The Witcher

Over the years I’ve probably played 100s of computer RPGs ranging from freeware and shareware games, to top of the range, multi-million dollar budget games. Yet, despite playing these games, none have ever captured me for more than a few weeks, and with some of the longer games I didn’t even finish them (without resorting to some kind of cheat). However, for once, a game has come along that combines the hack and slash of some of the more simplistic games, with the atmosphere and character building of the often too complex AD&D games.

Introduction

From the very first moment, with the opening movie, which is stunning, you are immersed in a dark dank world full of danger and dripping with atmosphere. This initial movie, that is several minutes long, really sets the scene on what you are about to experience.

This game is not your normal AD&D hack and slash type of gaming, but is an immersive, adult and dark game that is more about the storyline, rather than manipulation of statistics, armor class and Thac0 – you know all that geekish stuff (Before I offend the geeks, I am a self professed geek – and this game does have those elements – leveling up etc, but I found that they are not as important as many other games).

What really attracted me and kept me coming back was the ‘feel’ of the game, the immersive world that is distinctly medieval and for a game of this type is pretty realistic.

Quests

I was also attracted by the way the quests didn’t simply offer you a good or bad option – there were some pretty deep moralistic scenarios, touching on child abuse, racism etc. The plot is essentially adaptive, and as you make your choices you are driven down a different road – this adds to the longevity of the game as you can take a different route each time. One particular route I took involved defending a bunch of dwarf’s and elves – they were rioting and causing mischief, and the authorities were trying to stop them – mostly in violent clashes. I decided to join the cause of the dwarves and elves, and in doing so alienated a couple of Non Playing Characters I had met earlier – had I chosen differently, and decided law and order was more important, I wouldn’t have interacting with some of the elves and instead would have built a relationship with some of the ‘alienated’ characters.

Engine

The game itself is built on the engine of Neverwinter Nights (NN). While I enjoyed NN I found it very linear, and basically cheated to get to the next section. While the graphics in NN were good and atmospheric at times, I never really felt that I was in an immersive world. I felt I was in a modular world with distinctly different areas – the updated version of the engine seems to allow for a more seemless transition (one thing I note – the early version of the game was very slow to load between areas – this was improved in a later version – you may have to download the update though).

Downside

One downside to the game perhaps – although after playing for a while I feel that it was important for the game – is that you don’t have a choice of character type, class or even name. You are simply presented with Geralt of Rivia – as you progress through the game you can concentrate on certain aspects of his character and essentially form your own class as you go along, but initially I felt this was very restrictive. However as I moved forward, I realize that this initial restriction was important, as the storyline really needed a central character that was solid and not a creation of someone who didn’t know the story.

Story

The story itself overall is an atypical story – good v evil, save the world type thing – this is a central theme, and the battle against the bad guys (salamanders) doesn’t change overall – however, the ability to make moral choices along the way, that adapt the way the story is told is exceptional. One thing that is very interesting is that the good v evil isn’t very distinct. While you join one faction or the other, you notice that each faction has its own idiosyncrasies.

Monsters

Like most RPGs there are plenty of monsters, ranging from vampires to wargs – however perhaps the biggest factor of the game is that these are really secondary enemies – the plot(s) mostly involve dealing with human enemies and their failings. One thing I liked (a little spoiler ahead) is that the ‘end of scenario’ bad guy never got killed, he always managed to get away – this added a nice edge to the game!

The Hero

The other point that should be made is that Geralt isn’t your typical hero – he is an outcast himself, who also seems to have lost his memory – some of the people he meets know him, but he has no recollection – it was also interesting that the interaction of your friends also changed – there were jealousies etc, and that often kept things interesting. Geralt isn’t particularly out to save the world, or indeed help anyone – most quests he takes on are for personal gain, or for information – part of the central plot is a quest to find out his past. This selfish feel to the game is unique.

Mature content

One thing to note is that this game is intended for a mature audience – there are elements of swearing as well as much ‘sex’ – while it’s not graphic in the US version, it is very suggestive and a lot of the women seem a little too eager – this aspect of the game really didn’t add much, and perhaps is aimed at teenage males to gain more sales. It seems that the reward for a lot of the quests are some ‘semi-nude’ cards – hmmm are us geeks really that shallow!

The game

As for the game itself – the mechanics are fairly standard. The combat is different than most PC games, but is a little reminiscent of some of the better Playstation games. Essentially, based on your skill level – you have varying moves your character can make – as you start combat by clicking, clicking at various ‘timed’ times moves you to the next move in the sequence – fail in the timing and your back to step one. Using this method you can eventually come up with some pretty deadly sequences.

When using the Witcher’s silver sword you also get to choose between three different modes – one is used for single combat, one is used for multiple opponents and the last is used for tricky single opponents who are quicker than most – one downfall of this is that all the additional multitude of weapons you can get become meaningless as these modes are only available when using the Witcher’s sword. One other trick is that there are two types of Witcher’s sword – a silver one and an iron one – one is more useful against monsters, while the other more useful against humans.

As you level up, you can improve the effectiveness of these modes by using talent points. The points can effectively be used to upgrade all elements of your character ranging from fighting abilities, magical abilities to improving general attributes such as strength etc. The system was a little convoluted for me, and to get the best out of it – read the manual!!!

Magic

Magic is included in the game, but I found it to be secondary and in fact the first time I finished the game I barely used magic – aside from a few difficult enemies, I found magic to be a pain. However, the game does provide a fairly extensive alchemy system – this has its good side and its bad side.

Potions

There are hundreds of potions that you can make – but each potion needs a recipe and an abundance of ingredients. To get the most out of the system you essentially have to roam around looking for the ingredients (you have to read about the separate herb lores prior to doing this). This became very cumbersome at times, and even though the potions were powerful and diverse I again didn’t concentrate on this aspect of the game (although if you play on difficult you really need to do this!).

The interesting part of potions is that while taking them, they have a detrimental effect on you – the more you take the more they effect you – some make you blinded, others seem to make you effectively drunk. For me, this was a distraction.


The Inventory

The biggest problem with this system is the inventory – it quite simply is a mess – it’s impossinle to find anything in the inventory and I just ended up selling every..this is supposedly going to be improved in a free update soon!

Summary

Having said that, while the mechanics aren’t that different from other games, that doesn’t really matter. It’s the feel and sound of the world that makes the mechanics secondary – giving you the feel that you are not in a game, but are in a story.

So overall this great is excellent – Atari have gone out of the way to make a very immersive game, with a decent plot that keeps you involved and negates the boredom of repetitive and nonsense quests. There are a few rough edges, but if this is the future of RPGs then I am a happy man