The Witcher Review

Few days ago I checked the huge game sale on Steam and found couple of interesting games, including The Witcher that I had heard alot of good things about. Well, it wasn't exactly my cup of tea, to put it bluntly.

The Witcher is a third person perspective Action-RPG from back 2007 that was developed by a debut Polish developer called CD Projekt RED. In the game, you control a character called Geralt who is part of a group of individuals called Witchers.

As the game progressed I really didn't get a simple answer to what Witchers are exactly, so I figured they're just basically monster hunters for hire who can use Alchemy, or spells... or something.

As the game begins, Geralt is running away from something in the forest, and then trips and goes unconscious.

Okay? Well anyway, later on he wakes up in a cart that's being pulled by his friends, as they're taking Geralt back to their fortress.

When Geralt wakes up in the base, he appears to have an amnesia, and can't remember anything.

From the very first cutscenes that occur at the beginning of the game, I find how unlikeable the characters are. They're your basic sock puppet characters who display not a single core emotion, like fear, hate or delight. I never saw a character smile even once. I mean, even games like Deus Ex that came out 10 years ago had characters with more personality. The difference being that when Deus Ex came out, it was state of the art, but when you look at the games that are out today and their graphics, you could really put some more effort into making the characters, especially in an RPG.

(The reason why I brought up Deus Ex is that I also bought that off the bargain bin. I'll get to that later.)

Also, one funny thing from the beginning of the game is a mage character and the love interest of Geralt called Triss. She is a red haired woman with huge double-d sized breasts and cleavage with no shame. Seriously, when she entered the screen, she looked so out of place combined with the weak looking facial animations that I almost thought I was playing a Leisure Suit Larry game for a second. I mean, I don't want to sound gay, but this is supposed to be in medieval times, and a character like that really breaks the immersion for me.

Triss in her default "Battle outfit". Yes, i'm, serious. Props for the boys at CD Projekt RED, atleast they can make hot sorceresses. If Witcher was a flop, atleast they could have made their fortune in the porno game industry. Box Office Bust eat your heart out! Whoo!

Apart from Triss, there really aren't any interesting characters in the game's beginning, infact there's only few Witchers besides Geralt, who all look and feel like they've been grinded from the same boring mold. The character models look great, but even then, it's not saying much when you feel like you're talking to cardboard boxes.

Only couple minutes into the game, an enemy force attacks Witcher's fortress, and now, you're given the first taste of the game's combat. At first I really didn't have any idea how it worked, I clicked an enemy few times but nothing seemed to happen. Later I found out that when you click an enemy, Geralt gets into position and starts automatically whacking the enemy in the same pattern. The game claims to have a deep combat system, but really, it only involves Geralt smacking the enemy on auto-pilot and when you see an indication in the cursor, you can click again and you make a "combo-attack" which just is Geralt whacking the enemy in the same pattern, only more faster and dealing more damage.

Your main weapon, the sword, can be used to attack in 3 different stances, Strong Stance, Fast Stance and Group Stance. You'd think it would bring some variety and flexibility to the combat, which it does, kind of, but basically, you are only supposed to attack certain enemies with certain style. For example, you attack the more slim and rogue like characters with Fast stance and so on. It's so restricted. The game's combat could have benefited alot if it used a more free-flowing and restriction free sword system like in Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast which still has to this day, by far, the absolute best sword fighting mechanic ever made.

Before you get done with the prologue, you get to bring a healing potion to Triss who got injured in the fight. And of course, as a token of appreciation, you get to fuck her in true hero fashion. But let me tell you, this sex scene is so tame and brief that if I turned around to look elsewhere for 5 seconds I would have probably missed the whole thing, which again, wasn't much. The way the game was marketed as an "adult RPG" I expected them to turn the bed linens over and make the whole fortress shake. You're only awarded a "romance card" that shows half naked Triss. Something tells me that if I go further in the game, these scenes will get better, but who knows.

So, after the prologue, you're sended into the country side to do this and that. You'll encounter many poor npc characters that'll let you ransack their apartments for their last belongies in true RPG fashion. I always thought that was stupid.

You'll find quests that require you to do certain things like kill a ghoul in a crypt or something, but I really didn't have any patience for it, I only wanted to see how the story unfolds.

Only couple of minutes wandering the countryside I'm already annoyed by the game engine. I always hated games that restricted your movements to make you feel like you're moving in a grid. It pisses me off. Geralt can pretty much only run in roads; he cannot jump, climb over things, swim or do anything that requires him to do something other than run. Sometimes I run into a dead end and I look next to me and there's a fence there, and if I could go over that fence, I could save alot of time by going straight where I needed to go instead of following the road that circles around half the world map. It's stupid.

I got into a point in the game where I needed to light 5 holy altars with a holy flame to drive The Beast off the countryside, and when it didn't work, I was sended to find a witch. At this point, I thought the game would pick up, but when I got to her, she only told me to go fetch some weird herbs for her. I'M FUCKING TIRED OF THE SAME OLD FETCH QUESTS. Fetch this, fetch that. I want games with a choice. If you don't want to get the herbs for her, you could just kill her or tell her to get them herself. There should always be another solution. A Legendary Demon Slayer collecting weeds, that's nice.

And now, we're getting in the end of this review. You might think I only got started at the plot, but I'm done. I'm serious, I only played it for 3 hours and got fed up with it. Well, I don't think I need to explain the reasons for a second time, but I'm just bummed that a game with such promise turned out to be so mediocre. I'm sure the game would have gotten more interesting later, but what's the point playing it if you feel so bored in the very beginning?