The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition

Just like the first game, this one rewards multiple playthroughs -- the story becomes clearer, you get a better understanding of the skills, alchemy, and combat. The game simply does not hold your hand and what can seem confusing at first will make sense after your 2nd or 3rd time. Art design and graphics are top notch, battle animations are fluid and realistic, lacking the God of War over the top antics that plagues so many games. The game is hard at first, and then eases up about 2/3 of the way through, perhaps too much. But it rewards a thoughtful approach and punishes severely a foolhardy one. There's lots of people saying it doesn't live up to the original, and that it's been consolized - mostly bollocks. Alchemy is more useful now, as are bombs and traps. You have many more options in combat, and most of all, the repetitive timed click sequences are gone. The writing is superb, never overly serious. In fact there's more humor this time around. People have also complained about only two paths, which is again, bollocks. TW2 offers more dynamic choice and consequence than its predecessor. The plot branches in wildly different directions based on your choices. About the only thing that's been consolized is the UI. CDPR could work on doing a better job next time. Even for consoles it's not very good. There's still some delayed input issues such as hotkeys not working , but the EE has improved the flow of combat and fixed most of the bugs. In the end, this game is a rich and complex RPG, something all too rare these days, and CDPR continues to prove they eschew a mainstream approach for an uncompromising and unique experience.

I bought this game on GOG because it was DRM free, and that is a nice thing. I hate games that requires you to install tons of crap on your computer in order to work. So I thought it was a good idea to reward the initiative. Now for the game itself. I did not like it, at all. Here is what I felt of the game : In Witcher 2 you play the role of a crippled weakling whose delusion is to think he is a mosnter killer. Basically anyone in this world is way stronger than you. It takes you about seven to eight swords slash to bring down an unarmoured skinny bandit, while you can wistand about three or four from the same bandit. Most tougher opponents will bring you down in two to three blows. Geralt as many handicaps, the most frustrating being that he can hardly open a door unless he is at the right distance and at the right angle. This can leave him struggling at the front of an Inn for as much as twenty second while you try to gently make him take a walk around the door to position yourself correctly. Geralt also as a very bad vision, its depth perception seems to be completely off for example. When in a fight he will instinctivly choose the furthest less dangerous opponent among the pack. and jump at him (only to immediatly change target unless you lock your opponent at that moment). Doing this he will land right in the middle of the pack only to be hacked down since he is a weakling (most peasants, low soldier and even girls can survive for quite a long time in the middle of a pack of monster, Geralt cannot last more than 10 sec). Geralt also seems to be afflicated by some grave psychomotor afflication, once he starts a move he will finish it. If you click on the mouse button more than once and the first blow is countered, Geralt wil refuse to try escape or parry until the complete combo is done. This makes "strike once then run away" the most powerfull attack in the game. Expect for one detail, Geralt cannot back properly, if you tell him to move out he will also immediatly turn around, leaving his back open to enemies (who will then cause double damage). So you end up doing some kind of an awkward crab dance trying to keep one enemy in focus while praying not to get surrounded. Another technique consist in laying lots of traps, kitting enemies into them then runnig to the point where they will give up the chase and starting over. In both case you will have a lot of fun and feel like a real hero.... I stopped playing the game with the fight against the Kayran. The first time I fought the Kayran I would kill me in two attacks. So I went back to an earlier save, did all the side quests, upgraded my stuff to the maximum possible, gulped quite a few potion and then ... the Kayran would kill me in two attacks. After learning patterns by heart and slicing quite a few tentacles, I noticed a little something : a QTE challenge. It is quite hard to miss, because QTE informations are displayed in bright orange, so it really stands out against the bright orange Kayran skin, the bright orange herbs or the bright orange reflexion on the water of the bright orange sky. Add to this the fact that the camera is constantly changing against your will (new angle when you cut a tentacle, new angle when the Kayran strikes the bridge, new angle when you are done cutting a tentacle, new angle when the QTE comes) only to come back in the worst position making you go exactly at the place you were trying to avoid when the angle changed. Al in all it is painfull. If you try to do anything heroic, you get chopped down in a flash, and if you play to survive, you get bored. None the less you will end up saving a lot, by fear that something horrible (two bandits, including one with a buckler for example) might happen. I got bored....

This is prime example of a great game that was revamped instead of tweaked. The original wasn't perfect but it was still a great game. Unfortunately, the developers decided to rework almost everything and it's very obvious that this is no longer a PC exclusive game. They made extensive use of cut scenes which can be very irritating when they are in the middle of a fight with multiple enemies! Not all is bad though, the signs are a little more helpful in battle. Alchemy is not as complicated and more useful. I know I won't scare away any of the original Witcher fans with this review but if you are new to the series I can't fully recommend it.

Graphically stunning game, however due to this probably quite limited gameworld. Does not feel as open as the first part and controls and interface are less than optimum. Maybe that will be fixed in a future extended edition. Playtime is also less than in part I. Storywise it is again a genuinely unique experience, however except for act one you really never stray to much from the main story, as everything really happens more or less in one plays. I'd probably like a less graphically stunning but more open game world more (and more towns, people, chickens, dogs, immersion). Still it is a good game, just not as good for me as the Witcher 1. 4 + 1/2 stars

This game screams of quality and attention to detail from top to bottom, so I'm going to try and touch briefly on the things that have impressed me so far. I am going to sound like a fanboy, but this is the game that has won me over to CD Projeckt RED's side. So if I sound impressed, it's not because I feel like I have to prop up a mediocre product out of loyalty but because I am so amazed by the quality of this game. The writing in this game is fantastic. The dialogue and background banter transitions from comedy to dark and threatening and even mundane without breaking immersion or feeling forced. The voice acting is superb, and the facial animations really help sell the lines. I am only a couple of chapters in so far, but I felt compelled to pull myself away from playing and write about the engaging storyline. So far none of the choices I've been given have been that tired old angelic vs. pure evil crap that is present in nearly every other game in the genre. The responses you are given to work with all convey genuine attitudes that real people would have. The problems you are told to solve are rarely trivial and are almost always the kind of urgent situation you would hire a medieval commando for. It may be controversial, but I feel that the mature content in The Witcher 2 is present without feeling forced. Violence, nudity, racism, and foul language are all present where you would realistically expect them to be. So far I have not felt like the game was being dark just to prove a point. What the game does convey is a sense that people's lives can be short and brutal, and that many folks are grabbing whatever they can because they are motivated by hatred or self-interest. The average person of any race has to contend with corrupt officials almost daily, and at some point in their lives murderous racists and horrible monsters. They use sex, alcohol, gambling and fistfighting to help them forget all that. The visuals are easily among the best I've ever seen, in any genre on any system. Every time I get into a new environment I am amazed by the lighting and details that have gone into every corner of every environment. The rain looks like real rain, dust clouds are stirred up by breezes on dry streets, and cloth/leather/chain are all amazingly detailed. It may sound foolish, but I absolutely adore the way that gatherable herbs blend into the other foliage seamlessly, unlike other games where you can tell it's a "model" apart from the scenery. The environments all look so organic and real. There are little details everywhere, e.g. after it rains roof shingles glisten and you kick up spatters of mud instead of clouds of dust when you walk around. I don't know what the game looks like on lower-spec machines, but on a good gaming rig it looks absolutely stunning. Character designs are also excellent. The Witcher looks like a mean, grizzled veteran without straying into "herp derp Space Marine in Camelot" territory like so many protagonists do. Very few characters are clean and unmarked, which is fitting for the dark medieval setting. The military uniforms and armor sets are well-designed and I imagine draw a fair bit of inspiration from real-world historical armor. Details like tattoos and scars are all handled very well. The gameplay is also deeper this time around than in the first Witcher. Combat is much deadlier than it was in the original game, which shows the influence games like Demon Souls had and is a change I really like. In the first game, as soon as you learned to chain combos together you were basically immortal. In the sequel, many enemies are credible threats, especially on the higher difficulties and when they are present in large numbers. No more running into a group and mashing your attack key until the baddies are dead. Instead you are forced to buff up beforehand, leap around picking off stragglers, and try to find a way to deal with the range of giant two-hand swords or the defences of shield users. Luckily your magic spells are all useful, which is a great change from the original where you could easily get by with using only one or two spells and ignoring the others. In The Witcher 2, you can toss an opponent off his feet, light him on fire, paralyze him with a trap, charm him to fight for you, or give yourself short-lived invulnerability with a shield, and all your choices are viable and upgradeable. The alternate game modes have also been given a revamping. Fist-fighting has been improved, going from the bland duck-punch-duck-punch routine of the original to quick-time-event style reaction tests. The resulting animations are absolutely brutal and are reminiscent of no-holds-barred MMA fighting. I am not a fan of being able to lose your dice by tossing them out of play, but you will definitely feel like you are actually rolling dice when you play poker and not just looking at a fancy random number generator. New to the sequel are stealth sequences, which are handled better than a lot of games if not quite as well as dedicated stealth games like the Splinter Cell series. Still, they are enjoyable and present a welcome change in the type of challenges you have to overcome. Finally, arm wrestling is an interesting, if minor, diversion. One last thing to mention is that CD Projekt RED has stated that all DLC for the game will be free. I only found out after I bought the game and I think this is a fantastic gesture to the community that shows they are as dedicated to the player's experience as they are to profit. I love this game, and after feeling burned by the shortcuts taken in Dragon Age 2, I have been won over by the obvious care that was given to the creation of The Witcher 2. Excellent job on a superlative game and I will be pre-ordering their titles in the future.