The gaming world was a different place before Arkham Asylum. Until Batman Arkham Asylum arrived, we didn’t know just how badly we had been missing a game that could make you feel like billy big bollocks and boy did it deliver. Indeed, this style of combat system has become the norm for 3rd person melee combat RPGs. In my eyes, the combat is what makes this game. Its freeflow design is so tactile, responsive and has fantastic, bone crunching feedback that it feels unbelievably satisfying. With such a simple set of inputs (at least initially), the game encourages you to perfect timings and combos rather than simple button mashing. The combat system is so well honed and refined that by the end of the game, a skilled player can launch feet first into a large group of henchmen and seamlessly take every last man down with well over 10 distinctly different moves, all tied together into a 50 move combo without ever taking a single hit. The end result is simply stunning to watch and pure joy incarnate to execute yourself. To top it off, the skill balance is just about perfect as to do something like this is neither unrewardingly simplistic nor frustratingly impossible. But Batman is so much more than the combat even though the game could probably stand up on its jaw crunching merits alone. The other set of mechanics that play so perfectly into the theme and gameplay of Arkham Asylum is the Batman’s ability for stealth and this really does enable you to approach situations in a variety of ways and is particularly great at enabling the Batman to take down enemies unawares or launch into combat with the element of surprise at hand. Combine these skills with the combat and here you have the perfect marriage of mechanics that makes you feel like the Batman. That feeling of swinging from gargoyle to gargoyle before gliding down, batcape unfurled, onto a completely unsuspecting group of goons and perfectly beating them up in a flawless combo is quite simply, unmatched.
There's no denying the level of hype surrounding this game and it has quite predictably fallen prey to the extremely high expectations surrounding it. Nothing could possibly live up to such expectation. That being said, the launch of Cyberpunk does seem to be an uncharacteristic misstep by the incredible CDPR. Delays followed by crunch, leading into censored reviews (console versions unreviewed prior to launch and B-roll footage insisted upon) and finally into a launch day where the conversation about bugs is a dominant one. This has not been the kind of timeline we have come to expect of the most respectful CDPR. Given time, however, I am in no doubt that the whole team at CDPR will polish this already exceptional game into another genre defining classic just as the Witcher 3 has become. Sure, there are bugs in the game, the UI is a little unwieldly and performace is yet to be optimised, but none of that can take away from the breathtaking scope of the game, the incredible attention to detail and the sheer imagination and creativity that has been lovingly poured into this game to create an experience as expansive and immersive as this. This is a true work of art; a true milestone in the already storied history of video gaming. I feel that many negative reviews, though certainly not all, being left in these first 24 hours since launch are giving far too much weight to the technical gripes that sully the experience, and whilst they are there, do they characterise the ENTIRE experience of the game? And finally, have CDPR as a game developer not earned all of our trust to see that Cyberpunk 2077 will inevitably become the incredible polished gem that already lies beneath? Have they not shown themselves to be champions of us the consumer and of the gaming industry at large? Give CDPR time, have a little patience, check your graphics drivers are up to date and take the time to write and read considered reviews with fair criticisms, not knee-jerk reactions.
The development of the Witcher games was taken on by a Polish company, making the Witcher series (a completely Polish product from idea and writing through to AAA video game) one of the biggest cultural exports of modern Poland and made CD Projekt, the developer, one of the biggest companies in the country. CD Projekt have an amazing story all their own and set their stall out confidently with the first Witcher game. It’s a bold and ambitious outing for a relatively new dev company and they created an incredibly dense and fulfilling RPG that offers all of the typical levelling, skills and attributes of a good RPG coupled with some interesting new mechanics that made the game a fresh offering for RPG fans. The inclusion of noticeably different swordfighting styles and a deep and complex alchemical mechanic involving countless reagents, numerous recipes and an endless number of creations with a wide variety of effects added a depth to the game that was new to many. The primary purpose of these mechanics is to create a tangible sense of a Witcher’s profession: hunting beasts and monsters. There is a large and diverse bestiary in the Witcher and many of these creatures have very different strengths and weaknesses that can be exploited through choosing the appropriate sword style and using the correct potions, oils or bombs. In a lot of cases, this isn’t really necessary as the monsters can be relatively easily dispatched with a few good licks of a sword, but there are just as many creatures that demand more thought and planning and will require a little bit of research in your own growing bestiary glossary. This is but a small snippet from my full review of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition. Please read the unabridged version and leave your own thoughts here: https://wingedtankard.wordpress.com/2017/03/06/the-witcher-enhanced-edition
