The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition

A great sequel which improves on everything the first game did.

This is a rare if not unique game, especially in the RPG genre, in that this is a seriously challenging game (but always exciting, often moving, or wryly humourous). It also allows the player to be an adult, swearing, sexuality, violence and moral ambiguity create a realism that fits what you might expect from a bawdy, brutal but beautiful medieval world view. I respectfully disagree with those who say this game is mysogynist or only appealing to men (I am female); the player controls the Witcher Geralt who chooses what actions or allegiances to make, he is largely what you make him, and he can express disgust or anger at the corruptness or cruelty he has to deal with. Above all he is by nature and profession (a human mutant monster killer) and is usually non-judgmental, he is often feared and disliked as he is both human AND non-human. This forms the basis of much of the moral ambiguity of the game, as Geralt sees both sides of the human/non-human racism. Your/Geralt's task is to choose "the lesser evil"; the world isn't saved, people don't always live happily ever after, characters have their own ethics and opinions and are usually out for themselves. The game is ravishingly beautiful, environments are filled with cinematic detail and light effects, characterisation and voice acting is excellent. The soundtrack is absolutely brilliant, adding enormously to the experience, and good enough for separate listening. The story is complex, well paced, and exciting, but you may often need to look up the in-game journal to remember who everyone is, and what is happening, it can be confusing but nevertheless this does not ever (for me) detract from the enjoyment of your Geralt's story. The combat is fun, Geralt's development is how you choose to combine swordplay, alchemy or magic abilities, an open ended choice as you cannot learn everything in a single play-through. The difficulty levels posed some problems for me (I died quite frequently, but I'm ok with that!) in that while easy is very easy, the prologue and boss fights are still pretty hard for less experienced players (like me), but I wouldn't say this is too much of a problem, you can easily adjust the difficulty level from the menu. A few minor gripes is you have no storage facility, you can't compare what you are wearing/using at vendors, takes a while to fish out junk inventory, and alchemy potions need resetting from the default option every time. I also found it easier to hone combat skills in chapter 1 rather than the prologue. Side quests fit very well into the game, if you do them all, and follow the different story paths available to you, this is a huge game with many hours of play, and contributes to the immersive feeling. Also, more good news is generous guide, map, soundtrack cd etc in physical edition, no DRM, no costly dlc (Personally, I like to buy a whole game, dlc should be free, I'll happily pay for expansions if the game is good). This is great value for money, I'll be replaying it for a while yet. This game shows what can be done with this media, not perfect but pretty close, congratulations to the developers, more please!

In some ways better than the first, in some ways even worse. The outstanding feature of this game is that a big part of the game depends on the path the player takes. That branching path might appeal to fanboys who like this game, but does not make this game better or less linear. The story might be partly interesting but is barred behind an abundance of annoying fights. It's more interesting to watch the story on Youtube. Pros: + Good graphics + good voice acting + some interesting characters Cons: - bad user interface (inventory management ...) - ship like character movement makes it a chore to pick up the mostly worthless junk from enemies - boring and repetive combat - bad gameplay

This is one of my all time favorite games. Beautiful graphics, amazing story, great combat, and story rich! It does have a few spots that feel unfair (the first Letho Fight, and Dragon) but thats about it. Im not gonna write a long review, but just wanted to add another to the mix. One of the few games Ive purchased multiple times.. After playing this, I went and got Witcher 1, and have been a fan ever since! As soon as all the books are translated to English, Ill be grabbing those as well! CDPR deserves support from everyone!

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