The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition

Truly a beautiful roleplaying game with high replayability (Chapter 2 is different based on choices you make). Graphics still stand strong, even in 2017. The story is unbeatable with so many neaty-gritty details on political frictions inside of the kingdom, I found myself stopping for some extra side-questing to catch a break. There's no good or bad choices in Witcher 2. Actually, let me rephrase that. There's no good choices in Witcher 2. There's lesser evils without any absolutes. And this approach is a faithful representation of Geralt's mindset established in Sapkowski's books. A word of advice, do spend time to finish Witcher 1 and import saves into Witcher 2, as the universe that's based on them becomes way more personal and story becomes easier to understand.

I never played Witcher and only bought Witcher 2 because it was one of the early games to be released on Steam for Linux. I bought it again, later, on GOG because it's well worth having. It's a keeper. It's a fun game set in a fascinating world that you want to delve into and learn more about. I don't know that I'd call it an RPG. Allowing for the fact that few RPG's on a computer can truly be a role playing game, Witcher *still* doesn't really qualify. You play as exactly one pre-defined character, and I rarely get the sense that player choices really matter that much. There are several major plot points that are predestined; you can't really change alignment or turn the tides of even subtle story arcs. That said, it's a really fun game. It's sort of a medieval third-person shooter, I guess, with heaps of controls and intricate combat. You might be playing a preset character in a mostly scripted story arc, but you definitely have plenty of options in how you play it. You can be a tank, a sort-of rogue, a mage; it's really up to you. There's plenty to choose from, and the world is nuanced and full of history and lore. It's a fun game, and it's on Linux. Buy it twice.

Great game with an amazing story, i always come back to this game to replay it once in a while1

A superb game that while cutting a bit shorter the open-world aspects of the 1st one, offers a far deeper and involving plot with meaningful choices, deeply characterized characters and a vast amount of tits displayed with a sort of grim elegance. Very very pleasant game, feels a touch shorter in comparison with the first one, but at the same time far more memorable (also including the simplification of the combat system, that while not yet perfect is far less frustrating and far more smooth than the previous one) UX-wise, a few things are kinda awkward to handle, as for example mutations (OMG, who does get how to use them without googling it?!), but the overall interaction is pleasant. Performances optimization doesn't seem to be excellent also on a solid gaming rig like mine. The feeling is that a few times it bottlenecks on the CPU causing a bit of lag (not much, but a lot for the CPU i have it running on). But one can totally live with it. Very solid game, a couple of flaws but excellent otherwise. Gets an 85/100 in my boards.

TW2 EE is a great RPG. Bold quest design, mature story telling, mature choices and most importantly consequential choices are very prominently present throughout game play. I would also go as far as saying that out of 3 games in the series, this is by far the best game in terms of choices and story. CDPR must be given credit to make the second half of the game entirely different based on decisions, I mean i haven't at least come across a game that does this. Main quests , Side quests, endings all differ based on 1 very important decision. To me it's a special value add. Makes you play the game at least twice. Which will compensate for game's short play time. But there are certain flaws which make the game to not fully satisfy the gamer. 1. Lack of fast travel. : The game world is not huge like sand box games but still big enough to make running through the map tedious at times. Geralt simply wouldn't run fast. No mount to his help too. It's a design choice but question is why? 2. Clunky Alchemy controls and Overall Alchemy design : Potion drinking animation is tedious to watch. The whole potion mechanic makes it useless for first playthrough. I can understand the mechanics adhere to the lore but game doesn't do good job in hinting you in advance what kind of foes you'd encounter in which areas. You'll have to take a guess or drink standard set of potions every single time like Rook, Swallow etc. which kind of makes other potions pointless for first playthrough. Similar things with traps, barring a couple of quests you'd hardly ever need them. The crafting of potions is horrible too. You'll have to do farming to have decent number of potions because to put simply game economy doesn't allow you to be rich enough to just buy them. If those potions have use for only witchers (according to lore and tutorial, those potions can outright kill normal humans), i have question that why are they so costly if their buyers are very limited. 3. Not so much of witchering : While the story is a political drama and gripping tale of assassinations of kings. you'll feel that Geralt isn't doing much of witchering which by the way is his bread and butter. He's not some political lackey and traditionally witchers are neutral. So they could have added bit more contracts in the game to allow Geralt make some money to buy cool gear. 4. Abrupt Act 3 and epilogue. : While the game is gritty from its prologue itself, the end game feels abrupt. Especially whole of act 3 can be over in as many as 2 quests. Epilogue is just 1 fight that too is a choice. For a story that's so elaborately told, i can't help but feel that they could have fleshed out act 3 and prologue to match the the first 2 acts. 5. QTEs for fistfights : Fisfights and wrestling are interesting distractions that are not so exciting and not so well paying either. QTEs make fistfights a chore rather than action. 6. Reallocation of skill points. : While it's possible in interesting way to re allocate your skill points in act 3, that quest is not available for only one branch. I feel it should have been available easily and should not be dependent on player's choice. Also the game forces you t try and master 1 tree, so making players put their first 6 points in training tree wasn't really great i dea considering there's a level cap of 35. Once you hit it you stop leveling so skill points are precious and players should have been given more flexibility to chose what they want to invest in and their in game decision should not be making them miss reallocation entirely. So barring these points and a few minor ones, TW2 is a great game. Definitely one of all time great RPGs.