The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

[Havoc]

Havoc's Critical Review: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

Index
[01] Introduction
[02] Story
[03] Game Mechanics
[04] Graphics and Aesthetics
[05] SoundFX & Music
[06] To play or not to play...
[07] Rating & Additional Screenshots




[01] Introduction


The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is the sequel to "The Witcher",
a Fantasy RPG set in a dystopian medieval time, based on the Character "Geralt of Rivia",
from the books of the polish Author Andrzej Sapkowski. The first game was a big success,
it was however unforgiving and drove many players away due to it's confusing complexity.
It also had hot chicks. Which Geralt was able to fornicate with, to then receive trading cards.
Like Pokemon cards but with partially naked girls on them. This helped the game to its fair share of publicity.
And while some developers,(not to point the finger at anyone, but... OHAI BIOWARE, didn't see you there.)
take the criticism of the loud voices to their heart, and reduce any sexual content in a game from obscured erotic scenes in which
the camera cuts away right before the good stuff to a few seconds of pseudoerotic dryhump scenes in full uniform,
other developers get confused and go into the opposite direction.


(not pictured: boobs - pictured: a motherf'ing dragon!!!)

And for those who couldn't keep up: THIS GAME HAS BOOBS IN IT! And more other good stuff.
Now while some of you may be of the opinion that sexual content does not belong into a videogame,
that's fine. And I even partially agree, a game shouldn't include sex scenes or nudity just for the "sex sells" argument.
However, if the presentation of primal medieval doggystyle lust serves to build atmosphere and characters,
I say the more the merrier. Rest assured this game is NOT porn,
and most of the adult material is built into the flow of the game like a 8-hit +1 combo.
It also only occurs if you make the right choices in a long shot.



Ok but enough about sex, let's get to the...





[02] Story


When it comes to a great story, The Witcher 2 can proudly parade along with Mass Effect and Dragon Age.
This game not only tells you a story, it let's you develop it yourself. You are Geralt of Rivia, the Witcher, the White Wolf,
your decisions are his decisions, and you tell his story the way you decide to.
Without spoiling anything the title or any trailer wouldn't already give away: You are Geralt,
some people have the socially awkward hobby of assassinating kings, and now you have to do something.
What you do, is up to you.(mostly) But the premise is, that the game contains 3 independent stories which you can develop.
I wouldn't know, after 3 days I only managed to not-even complete Act 1.


("tell me your story Geralt")

But to sum up the Story without any spoilers, some dude kills human kings, because apparently humans are massive pricks,
just like in reallife, and everyone has a hard-on for racism and discrimination against non humans
(elves, dwarfs, occasionally witchers, witches and mages). So non humans live in the ghetto like slums of the cities,
oppressed and hated by the humans, and of course somebody dislikes that idea. This throws the "Scoia'tael" into the fry.
A terrorist guerrilla group fighting for the liberation of the oppressed races. They're also known as the "Squirrels".
SO SCARY!


(a squirrel searchin his nuts)






[03] Game Mechanics


It is incredible, what the developer CDProject managed to achieve here. It's hard to learn but easy to master.
It all boils down to a few core mechanics: fighting humans, fighting monsters, collecting herbs and meditating.
At first, the combat might feel extremely unnatural and frustrating, playing on normal difficulty,
I died a handful of times alone during the prologue. And I'm not really a novice at RPGs, Hack'n'Slash or Witcher itself.
Without any skills unlocked in the skill tree, Geralt is a little handicapped in his fighting abilities,
and during most fights, up to 3 enemies will actively engage you simultaneously.
And compared to its predecessor, the combat has been simplified(NOT dumbed down, just made slightly more comfortable).
You don't have to chose between three combat styles anymore, you just left click for quick attack or right click for heavy attack.
But again, you have to chose to either use your ironmade sword or your silver sword, depending on the type of enemy you're facing.
The rest is button mashing, no timing required, it is, however, recommended.
Mixing heavy and quick strikes can result in impressive and effective combos.
Ultimately, combat with more than 2 opponents forces you to "hit and run".
Attack an enemy with a combo, run away, cast your shield spell and repeat. This isn't made any easier(or easy) by the awful targeting system.
I have yet to figure out what's going on it its mind. It doesn't target the enemy closest to you, it doesn't target the enemy currently
attacking you(highest threat), it doesn't target the enemy in the center of your screen nor the one Geralt is facing.
In short: It's a total mess. Since only the targeted enemy receives damage(D&D dice roll),
you often find yourself swinging your sword which phases through the horde of enemies standing right in front of you,
blocking your path to your target all the way across the continent. You can lock your current target at any time,
but since you have to keep moving to avoid damage, and your enemies often change formation,
this only helps you to get a sword in the back for 200% damage. No wonder Geralt has this many scars.


(THIS many!)

Meditation is another important part of The Witcher 2. Whenver you're out of combat, and it a safe place, you can enter meditation mode.
This allows you to complete a couple of tasks, just like in the predecessor you can develop your character
(this is now also possible at any time in the character screen),
brew potions, create traps and bombs, fast forward the time or drink potions.
The alchemy system has been simplified for a more convenient use.
You select the desired potion/trap/grenade from the list of your available recipes, and the game automatically picks the cheapest
with the required ingredients and creates the potion, you can create as many as you want and don't have to wait at all.
(The game forced you to wait for the potion to be cooked for some hours in the first part)


(simplified: the ability tree... I mean spiderweb)

Drinking potions now has also to be done during meditation, as opposed to the first Witcher, where you could quickly drink one during a battle.
All potions have several minutes of duration, and can be drunk before entering a dangerous area as preparation.
Potions also increase the level of intoxication, and you can drink 3 at once. The combined toxicity however cannot go over the limit.
And effects of intoxication occur already after two weak or one very strong potion. There is, however, an entire skill tree committed to
increasing all of Geralts abilities and attributes while he is intoxicated.


(if you ain't down with this, you ain't down with real inventories!)

The player can do the RPG-classic plunder fest. You can enter any home and take all the peoples possessions without any consequences whatsoever.
You should even do this because buying some of the materials required for potions, weapons and armor
can quickly drain you of all your money and the supply is limited. Some ingredients can only be found in the wild.
You can pick up any significant herb and flower which is visually highlighted in a very decent way.
Many materials you have to hunt for. But this doesn't turn into a grindfest, no worries,
it actually helps the immersion of the game when you set out to slay a bunch of monster-butterflies for their teeth
for the new sword you want SO much! After all you ARE a Witcher - a full-time monster hunter.


("let's call it... "collateral damage" ok?")

In conversations you usually get multiple choices, you can lie, say the truth, state your opinion in one way or another,
often without any indication what effect this choice will have. There is (thank god) no moral system with good and evil/paragon and renegade,
every choice is your own and you have only to answer to yourself... and of course accept the consequences which in some cases can reach deep into the game.
Even more than in the predecessor, every action has a reaction, to your advantage or disadvantage. Some of those you can't possibly foresee,
but some are very obvious. Sometimes you get the choice to intimidate, persuade or use the "JEDI MIND TRICK" spell.
The game gives you no clues whatsoever which way is right, you have to evaluate the person you're talking to yourself, and decide if he/she is
intelligent enough to be persuaded, weak-minded enough to be mind-tricked, or ***** enough to be threatened.
Or maybe you just wanna punch them in the face. It's your choice, really.


(group therapy)

To sum up the game system... well it has improved since the first game, a LOT.
Things are more convenient now, simpler, but by no means actually simple.
You still have to take your time to understand how things work, how and when to apply them to get most out of your efforts.
While almost none of this plays any role on the easy difficulty, it can be really helpful to use it on normal, and it's crucial to use it on hard.
While health still regenerates slowly on normal, you have to entirely rely on potions and food on hard.
And you know, you can't just hit F2 to drink a HP potion mid-combat. (There are no HP potions, there are only potions that grant you some regeneration.)
But there are still the shadowy sides of the omgwtfbbq crap targeting that can ruin entire battles.


(on the top of the screen are your currently effective spell and potion effects and their remaining time.)

I should also mention that there is a "Sudden Death" difficulty mode, it's basically the Diablo 2 Hardcore mode, once you die, you cannot load a game anymore.
Honestly, I have no idea who would be masochistic enough to actually do this, but I think it's cool they put it there.
You don't have to choose is, but you can if you're clinically insane.

A honorable mention goes to QUICK TIME EVENTS.
The game is not too full of them, they don't break the immersion too much, thei're not even too hard, even if set to difficult;
but in some situations they are REALLY hard to see, and by the time you realize they are there it's usually too late.
Must suck especially on Hardcore. Have fun losing the game because you missed the tiny QTE button during the final bossfight.


(QUICK-TIME.. playa!)






[04] Graphics & Aesthetics


Now this part is pure honey. The visuals in The Witcher 2 are simply stunning, but equally demanding to your hardware.
Now I have a fairly old system, with a mid-class graphic card, a nVidia GeForce 540Ti and 1gb vram.
I was able to run the game at a playable 25 FPS on ultra details.
This includes really everything the game has to offer, and it is a fair match for Crysis.
Thanks to the good framesmoothing, the game doesn't seem too choppy in lower FPS ranges.
It also introduces a new thing they call "Ubersampling". This basically makes the engine render the scene multiple times at once,
to achieve even higher quality Anti-Aliasing and better Texture filtering. The highest texture resolution offers 4096p textures,
which sometimes pop out after loading a new scene due to UnrealEngine3's own texture streaming.
So far I've not experienced any graphical glitches or missing textures. Disabling Ubersampling can save you a big bunch of frames,
especially in scenes with many NPCs, and disabling VSync can give you a few more, but it will also destabilize your framerate.
A HUGE downer is the limitation to 16:9 Widescreen format. While the games supports ALL sorts of screen resolution, on 4:3 and 16:10 screens,
the visible field is forced into 16:9. Resulting in more or less MASSIVE black bars on the top and bottom of the screen.
This is really pathetic and shouldn't even exist in a UEngine 3 based game. Let's hope a patch for this will be delivered shortly.


(he has actually no pants on and they tried to censor it... they censored above too because spiderman was naked on the ceiling)

This game will also please your aesthetically, the character design is great, the surroundings are extremely detailed,
landscapes don't repeat each other, nothing seems copy-pasted. Even almost every soldier in an entire army has his personal little differences,
be it a scar here, a scratch there, different haircut/color, maybe he wears his armor slightly different.
Everything adds to the dark atmosphere of the game, be it spilled guts, a huge head wound, the dirty streets in the slums,
the wild green forests or beautiful old elven ruins, desperately trying to show the beauty of the old age in a new, dark, time.
The spell effects are not too flashy, they don't distract from the fights, they don't jump onto your head and try to have sex with your eyes.
Most other visual effects, like the one of the "Cat" potion look great and totally tie into the atmosphere.
And again... there are naked chicks.








[05] SoundFX & Music


Now this put's me in kind of a pickle. I own the polish version of the Witcher 2 and have been playing it in my language for most of the time.
The reason is simple: I've tried out many translations in The Witcher, and have noticed how the polish voiceovers were simply the best,
next to Russian and french. I also think that every game should be played, and every movie should be watched in the language it was made.
If you happen to understand that language of course. The problem is always, that a lot of the intended atmosphere gets lost in the translation
of the dialogue. And then sometimes a little more while voicing them.
The polish version was nice for me, because the characters sound like they belong in that world, everybody is rough, there is a lot of cursing,
plenty macabre jokes if you stand around and listen to what people on the street say.
Everyone reacts differently to your presence, some people despise you for being a mutant,
some people like what you do, some kids are fascinated by you,
some start crying and scream for their mommys. Besides the characters are voiced by more or less famous polish actors/voiceactors from tv and radio. :3


(An army regiment, notice how every soldier looks slightly different)

Now I've played a short sequence with plenty of dialogue in English, and I must say compared to the first Witcher, at least the main characters sound
like they mean business. However, every non-main-character sounds very British. Very, very British.

The music... yea the music rocks! Not really, it's orchestral. But it's amazing and only contributes to the amazing atmosphere.






[06] To play or not to play...

...this is here the question!

I'd say YES YOU SHOULD if:

- You loved the first Witcher.
- You love RPGs and are looking for a challenge.
- You love RPGs and some complexity doesn't scare you.
- You love being immersed in a huge, living, breathing world and sucked in by a nice and well told story that lies entirely in your hands.
- You're sick of half-baked, broken, generic RPGs and want something new and awesome.
- You enjoy vulgarity, gore and nudity.


I'd say NOOOOOooooo! Don'T!!!!!111 if:

- You hated the first Witcher.
- You get confused by complicated procedures and quickly lose overview.
- You're new to RPGs. (Clearly isn't a game that goes easy on the newbies)
- You get tired/bored of a game too quickly and lose motivation to move on. (Coz boy, game is loooong)
- Tough choices are just not your thing. (To be or not to be... this game really lets you make some mind-breaking decisions)
- You hate gore.
- You're uncomfortable with the view of a naked woman.
- You're uncomfortable with the view of a naked man.
- You hate vulgarity.
- You're under 18. (No joke.. this is NOT for kids. Go play Max Payne instead.)

(if one or more applies. if some of both apply, whichever applies more counts.)


[07] Rating


The good:

+ The game has sex with the visual centers of your brain, and it's really, really good sex.
+ The atmosphere is as thick as hummus.
+ Boobs!
+ Big, living, interactive world.
+ Well told story which you can shape to your liking.
+ Quality RPG, not half-baked, half-assed rushed brown mess.
+ Quality sequel, not dumbed down, nothing good taken away, just the awesomeness^square.
+ Did I mention it has Boobs???


The bad:

- Combat can be a pain.
- Targeting IS a pain, like spicy, explosive diarrhea after too much Mexican food.
- It will attempt to rape your hardware.
- Loading times... oh the loading times.
- 16:9 only.
- Concealed QTE notifications.
+ Boobs...



Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 9/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Boobs: 9001/10
Personal overall score: 9/10

Clearly a GOTY favorite. Only to be (maybe) topped by Skyrim.
A great and complex game that stands out from the dumbed down mass of generic bullsh**.



Moar screens!!





(Boob free)
http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/k...2-26-26-81.jpg



(NOT so giant cleaved head wound free, dude lives tho)
http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/k...1-36-27-96.jpg


Thanks for reading.
Feel free to comment and complain.

[paecmaker]

That was a funny review, mayyybeeeee a liiiiiiittle much about OMG BOOBS!!!!!!

Can you play it without played the first one, Is it a must or what?

[Jayhmmz]

mayyybeeeee a liiiiiiittle much about OMG BOOBS!!!!!!

There is never too much about boobs. OMG BOOBS are the best kind of boobs.

Nice review mate.

[Havoc]

Thanks...

I was thinking about whether I overdid it with the BOOBS. But then again, really there is no such thing like overdoing it with boobs. And this game was made to provoke that.
Wanted to make that clear. xD

You don't need to know the first part to play the second, that's a little mistake on my side, I shall correct that. The story is almost completely detached, you can, however, import your endgame save from the first part so some global consequences carry over or sumthing. Don't know, didn't have my W1 save anymore. T.T

[LiNuX]

I like the whole disclosure thing and being 18 and all, but a lot of our members aren't over 18. I've removed the links. You're free to enjoy them when you play the game or off the forum.

[Exentenzed]

Mjees, been waiting for this one.

Can't wait to sit down and "relax" with this one after im done with Civ5