Ведьмак 2: Убийцы королей

A Hero? Pfff yeah right! A Killer? Perhaps.... A Witcher?......Bingo. 2 is better than 1 The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings is the sequel to the first installment by CD Projekt Red. Making drastic if not numerous changes on the original. With a much more expansive open-world, compared to the first a very large decrease in invisible walls, much more gestures when talking to the NPC's wherever Geralt travels, fast paced combat, no more of the ridiculous click to win like in the first. The styles of fast, group, and strong have all been discarded in favor of just fast and strong attacks with either sword. Dodging is more tactical and in fact encouraged due to Geralt not being someone who can roll over an enemy A.S.A.P. Potions make a return, as well as signs, oh and armor and weapons are even more extensive and wide ranging than the select amount you gain from the first game. All in all, the second game represents more in some ways the transformation CD Projekt Red has done, and this is displayed by Geralt's ageing self. The game in so many ways becomes unhindered by its limitations of old(usage of the old Bioware engine for the first.) Quests are even more diverse and can take a while to figure out which one you would like to do(what I mean here is there are a load of quests you can start and optional that can converge, so u can do a part of a quest here while also doing another part of another quest here and perhaps another). It's a complicated jumble of chemicals mixed into one potion with a wide variety of effects!(Get the pun?)

Longer review is here: http://pastebin.com/FHtsbxPY . Cliffnotes version: Gameplay: Much more refined and overall better than W1's gameplay, enemies and bosses are better, although bosses could have been a bit less cinematic and a bit more fun. 8/10 Story: Much more focused storytelling over W1's kinda generic "grimy medieval" setting. Dual paths seem to be a lot more impactful than in W1 as well. 8/10. Graphics: Art style is much more consistently good than in W1, optimization is fantastic despite a couple of laggy areas. 5/5. Sound: An occasional VA disappointment, although otherwise very spot on. OST is a bit less medieval-y than W1, but because of it has a lot more epic orchestral songs. 5/5 Overall scores are: 8/8/5/5; 8.7/10.

The second game in the trilogy, is even more beautiful, much like the ladies you get to romance. This game has everything working out for it, except the combat. It doesn't matter if you use "Full Combat Rebalance 2" mod, spamming fast attacks is usually viable and fights are not really challenging, you'll rarely need to use bombs/traps and other enhancements. The maximum difficulty level is "Insane" where "opponents deal very high damage and no saved game can be loaded if Geralt dies"; maybe this level couldn't exist if combat was generally more difficult. *Editors' Pick* Pros: rich story and lore, nice graphics, cool combat animations (made even better with with FCR2). Cons: with some exceptions, combat is not really challenging. Rating: one cat, not sure if the potion or the animal. http://pixelloot.com

This game was surpassed by The Witcher 3 in many ways. But that doesn't mean it is outdated or bad. It is still a very good game that will have you keep playing just one more hour. And one more. And then play it again in a different style with different choices. It is aimed at adult players and has some dark parts - and some erotic ones. And it does a good job of portraying the characters from the books.

I liked The Witcher so much, I went and bought this game as soon as I finished it. And I really really wanted to like this game too. On the plus side, it has a much better interface that the original Witcher, the graphics are improved, and the story looks as good. That plus nostalgia for the old game is why I didn't one star this effort. I only managed six frustrating hours with this game before giving up. The controls are so complex and so unwieldy it completely ruined this game for me. They also are not intuitive, so I had to unlearn as well as learn. I spent the first two hours with wildly zinging camera angles until I learned to control that, though only partially. I still spent a lot of time looking at my feet or the sky. Even six hours into the game, I couldn't remember how to activate half the controls and pressed wrong keys often. And why on earth the developers thought the game would be improved by having to use both hands at once most of the time, and having to use your LEFT hand for some of the more complex stuff is beyond me. (Most people are right handed, so I can only presume that the developers and testers were left handed.) Yes I could have got myself a controller, but I play for fun. I don't have special hardware for what is an occasional pastime. If you have hours to spend learning how to not suck at an unnecessarily complex combat system (when the first game did pretty much the same stuff WITH ONLY THE MOUSE), working out how to not bang into walls and random objects, and get familiar with a range of function keys is so large it's an advanced memory test, you'll probably enjoy it. Me, not so much. It's a game, not driving a car. Actually, driving a car is easier.