The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition

Like most I'm posting a comment before I've even really played the game, but I've seen enough reviews now to see that it will not disappoint. I hope this risk for CD projekt pays off with DRM free for a PC exclusive. I'm not a major RPG player, and in most cases I would have waited for a game like this to show up in a Steam sale a year or two down the line, but I just had to support this cause! It's the first PC game I've brought that's not been through my Steam account in many years too.

I love the stories about Gerald the Witcher, and I love this game. Good graphics, nice fighting and special abilities, great drama and storyline. Why only rated 2/5 ??? Because many people need a minor miracle to get it running correctly on their machines. Who needs a great game, you cant play??

After an hour of struggling with this game, I'm prepared to move on. The game has both design and technical problems. The beginning of the game seems to consist almost entirely of cut scenes and a dull game of follow the leader. The first proper fight is interrupted by CTS-inducing mini-games ("click as fast as you can") that need to be repeated if you fall in the ensuing fight. The game looks good, but there are performance issues. On a year-old nVidia card using an up-to-date driver, the linux port runs too slowly to play comfortably. This is equally true at all settings, and isn't true for games released at the same time, which leads me to believe the problem's in the program, not the machine. Based on my experience, I recommend you avoid buying this game to play on Linux.

I'm sure there are lots of nice things to say about this gameplay and the story. Nevertheless, the game design is just too frustratingly bad to redeem it. Here's why I would advise others to give it a miss: * Terrible tutorial. On my first attempt at breaking into the game this made me give up in frustration. It is confusing, badly written, oftentimes directly misleading and feels more like a barrier to entry than an attempt at showing you the ropes or motivating you to play. I you do decide to go ahead with the game I would encoiurage you to use the manual and wiki instead and skip this atrocity. * Bad UI. The UI doesn't so much feel designed as thrown together. Whatever it is you need to do, it's on a screen somewhere - but there's no concept tying one screen to another or any recurring design ideas in how those screens work. Icons and images clutter around with no explanation or often texct. The main factor guiding the design seems to be a mystic/magic theme which works against any comprehesibility. Imagine the opposite of Skyrim's minimalist - and easy-to-navigate - UI and you're close. * QTEs as punishment. I'm currently stuck in an endless loop of attacking enemies. They're being sent in because I'm apparently doing a QTE wrong. How am i doing it wrong? I don't know and there's no explanation. This is typical of my general experience. The game punishes you for its own failure to explain. It's like Dark Souls but in an unintentional Catch-22 sort of way. As I said, I think there's a good game here. I've spent around eight hours getting to grips with this mess. I'm not sure it's worth any more than that.

Clunky controls designed for consoles. A combat system that is dumbed down, unforgiving thanks to the controls and ruled by RNG. Mod base_scripts to remove the 10 second death ballet because you will see it a lot. Great graphics ruined by heavy dithered shadows and loads of bloom no matter the settings. Small selection of music that plays whenever it feels like. Overall a lot of jank, technically. The writing is atrocious - not so much the main plot but the general dialog. Having people swear is fine, having people swear all the fucking time to establish that you're gritty and realistic is trying too hard. Having them use "ploughing" instead of a good old fuck most of the time is just so damn juvenile, like kids using substitutes so they don't get in trouble with their parents (or the age rating boards, in this case). And yes, I've read the books and this ain't it. Hell, the previous game did better for all its faults. Also, and this an overall minor nitpick: all women strutting around like models regardless of who they are doesn't help the game's authenticity. And let's not even talk about those incredibly stupid forced stealth sections, yes?