Well, the game is great and it totally worth your time. But it could be better. The good things first: visually the game is amazing. Artist did such a good job. Mountains with stone temples and snow, dark forest with crystals growing on the soil, waterfals... Sometimes it looks so epic you're just standing still a minute and staring. And then you're going deep down to seek secrets buried underground. Such a contrast. Technologies and nature fused together. Gameplay is fast and satisfying. You have a bunch of sword techniques and various guns plus granades. Use them as you please. Firstly it would be challenging to see anything in this flashy nightmare, but you'll get used to it eventually. It's impossible to wipe out everything just with agressive tapping, so fast thinking may be crucial to actually clear the game. Fast gameplay is also the biggest problem of HLD. If you are not skilled enough, you'll be dead in a seconds. If you know what you're doing, it won't take long to kill every single enemy and keep going. So you can die, like, ten times in one minute. There are many secret paths here and there, much more than you can imagine, and it may be really hard to find them. Who wanted some challenging platforming? We have it. In my personal opinion another big problem is story and characters. If you'll try to dig little bit deeper, you'll find nothing. It's all empty. NPCs are just moving sprites. All the plot fits in a two cut-scenes. The game has its unique atmosphire, not a story. Kind of sad.
Good RPG as it is, with a ton of quests, main and optional, ton of walking and talking and 50+ hours of exploring. If you are already a fan of original book series, you'll find many tiny or big references here and there. Those who worked on the story are in love with the Sapkovsky's creation, I'm sure of it. But if you know nothing about ''The Witcher'' now, this is the perfect start. What is essential for good fantasy game? Atmosphere of Middle Ages, of course. You're a professional beast hunter. Your home was robbed, one of your friends had been killed, another one -- wounded. With empty pouch and sword on your back you're travelling to Vizima pursuing the Salamandra band. On your way you can make some money slayng beasts and helping people in need. Or will you choose another way? There will be multiple times when you'll need to make a choise and then deal with consequences. Make a friend or an enemy, choose one side or don't choose at all. In books and glossary you can find useful information on politics, secret organisations, events of great importance and beasts, of course. Gain experience through quests and battles, make your witcher killing machine. Skin your prey and use its guts for brewing potions. Smash pesant girls and sorceresses. Is this game ideal? Of course not. It could be from the story point. Unfortunately it is low budget game, so there is various optimisation issues. For exemple, if you'll find evidence against alchemist in the Chapter III investigetion, it can brake your games. Sometimes it's impossible to claim the quest reward because NPC doesn't want to talk about it. Fighting sometimes looks more like it is in JRPG. Locations may be confusing so you'll run circles time to time. But you'll totaly forget everyting when another conversation with the story character will turn upside down your previous understanding of the plot and you'll start new chapter with clear new vision. So play this game, but be ready to spent nights in it's world.
One of the best 3D-platformers ever. Every human mind you visit is a inique place with it's own style and it's own rules. In one of the imagine worlds you can play role of the giant who crushes the sity builings. In second world it will be fighting with Napoleon. 20+ hours of gameplay, and it's never boring. Soundtrack is really nice, it helps you get a right mood. In real world you can just listen it and relax, in the world of Milkman paranoija it is not really comfortable and in asylum you'll be really anxious. I'd also like to mention NPC's, it really feels like they are personalities, not a video-game characters. For me the weak part of the game is it's ending. It is just not serious enough to get satisfaction from finishing such a good adventure. Circus is annoying, not too hard though. But Psychonauts still is one of the best games I've ever played.
