Gaming The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings Review

If only I'd had the idea about 15 years ago. Unfortunately if I started trying to make a deck now, my wife would probably pick me up and break me over her knee. Which would be pretty impressive since I'm a foot taller and outweigh her by ~80 lbs

 

Bit-Gamer is now a Metacritic-ranked publication, yes.

 

Just started playing through the first one, cant wait to pick the 2nd one up when im done with it

 

With this great power, comes great responsibility

 

I played the first one, for a few hours anyway, but I detested the combat.

I'm seriously tempted to pick this up as the combat sounds to be improved, I just hope it' improved enough because the rest of the game sounds great.

 

FWIW, I've gotten over my problems with the combat and am really getting in this now, very stunning game. At first I was kinda thrown off and even kinda intimidated by the lack of 'hand holding', but I soon got over that.

 

Sorry for the double post and all but thought it was worth a bump to share this

**Spoiler if you have not gotten to the castle tower yet in the first section of the game***

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCjzA-C647o

Now, whist I did struggle at first, this genius has gotten this far and still not worked out the basics and didn't even apply a potion before the battle, then goes onto blame the game for allowing himself to get surrounded and stabbed in the back... I found the best strategy for this section was to use the mind control power to turn the biggest knight onto the rest whist you dealt with them.

 

I just used quen, guard, dodge and occasionally the trap sign. And then raped the lot of em I'm assuming what part you mean anyway..can't watch the vid at work.

 

It was the courtyard section. It was a challenge at first, took some planning and a little trial and error, but this guy just goes in, keeps doing the same thing over and over again and wonders why he's getting the same results. Whist I did take maybe 10-20 attempts to clear it, I at least accepted it was my own fault I was dying and tried new things each time.

Best game I've played in a long time, I thought 95 seemed a little ott but I'd say this review is spot on.

 

I purchased Witcher 2 because of the ratings which I think are BOOSTED because of the graphics, and played it for 5 hours and got nowhere when it comes to JUMPING, you CANT JUMP with the KEYBOARD at all, at least I cant. space-bar just dodges but never jumps. The graphics is great but overall controlling is just TERRIBLE. It seems like they rushed when developing the controls of this game, so I took it back to the store and got FALLOUT3, best trade I ever made. I will never purchase another game because of ratings, I will just wait and read the forums first.

I LOVE IT.

 

The Witcher 2 isn't meant for kiddies.

How the hell do you trade in a pc game anyway

 

Jumping isn't really an integral part of a proper RPG and certainly not missed in The Witcher 2.

I've just hit Chapter 2 and I'm totally hooked, great game and looks gorgeous!

 

It wasn't possible to jump in the original Witcher either - I'd agree it's hardly essential, but a strange omission for a character athletic enough to be able to do forward and sideways rolls with a big sword strapped to his back. It does also give birth to one of the game's frustrations - playing "find the climb/jump point" in order to reach certain locations.

In some ways though, I think the gameplay is poorer than the first Witcher - the fist-fighting and dice poker subgames are worse (using "press the key" QTEs rather than the normal combat system makes fist fighting a joke), combat itself is harder to control (no overhead view and perverse auto-select) and inventory management is severely borked.

However, like the first game in the series, Witcher 2 is head-and-shoulders above every other RPG in offering a plausible gameworld, with NPCs that move around, following day/night schedules. Far better than the "stand in one place, rain or shine" NPCs that every other RPG (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age) has been throwing up, and the first games I've seen since the Ultima series to pay such attention to detail.

 

Yeah I've had the same problem, also, sometimes climbing down a ladder is painfully slow.

Yep, have to agree about QTE's, they are lame. I'd rather have one of two things, either have the fist fight happen in a cut-scene (but make it all over in like 10-15 seconds), or give me full control over the player and manually be able to punch and block.

Must agree again. It may have some minor niggles, but I'm still loving it!

 

fought the kayan last night.. took a few tries to take it down

took a bath with triss in that elven fountain too.. what a cutscene! oo

after playing brotherhood though.. you feel really really clunky moving geralt around- it's like he moves on squares and can't even get down a simple slope without a preset climb point..

a lot of the dialog is believable and humorous.. I like how I ended up with a tattoo on my neck from boozing it up

 

Didn't quite get up to the fight with my go on it but got the tattoo & yeah that was funny, seems a really good game from what I played.

Man I've got some quality gaming to catch up on , this game, portal 2 & I'm slightly embarrassed to say this in the witcher 2 thread but fable 3 also .

I aint buying any other games until I've got through those 3 or good sales prices come up for others I'm interested in.

 

yeah awesome game, the attention to detail was everywhere- in the story and the little cutscenes.. you have to play it through chapter 2 to realize how cool it is with the choices =]

the graphics are pretty awesome too, liked the part when your confronted by the kayan xD it really felt like you were there.. sounds and everything

but only complaint was I didn't get a chance to craft the cool silver sword in chapter 3, missing a dragon scale.. the caerme sword or however it's spelled was pretty good though

the dragon fight was cool.. I mean you can say, why didn't he just walk on top of the castle and blow you off the roof.. but from a gaming perspective- very well done

I'm sure the witcher was good enough to rage the black cherry on a console gamer.. why I love it.. the dwarfs talked so much trash in the game too

didn't touch easy mode and don't even know why they would put something like that in a game like this- I'm sure it's so monitors wouldn't go flying everywhere in germany

 

I missed out on the sword too as I got sick of carting around items that there (seemed) to be no use for, like the Nekker blood and the Harpy Egg.

You seen the Zero-Punctuation review? hahaha you can tell he must have sucked SO HARD at this game. I largely like and often agree with his reviews, but he really fails with this one. And he misses the fact that you can skip the cut-scenes. You have gotta be quick though..