the very best games I've ever played.

EDIT:

Found a well written piece that discusses the racial debate around the game:

http://www.volnaiskra.com/volblog/t...-a-step-forward-for-ethnic-diversity-in-games

 

Witcher 3 £40
GTA V £40
Project Cars £40

I've spent more on games in the last month than I've spent in the last 2yrs

...there are some games just too good to wait for Steam sales.

..although I'll be bloody annoyed if any of them are substantially reduced in the upcoming summer sale.

Say what..

Some people just have too much time on their hands I guess.

 

Glad to see someone finally praising the combat this review, every other review I've read has been overly harsh on this point I think.

Melee combat is leaps and bounds ahead of skyrim, but I guess skyrim has more scope with magic etc.

 

Dude, Poland is Central European country.

 

A good review of the game, I have to agree that the Sirens on Skellige are a major nuisance, they need to reduce their numbers a bit.
I'm quite enjoying the 'investigator' bits, it reminds me of the parts of LA Noire and other similar games that I enjoyed for their mechanics in finding evidence and putting the mystery together.

Novigrad is a little bit dull after 10 minutes of walking around the place, but the rest of the scenery in the game leaves me wanting to go on mass exploration sessions to see what's around the next corner.

I absolutely love the general feel of the combat as it often feels like when you swing your sword there's some weight behind the blow and the depending on where your weapon collides with the enemy, they may lose a certain limb or two as they drop to the floor.
However I do find that when you perform that diving dodge, the distance that Geralt dives is just silly... that distance could easily be halved and still be just as effective.


My only two big complaints of the Witcher 3 so far are:

1) Game-breaking bugs, there's been numerous times where I've had to reload my game because something major has bugged out - e.g. the griffin fight because it got stuck on a windmill blade and couldn't land, or Geralt has slid down the side of a ledge during a combat and for some bizarre reason can no longer attack.

Luckily bugs like that are something that should be fixable with a few patches.

2) The difficulty settings don't seem to increase the challenge, I jumped into playing on Death March right from the get go because to me that is the only way to really experience the gritty theme that deadly monsters are roaming the lands and you're the only one who can deal with them... however, even on this setting there's almost zero challenge in taking down a group of higher level enemies.

I fear the lack of difficulty is something that may have to be sorted out by the modding community, looks like some people area already on that path too:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/139/?
(I'll have to give that mod a trial this week to see if it improves the toughness of the game for me)

 

One of the best games i've ever played in my life. Simply majestic and meticulously crafted. The only RPG in years where i don't fast travel through cities, enjoying the views, the bustling life around Geralt but also the wilderness all grim and scary with streaks of pure beauty in even the darkest places especially during the absolutely perfect sunsets and sunrises...
The facial animations are simply stunning. My favourite is Keira Metz's smirks and her microexpressions, just feels like talking to a real person, unbelievable, a truly titanic technical achievement.

PS The diversity comment smacked me a bit of tokenism so prevalent in today's media. This game is based on books reflecting Poland in the early 90's, right after freeing itself from the shackles of being a Soviet satellite state. A country torn up by the numerous wars waged on it's soil by it's powerful neighbours, a country put on hold for 50+ years of force fed communist propaganda and forgotten by the world at large. A country that had it's own struggle with racism against it's Jewish and Roma minorities for hundreds of years (in the Witcher universe depicted by the fantasy races).
So knowing that fact you can't demand to put some token "diversity" figure in the middle just to satisfy your Westerner white guilt, because Eastern Europeans don't share that same history.

 

My bad, although that is not perhaps relevant to the point I was making...

 

Everything with this game is fantastic.... apart from the terrible combat... which is total shyt

 

It's cool, minor mistake.
Polish people are very sensitive about these things It's just a bit annoying when western countries people keep putting Poland in the same sack as Russia etc. Seriously, 80% of people I spoke with in UK thinks that Poland is a country where polar bears walk on streets and winter takes 10 months of the year.. this kind of stuff

Anyway, is Witcher 3 too polish, or too white? Well, it is white, I mean you may not find lot of non-white characters in it. Why? It is based on books written by polish writer, who lived and wrote those books in times when Poland was more "racially restricted". Even nowadays when you walk on polish streets you won't see a lot of black people. If you see one, then you're lucky, I lived 20 years in Poland and maybe saw two...

To sum up - I don't see it as a problem in this game - I do not look at these things in games generally. I don't understand why would it be a problem for someone. Doesn't matter if game characters are white, black, brown, or whatever. I haven't noticed it till I read about it here to be honest.

 

I am from Iceland so those are misconceptions I have to deal with myself

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe

 

What open world RPG would you compare it to that is better?

 

Stalker? lol but jokes aside this is irrelevant. Bad combat is bad combat.

 

Personally I don't find it bad, different strokes I guess but the focus of the game does make a difference. Max Payne 3 vs GTA V for example.

 

I've tried to get into the Witcher 2 several times, but the combat system was so terrible that each time I got totally fed up and quit. Is Witcher 3 any better?

My point is not so much about comparisons between combat system, but how the Witcher 2 (or 3) stands up in absolute terms regarding the combat system. For example, to say one combat system is better than another, when both suck does not say much.

 

Im afraid they both suck as much as each other. Maybe witcher 3 slightly less.?
That said the rest of the game is so overwhelmingly good..... its still worth picking up.

 

I much preferred the original Witcher's combat system compared to the second one.