The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

A truly stunning, fantastic acheivment. An instant classic of gaming history that truly deserves the title, where others in reality fall short. This is a game anyone who calls themself a gamer should own, regardless of whether or not you've played the previous titles or are aware of the universe, regardless of whether you consider yourself hardcore, casual, or any other classification; This is an ode to the gamer and a love letter to the medium as a whole. The Witcher 3 brings back that old-school feeling of being absorbed in a game so completely it takes over your life, inspires the imagination and succeeds in reminding you of why you play them in the first place. This isn't to say there are no flaws, there are; but they're so few and insignificant, with so much more to counter-balance them, that they can be easily to overlooked. 20 out of 10: This is art.

TL;DR: Great story; great atmosphere. Pros: • Integrity: This game is made for gamers and by gamers. They spared no coin making sure the game was an excellent playthrough. Unlike Ubi and EA, who both clearly have at least thrice as much finance as CDPR does, yet still manage to make trashy games. • Gwent: A miniature card game which proves to be an excellent diversion from the bloodbath you'll experience much of throughout the game. • Story Quests: Each primary/secondary quest is superb in its own right carrying choices to be made and consequences to be had. There is no "good" or "bad" ending per se (for the most part) because each decision made is based on a subjective morality rather than an "objective" morality (for the most part). You're really driven to give your best sense of judgement. • Witcher Contracts: The contracts make you feel as if you're a true mercenary (a "Witcher" in this case or a mercenary specialised in monster slaying for simplicity sake). You're even able to haggle yourself a bonus rate. There are more options when dealing with sentient monsters though. • Social Interactions: You're able to develop a strong bond with the more "unique" characters throughout the game which is because you'll go through so much together. The voice acting and the body language of each cutscene is well-played. Cons: • Level Scaling: Most things won't scale to your level properly until New Game Plus (e.g. quests and items). • Environmental Interaction: It's difficult interacting with the environment during combat (e.g. opening an entrance or vaulting an object). • Quest Objectives: Failing "optional" or "one-way" quest objectives can prove to be quite annoying and trying to correct those errors can prove to be even more exhausting. It's nothing too major, but it's worth noting that seeing a red crossout (indicating failure) anywhere in your quest log entry is an eye-sore. 9.5/10. - It's worth the buy; even at full price. Make sure to play NG+ upon completion.

I remember so many failed sequels to great computer games. I remember Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Mass Effect 3.... such failures from the perspective of stories and ambitious projects. So when I started Witcher 3 and realized its ambition, I amost expected the eventual place in the game where things start to fall apart. That never happened. Everything about this game is well beyond any of its peers. The game feels open, yet there is a driving, emotional pull of the storyline. The story is huge. I kept expecting to be at the end, only to be led into the next chapter that was even bigger. The side quests are often big stories themselves, and often have a way of connecting to something else. You could wander the countryside for a week just exploring, too, if that is your thing. I think that after 2 play throughs I haven't seen half of what there is to find. The acting is awesome, and the animations are tremendously good at conveying emotion. Triss and Yen are both a very big deal that is very well done. The only thing that isn't perfect was that so many of the non-important characters share faces, not that it affects the story at all. My first play through was played on an older computer on low graphics and I loved the game. My second was on a new computer with a modern graphics card on ultra settings.... absolutely beautiful, and I loved the game. The second time I experienced many game crashes until I installed an Nvidia driver hot patch for chrome and alt-tab errors and patch 1.07. After that the game never crashed on me. I don't know how any game could follow this one. It is the most impressive and fun RPG that I've ever played.

This game is so good, that after struggling through the glitches of Witcher 1, after replaying Witcher 2 twice so I could actually play the full game, and after pirating Witcher 3 on my PS4, I logged onto GoG and paid for the game. Thats right, this is the type of game that makes pirates want to put down cold hard cash to get more of and support the Developers. Despite the previous games issues, and the horrible load times on PS4, the Witcher 3 is an amazing game. And as someone who lived through the golden age of gaming pre-2008, leaving me with very high standards in games, this game gave me hope again for the games industry.

It's about as good as it gets for me when it comes to these types of games. It's beautiful, has lots' of stuff to learn, and the story is pretty good, in some places even awesome. I bought it on Xbox One, but regretted it because of the loooong load times after death. MUCH better experience on PC (m2 ssd), but it still plays best for me with an xbox controller. So get one of those. Downsides: Not enough whores, and sorceress girlfriend's temper is too realistic, she reminds me of my wife! Trying to escape/compliment reality here, not relive it.