The Witcher: Enhanced Edition

This is not a game, this is an experience in which you, as a human being, need to make decisions, and this decisions are going to have consequences. You are one entity with Geralt of Rivia, his actions are dictated by your own, and you are entirely responsable if something goes wrong. The people that inhabit the world are much more than any npc in a game that i've seen so far, they are alive, all of them want something, they feel pain and sorrow, and are overjoyed when you give them something that they craved for. Without noticing you start to love every single one of the interactions that you face down the road, to explore with your feet, to drink and brawl at each one of the taverns and play dice with familiar faces, as well as hear stories of the locals and read every book around about the lands below you. You unravel the story and the mysteries that populate the land, as well as you practice a dance of death with your swords against the people that did you and your loved ones harm. In my opinion, i think I can say with confidence that this game is one of the best experiences that I had in gaming in my entire life. I still have to play the sequels, and believe me, I am looking forward to it.

I was a long time Bioware fan. I played BG1/BG2/NWN1/NWN2/DAO/DA2 and thought they were the pinnacle of RPGs. But my thoughts after playing The Witcher are: Biowho? This game just has much better sense of world realism than any Bioware RPG. The story is just so much better than anything I have played before. The degree to which they sweated the small details boggles my mind. Other RPGs have choices that affect gameplay, but they are often lightweight and superficial. Here I often had to stop as I was on the horns of dilemma. Like in real life, many decisions had no win-win, and each choice had potential negative outcomes. Must play for fans of gritty realism in an RPG.

Based on a series of books written by Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher takes us to an explicitly anti human alternate reality where there is no God and no hope, at a time when monsters are being slowly destroyed and replaced by those that are human only on the outside. The story is told through the eyes of an effeminate mutant, a Witcher called Geralt of Rivia. Enslaved to the predominantly female witches, who largely control the fate of the world, Geralt lives a dark and depressing life. Not only is he mostly powerless to resist being used by witches, but his profession is slowly becoming obsolete as the number of monster diminishes with each passing day. Combat is fairly simplistic and even at higher difficulties it is not very challenging, as long as one develops the right traits and uses the right tools for the job. A welcome change from many other similar games is the more European looking aesthetics, so at least the weapons and armour don't look like the comical caricatures we find in most other games. The story offers some choices in regards to which side Geralt ultimately fights with and which mistress he will serve. While sometimes cringe worthy and illogical, the story is generally well written. While the game failed to make me care about any of its characters, it is undeniably well made. I've played with some user made fixes and therefore haven't encountered any major bug in the game. A true miracle in these times. While being far from what I'd like to see, it is nonetheless the best game of this type that I ever played. It rightfully deserves the high praise and awards it received.

Apparently, this is an amazing, must play game. And I'd love to, really. But it doesn't work. I can install it, I can launch it buuuuut it just closes itself as soon as it's launched. Support is useless. GOG added it to my account for free, so I guess I can't be too mad... just sad, disappointed and extremely confused as to why you would add a game to my library that clearly doesn't work with my computer at all. Have fun playing your free copies of The Witcher EE, unless you have a Mac! Lol.

I really, really wanted to buy this game on GOG. But when Steam made me an offer I couldn't refuse (can't remember exactly, but it was less than 6 euro), I bought it over there. Wherever you buy it, it's an absolute classic. For every RPG-fan, it's a no brainer: get it! For all the rest of you, since it's available at GOG for a GOG-prize, it's a no brainer as well: get it!