The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition

The Witcher 2 starts with Geralt coming awake to find himself in a dungeon facing execution for the murder of a king. From there he is interrogated by Vernon Roche to recall the details of the last battle and how the king died. The story is recalled in pieces and The Prologue unfolds this way. I would love to tell you more , but so much of the game revolves around the excellent story that anything I could tell would be spoiling the fun. Instead, I’ll cover the overview of it. The story is fluid and compelling, but not without it’s flaws. If you don’t pay attention the story can be hard to follow. It moves in a lot of different directions with a lot of different names very fast. However, there is an excellent journal with information on all the characters, places, events, creatures, and even some of the dialogue you encounter. So, if you find yourself lost in the story you can quickly catch up there. I actually found myself spending a lot of time reading the books and taking in the history of the world. The information from the books you read is almost always transferred to your journal for you to look at later. This method of story telling allows the very cinematic approach the game takes while keeping the background and depth of a book and RPG. The Witcher 2 has plenty of RPG elements without a lot of the ‘fetch quests’ . This makes the game feel so much more involved and cinematic. Most of the quests have a tie in with the story, and I never felt forced to do a filler quest just to advance through the game. Everything had a purpose and often more than one. This is excellent since it keeps the story moving steadily towards a common goal without the feeling of wasting time. You may be stuck and have to do some quests for this person or the next, but it all ties together in such a way that it feels right. Granted, there are side quests and job boards where you can use your Witcher skills to hunt monsters to gather gold and items. These aren’t required, but most are enjoyable and often encountered on the paths the main quest takes. The only ‘quest’ I didn’t enjoy was the dice poker mini games that felt only like filler for items and money. The idea wasn’t horrible, I just always lost. In order to finish the quest line I would guess I lost 3 out of every 5 games. This repetition and failure made the mini game less than enjoyable to me, but I could just have really bad luck. Along with the great story and cinematic scenes the game boasts some excellent game play, albeit with a steep difficulty curve. The Prologue was especially tough, but during my initial play through a patch was released successfully addressing the balance issues. However, The Witcher 2 still can be frustratingly difficult at times. The trick is to remember your potions and weapon enhancements. These abilities help ease the difficulties early on. Don’t let the early fighting discourage you because after a few ability levels the fighting curve quickly levels out. Eventually leaving you feeling much more powerful, but occasionally challenged by bosses. The ability tree is where all your leveling is handled in The Witcher 2. I really like this system because you can tell early on the potential for multiple play styles. There are four main branches of the ability tree, Witcher Training, Swordsmanship, Magic, and Alchemy . With the 3 ‘class’ branches locked until you put a certain amount of ability points into the Witcher Training branch. Once unlocked you have a hard decision to make. The ability points are limited and can’t be changed once used. So, you have to decide early on which path you want to take. Taking multiple paths is certainly possible, but the better abilities are found at the end of the trees. I found by the end of the game I had only enough ability points to max out one of the ability paths. What I like so much about this system is how much more powerful you can feel from a simple skill upgrade. Take the swordsmanship tree for example. With one skill point you can start damaging all the enemies around you. This has a dramatic effect on dealing with multiple enemies. I never explored the Magic or Alchemy paths, but they look like they have the potential to greatly effect the way you play the game. Along with the usual sword, magic, and alchemy method of fighting, The Witcher 2 includes several quick time events scattered throughout the game. Although there is an option to turn on or off ‘difficult QTE’s’ I never found any of them to be difficult with the option on. QTE use ranges from the fist fighting mini-game to parts of the epic boss battles. I enjoy the subtle use of quick time events in The Witcher 2. They add enough interaction to the cinematic events without being too frustrating or intrusive. Graphically the game is beautiful, as the screenshots below will show. The Witcher 2 features some very detailed environments and superbly crafted creatures. I spent a lot of time just gazing at the environment and getting too close to some of the creatures just for a better look. Everything seems to scale well enough that it should be playable on a large range of computers, and even at the lowest settings, The Witcher 2 offers graphics that are good enough to not distract from the joy of the game. Although The Witcher 2 is fantastic it is not without its flaws. I noticed a few bugs while playing worth noting. On a couple of occasions I found I had to reload because I either became stuck in an animation sequence or an npc or item that should be there wasn’t. I also had a handful of Crash to Desktops that were completely unexplainable near the end of the game. One that forced me to reload to an earlier save to continue. The only other noticeable bug was occasionally my quest marker would outright lie to me. Instead of taking me to the quest location it would lead me to the wrong place then change when I got there. None of the bugs felt game stopping to me because I have so many saves, but they could be frustrating if I didn’t save so often. So, I suggest saving often. Both for the bugs and the fact that sometimes death awaits around the corner. UPDATE: As of Patch 1.3 many of the above bugs have been fixed. With the upcoming release to XBOX 360 it is important to add that the game plays fantastically well with the XBOX 360 controller for Windows. I simply changed the control scheme to controller and the game picked right up with it. Menus, dialogue, and quick time events reflected controller buttons and the entire transition was smooth. Judging by my few hours with a controller I have every reason to believe the game will be just as great on the XBOX 360 as PC. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a superb game that I would recommend to anyone. It boasts an epic story with paths, love interests, and consequences on par with any rpg including those from Bioware. The game is fun and exciting throughout without the feeling of repetition, and every chapter leaves you wanting more. The Witcher 2 is beautifully crafted with details that leave you in awe and epic boss battles that make you feel like the Witcher you are suppose to be. Very few RPG games have pulled off the cinematic feel that The Witcher 2 has, and even fewer have a story with so many branches that replaying is almost a must. I was on the edge of my chair from the beginning, and I am left hoping there is more to come soon.

For starters, and having just completed last month's combo deal offering both games, let me start off by stating that my initial introduction to the series was a positive one. The Witcher 1 wasn't a game of great depth by any means, but it did deliver fairly well on what was being offered up around a storyline that was both unique and immersive (with Geralt as one of the more interesting/appealing main characters i've seen in an RPG to date imo). By and large the game mechanics were solid, and while i usually prefer a much less linear approach to a game world setting, it's wasn't confining/linear to the point where the game around it essentially amounted to little more then a general/boring annoyance between that intriguing story being told. Which pretty much brings us to where the Witcher 2 essentially weighs in as a stand-alone game. In typical modern day RPG development fashion, CD Projekt pretty much follows suit with the development path seen in such games like Final Fantasy/Dragon Age. Ya know, completely stripping the emphasis away from the stuff that actually gives an RPG it's soul, in favor of that seemingly universal belief that a shiny new coat of graphical paint is all we REALLY want and care about. Even if it means you offer up Paris Hilton-level depth beyond that in the process. Basically, pretty much everything gameplay wise was a step backwards. Unlike the first game, the night/day cycles are more or less irrelevant this go round. Gone are the fighting styles, stripped down and condensed into a simplified steel/silver setup. The UI in itself is an utter mess, from the confusing in-game map, to the inability to compare weapons/armor to what you are wearing, down to managing your inventory in general...it makes for more then a few "wtf where they thinking?" moments. And the inability to remap keys in-game, or delete save files that can accumulate up pretty fast for that matter, is pretty much inexcusable imo. I can't even recall a game since before the original Zelda that wouldn't let me delete save files. Combat, minus the sword style strip down, is actually more challenging this time. Although in game that's THIS linear, and with so little reason to do any of the extremely limited and fairly meaningless/bare bone side quest stuff it offers, that's arguably not even a good thing. As make no mistake, if you are playing this game because you played the first one, you likely are going to find yourself in it solely for the cut scene progression. With little desire to have the 5 different mob models of yard trash take you X amount longer to clear between them. So yeah, overall this game was a disappointment, and pretty much kills off the gameplay/depth potential for the 3rd installment i'm sure we'll see in the future. If you haven't played the first one, or have no interest in doing so, I'd otherwise advise you take a pass on the Witcher 2. Or at least until it's down to bargain bin price status.

I almost quit Witcher 2 after tedious bossfight early on. What a mistake that would have been! It is an excellent RPG, which manages to be mature in terms of content and delivery. The reason it's short of 5 stars for me is that some early bosses are not very well done (I had a bug preventing me from beating the first and the second had bad scripting in my opinion) and that the last Act doesn't hold up to the rest of the game. However, if you like RPG in any way, shape or form this game is a must play!

I have been meaning to write this review for a while. I loved The Witcher. At a time when there when Bethesda was really the only other game in town, The Witcher managed to be new and interesting and really engaging. It wasn't perfect - the game had a lot of bugs and combat was only okay - but the narrative was superb and the setting was great. The Witcher 2 is interesting in that the combat, graphics, leveling and basic nuts and bolts have all been drastically changed and improved. The Witcher 2 has a really engaging and unique combat system that feel different from other games and, for me, feel more realistic and engaging. Leveling choices feel more important, and you definitely have a sense of character progression and development. While it takes a while to get used to, I ended up loving these changes to the series. Oh, and the game is gorgeous. Not just in its graphics, but in art design and the use of color in what is still a gritty, urban fantasy series. The narrative is also very good. I did feel that the first game told a more complete story, but I really respect the fact that a person can have two wildly divergent experiences based on their own decisions (especially in regards to Act II). But while the story does have a definitive end, they developers were also setting themselves up for a third game. I of course desperately want them to make it, so that I can continue, but the first game does shine a bit stronger here. There are still some bugs, but the enhanced edition cleared a lot of them up. Its not as bad as, say, Fallout: New Vegas, but it might bother some players. Overall, this is a great game, with a unique feel, complex game play and a good story. Fantasy RPG lovers need to play this game.

Modern games should learn something from this game... Rpgs nowadays are mostly mindless grinding and soulless slaying of monsters... The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is not. The graphics, sounds, environment, characters, story... Everything is well made and have a realistic feel on them. It actually feels more like reading the books than playing the game sometimes, because the story is a very deep one. None of the characters are entirely good or evil, because everyone has a personal motive for helping (or opposing) Geralt. Of course, the game s not perfect. The environment is pretty linear (free roam would eat some core parts of the book-like feel though) and the story was a pretty short. The battle system might not be the best in the world, but still feels pretty good. Overall, Witcher 2 is a hardcore fantasy rpg, that no one should miss.