The Witcher: Enhanced Edition

musics: 5/5 peaceful moments (adam skorupa), river of life (pawel blaszczak), witcher theme (believe) characters, story, choices, dialogues: 5/5 atmosphere, immersion: 5/5 combat, animation, dynamics: 2/5 only lame-core thing in this game. in total: 4.25/5 but i'll give this five. one of my best experience in a not only as computer game but also as a piece of art... i must iterate. really beautiful music, if chopin did see this , he would have been proud of soundtrack composers.

The overwhelming number of 5-star, "best game ever", reviews is suspicious. In reality, 95% of people say it is unstable, boring, trash. Here in forumland it's a 5-star "epic" "gem" "masterpice" that is "one of the most" yadayada buzzwords, buzzwords. Peculiar, no?

"The Witcher" is based on a complex world created by a Polish fantasy author Andrzej Sapkowski and features Geralt of Rivia as its protagonist. Geralt is a witcher - a mutant created for one purpose only: to slay monsters. The game starts with a certain hostile group of combatants, known as Salamandra, attacking the witchers' stronghold of Kaer Morhen, where Geralt is recuperating. While the knowledge of how to create any more witchers has been lost, the means are still available at the fortress and Salamandra are obviously after them. Why, you will have to find out for yourself as in Geralt's shoes you'll go on an epic quest to avenge your fallen friends and unravel hidden conspiracies. Geralt relentlessly pursues Salamandra throughout the game and along the way changes himself and those around him. The greatest strength of "The Witcher" lies in its writing. Both the world and the characters come alive on screen and pull us into the great conspiracies, happening just beyond the veil of ignorance. The game world is very dynamic with every choice we make having smaller or bigger consequences, so choose wisely what to do. The biggest choice of all is of course which faction you side with. There are Scoia'tel (The Squirrels) - non-human freedom fighters fed up with their mistreatment by humans and having taken up arms; the other side is The Order of the Flaming Rose - a faction obviously inspired by Knights Templar. The biggest appeal of "The Witcher" is that this is such a grey world - there is no right or wrong and everyone has more than a few skeletons in their closets. There are few games, where words "dark and gritty" actually feel as properly applied as here. Whatever you choose or don't choose, there will be lots of fighting involved both in the main storyline and the side-quests. The fighting is based of the, so called, witcher combat styles, that is basically Geralt hacking the shit while you are quicktiming to press the mouse at the right times. Many people seem to complain about this quicktiming, but I found the fighting very involving and never repetitive or boring and if you dislike the sword fighting, you can always use signs. "The Witcher" employs some godly tunes and the soundtrack really fits the atmosphere and provides chords to really make you feel in an adventure story. On the other hand graphics haven't aged very well - only a few years have passed since the creation of the game and while the overall backgrounds are not bad, some of the character models look really awkward and undetailed. Also the hordes of clones plague the world as only a few builds and faces are used for common city and village folks. Sometimes it gets ridiculous as you bump into five or six persons that look the same in a row. "The Witcher" is not an overly long game, but it's immensely satisfying. When I knew that we are about to get a sequel I was almost jumping in joy. Now, I usually don't spend my nights playing games anymore as I have to get up early to go to work, but I lost myself in Witcher until the early morning a few times. There are few games this involving and this... alive to actually care about characters. Also, kudos to the game for invoking one badass plot twist at the end that I definitely didn't foresee the first time I played the game. "The Witcher Enhanced Edition" comes with seven bonus adventures that can be played outside of the main game with five of them being fan-made. Full review can be found on my blog (http://beliar-cos.blogspot.com/2011/06/witcher-enhanced-edition-review.html).

If you're buying this game based on the numerous positive reviews on this site, keep in mind that the vast majority of people who love this game are looking at it with rose colored glasses. They tend to over exaggerate what's good and completely ignore what isn't. This game does have some strengths. For a nine year old game, The Witcher still looks pretty good. Characters and monsters are very well designed, and the setting is interesting. The combat and alchemy mechanics are easy to understand and yet also offer a lot of depth. However, there's also a lot of bad. The story, while good, is poorly told. It's a disjointed and jumbled mess that jumps around all over the place. It's difficult to keep track of what's going on, and when you can keep track of it it's not very engaging. The voice acting of all the characters, especially Geralt, is abysmal. It got to the point where I was just clicking through dialogue because I could not stand to listen to these characters drone and on and on in dull, emotionless voices. Most of the quests have you playing deliveryman, running from point A to point B to bring someone one thing or another. You will spend a lot of time pressing W in this game. Finally, for a game that is so lauded for being mature and serious, it's depiction of sex is one of the most juvenile and immature things I have ever seen. One particularly memorable example is when you convince a dryad to sleep with you, because by doing so she will keep her mind sharp and that will benefit her people in their struggle to survive against the onslaught of humans. Your reward for sitting through this sophomoric dialogue is a card with an illustration that comes straight out of the fantasies of a middle school D&D player. Bear in mind that most of the people who champion this game do so because it represents a "true" RPG to them. They're more interested in maintaining an arbitrary standard of purity than actually giving an honest assessment of the game.

I got this game on sale and it was a great deal. I had an issue but GoG's great support staff took care of it rather quickly. Game is a must for all Witcher and RPG fans.