I am writing this review after about 25 hours of gameplay as a mage. This game seems very well put together. The world feels real, it does indeed immerse you in the idea of living a virtual life. The graphics pop off the screen (in all honesty, I am so old school that this game is the newest game that I've played). I had seen this concept mentioned before I ever installed the game: scaling. This is the game-breaking problem. Apparently, the difficulty scales with your character's level. The issue I have with this is that it's simply too easy, and just sliding the difficulty meter up seems an artificial band-aid. Better game design (well, by better I suppose I mean just doing stuff that I prefer) would have balanced this game in a more difficult direction. No enemies through the first 25 hours and roughly 9 levels have presented any kind of challenge, and it caused me to lose interest in the game. Compare that to Oblivion's immediate predecessor, Morrowind. There was always a danger of instant death, or at the very least an extremely difficult passage. It was rewarding to learn the game and work to get a character to the point where it could handle the big challenges. It was even more rewarding to get to the point where my character could break the game he was so powerful. This element is missing from Oblivion. A game that poses no threatening situations quickly becomes boring. I played a Mage in Oblivion, and a steel shortsword, a flare spell, and a healing spell was all I needed to be totally invincible from the very start.
I probably sunk about 12-15 hours into this game. It just can't hold my attention. The control isn't smooth. Weapon control is poor, it feels like the weapons are cardboard cutouts (not a graphics issue, but a "feel" issue). Characters were lifeless. The plot devices of the horrible plague and the holy vaccine are dead horses that now exist as little more than red splotches on the ground. How are little RC cars so deadly? I just can't bear to play this game any further. I figured I needed to check it out based on reputation. Well, it's awful. There. I said it.
I'm about 20-25 hours into The Witcher. It was definitely fun at first because the atmosphere and the music really grip you. But the tedious combat (consisting only of clicking with no actual tactics beyond not using the "group" style if friendlies are around) along with every quest requiring you to run back and forth along the same paths for hours makes for a very boring and disappointing game. So much potential was wasted here. The alchemy system, gathering ingredients, the character interaction, the music, sound effects, all of that is very good, and the reason it gets two stars. The linear walking around and the combat destroy the game.
