It is friday night...or more like saturday morning around 4:00. I got myself some new games past the last weeks: Overwatch, Elite Dangerous, XCOM 2, Take on Mars, new Fallout 4 DLCs and some of my favorite alpha access games got updated. I ended up playing Witcher 3 all night. Again, only managing to finish one single quest, spending most of the time walking and stopping: to look and listen and drift from one fight to the next; getting caught by surprise, dying; repeating all over again, forgetting about time, life and the world outside. Whatever games you might like; you do not have WItcher 3? - Buy this! It is good for you! Technically: Witcher 3 is the best game for UHD resolutions that I own. Some other look great too: GTA V for example(dump money for SLi rig btw. I stick with 1080), or Fallout 4 (with some 200 mods and ENB+ReShade etc.). Those have a downside though. Although graphics look great, UI scaling does not come out as expected. Fonts, Minimaps etc simply get too small. Total War series for example is fun and looks good in UHD...except that one has to sit 1 meter away from a 50 inch screen, still struggling to read the text windows because everything is becoming to small. Another issue is field of view: Witcher 3 is one of the few games that does not have that "shoe box effect". That feel of looking through a limited frame that Fallout 4 has(tweaks help). The field of view is just right to pull you into this magnificent dreamworld without making you dizzy by scewing and bending on the corners of the FOV. Texture selection and resolution is something in between over the top and mind blowing. It delivers a really decent performance considering the density and variety of the vegetation. No textures look blurred or pixelated. Only few remind you of the possibility that it was originally designed with 1080p in mind...which ain't a downside. Waters are totally stunning, lightning and LOD/Detail scaling are out of this world. Performance: For 1080p get a decent GTX960. For UHD you will need a GTX980. That is if you want to max out on all settings. I got the game preorder and have been through the whole patching process with 3 installations (one modded/two clean). My experience with GOG store application and patching the game was rather unsatisfying; nevertheless the support is superfast and supereffective. So I think five stars is a fair rating. With everything flawless it would deserve a sixth star. Concerning patch content and quality, this game beats what I have seen of BETHESDA and Co. Story: My English lacks the superlatives to describe how awesome the story is. You might think you already know games with fantastic plots and deep characters - If you have not played this yet, you do not know. I really liked the plot of GTA V and III. I also enjoyed Elder Scrolls series and Dragon Age. Compared to these, Witcher 3 knocked me of my feet. Not to mention the language and subtitle options and incredible voice acting. Yen sounds so hot in polish, damn! Gameplay: If you liked exploring and slaying ugly things in games like Diablo, you might just be satisfied with that for quite some time; and follow the story a while later....That way you can blow your mind twice - just sayin. When you should overdose on awesomeness, play a round of GWINT maybe? Difficulty can be set to supereasy for just enjoying the story; or to a really challenging grade with the extra option to levelscale your enemies. Just think of the number of mods you needed in other games to achieve this. There are games out there that are harder to beat. Witcher 3 may not be Dark Souls style difficulty, but it is close. It may also be the possibility to save your game almost everywhere when out of combat, that makes it feel a bit easier. Compared to Fallout 4 survival mode, Witcher 3 on highest difficulty feels more like a real challenge. Controls are, as almost all aspects of the game, formidable. The first RPG I prefer playing with an XBOX controller. User Interface was very good from the beginning. The patched improvements topped my expectations and made UI mods obsolete. Overall: I compared Witcher 3 to other open world games that may not be well comparable. Apples and Oranges? - Yes. Witcher 3 = a masterpiece of art. The rest is just really good games. The games cons are obvious: your sleeping rythm, social life and productivity are going to suffer or will disappear for a while. It is okay and totally worth it, trust me ;)
