Review The Witcher - not for hardcore RPG players

[Direwolf]

I am only playing on medium, but the Dagon fight was very easy even without pots. Sihill just rips those fish types apart.

 

[Marsal]

If you prepare for a fight by drinking a few potions and coating a blade with appropriate oil, with 2000 HP, 100+ endurance, both regenerating, sign damage buffed, *nothing* can stand against you (this requires albedo based potion and/or a 2-3 gold talents in endurance, easily achieved by Act 5).

Actually it doesn't even require albedo, as I found out to my slight disappointment. Almost all potions except swallow have a 6-8 hour duration. So you can:

1. Drink 2-3 potions (vitality and endurance increase first, and cat).
2. Rest for an hour to drop toxicity to zero (maybe 2 hours if it's too high).
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you're done with potions (stun/knockdown immunity and 50% extra damage are good candidates here). Save swallow for last and drink it right before a fight starts.

With that and str, end, int and igni maxed out, I breezed through ch6 and wtfpwned anything that came my way. On hard.

Hard was actually too easy at the end. I wish there was a "superhard" level. Or perhaps more incineration-immune enemies.

Yeah, I noticed the rest thing too. I like to drink&go, though Albedo based Tawny oil was abudant, so no shortage there.

 

[cutterjohn]

Vault Dweller, I surmise that you were FAR too quick in awarding the title of moron daily...

Caveat: Even though I haven't played this yet, and will likely require a winblows upgrade to play it(seeing as even XP SP1 users can't run, undoubtedly courtesy of TAGES) this game sounds like the best thing that I have heard of in years(or at least since W8).

 

[suleo]

I like to drink&go too but the kocktzchay (or however it's spelled) kept beating the shit out of me before i went all-out with potions. And to do that I used that rest trick.

After that I just abused my finding...

Edited evil thingy name for SPOLIARZ

 

[Elwro]

Guys, use spoiler warnings...

 

[ElPresidente]

Fuck, this kind of thing is appearing much more in journalist articles nowadays. This pretty much means that the raping of the definition of cRPGs has come full circle. From the confused marketeers that didn't know how to label games, to the masses that relied on gaming genres, it has come and fully infected the journalists, sealing this foul definition in stone.

That's what happens when words and definitions are controlled by the marketeers rather than informed individuals that care a bit about education. I fear that good RPGs are going to suffer even more from massive comparison to this definition.

It is a killer of a situation. Amongst my friends it is something of a joke when someone meets me for the first time and finds out I'm a video game reviewer.

"What's your favourite type of game?"

"Me? I love RPGs"

"Me too! Final Fantasy X was great!"

At which point several people in the room will roll their eyes and leap behind the couch as I go on my RPG tirade.

But that is me in social circles. As a reviewer it is so much more difficult. Unfortunately it is largely a fact of linguistics that the only meaning ascribed to a word is that which is common. In other words if everyone in the world calls Final Fantasy an RPG then I'm bloody stuck calling it that (I will at least put the J in front first ).

You have no idea how frustrating it is. That isn't to say all of us games critics (a much better phrase for what we do than journalism, I think the word journalism just makes us sound more important than we are - we just talk about games... hopefully with a little more eloquence and insight than Joe Q. Public. After all they aren't called movie journalists) give a shit about the definition or what role playing is all about (If it were just having stats then the Excel marketing report I'm currently looking at is the best RPG of all time ).


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ANYWAY I too saw this review and damn near chocked on my lunch. Words can't even describe how... EUGH... *shakes head*

I may be bias towards print (and perhaps not critical enough of myself ) but I really see too many bad reviews online. It is frustrating and don't even get me started on the use of the word 'addicting'.

Anyway thanks to this thread I'm shit scared of submitting my review now you bastards. :D

 

[Chefe]

I enjoyed their Oblivion review.

It really speaks volumes about them as an establishment.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion can prove beyond any doubt that RPGs don't have to come from Japan to be brilliant.

 

[Jeff Graw]

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion can prove beyond any doubt that RPGs don't have to come from Japan to be brilliant.

There's something particularly... angering and insulting about that quote. Even more so than the average "Oblivion is the best RPG EVAH!" stupidity.

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[ElPresidente]

I'm still wiping away the tears. That quote is brilliant.

 

[caliban]

Even though I haven't played this yet, and will likely require a winblows upgrade to play it(seeing as even XP SP1 users can't run, undoubtedly courtesy of TAGES)

It runs without problems on my PC with XP SP1. At first I wasn't sure if it will, since on the box it says "SP2 required", but fortunately it does. Maybe they just didn't TEST it on SP1 or something, I don't know.

 

[Micmu]

I just noticed a quote from PC Zone inside the box envelope of UK version:
"The Witcher is a hot RPG, resonating on similar frequencies to Oblivion (!) and Fable (!!).
Oh dear.
Anyway, I'm having a very good time with it so far. Much much better than with other "similar" two.

 

[aboyd]

The guy clearly hasn't played on Hard difficulty.

Not even on hard difficult, I'm playing on medium and I have to use potions in more than half the fights otherwise I get my ass kicked.

Yup. You need potions and thats a FACT. How would he handle the golem without a few boosters?

I typically play games in what I think is called ironman mode. Will playing @ medium difficulty but with ironman playstyle be too difficult?

(Ironman mode being -- if I got the term correct -- that I play the character as if there are no reloads. One death and the game is over, I shut it down, and put it back on the shelf. So you can imagine I need to find an appropriate difficulty that will challenge me but allow for narrow escapes, fleeing, and so on.)

 

[KazikluBey]

Eh, there is a fight or two that you will likely need to read up on beforehand (*cough*endofact1*cough*) if you go ironman but I found medium to be too easy. I died a few times but that was mostly just due to lack of preparation.