The Witcher

[TheOneFreeMan]

I know it's an old game, but with The Witcher 2 fast approaching, and having brought The Witcher in the Steam sale and given it a whirl, there's something I really need to ask.

Am I the only one who thought that The Witcher has far and away the worst writing in an RPG ever?

It's literally putting me off playing the game. Every line by every character so far has been ridiculously cringe-worthy (the sex scene in the intro being a particular facepalm moment), and the reasons for hunting and fighting The Big Bad flimsy and uninspired. And Geralt's inability to insert any emotion into anything he says is off-putting. Even when he's hitting on the ladies (which I've already seen happens a lot) he's still got the same monotone, stone-faced expression. Even Sheperd can do this:

But I've seen that critics and loads of players love The Witcher. The reason I got it was because I heard good things, that it was a sort of sleeper-hit that didn't get the recognition it deserved. I'm confused, so I need to reassert that my sense of gaming taste hasn't gone haywire, and ask you guys what your opinions of the game were?

 

[Combine Hybrid]

I recently started playing this game and I'm at the chapter 2. So far, this game has been meh-worthy. Lack of variety of weapons and armors sucks and I really really ****ing hate the fact that most of quest related NPCs only show up at specific time of the day. That means if I missed a side quest from an NPC, I have to wait until specific time of the day in order to get or finish the quest from an NPC. And so far, the script has been cringe-worthy.

I can definitely see why most of people prefer Dragon Age over The Witcher.

 

[Paulaner]

Witcher is over-rated, in my opinion.

 

[Unfocused]

I thought it's a great game. Writing seemed fine for me, perhaps the delivery of the lines is sub-par in the English version.

Geralt not showing emotion might have something to do with him being a mutated human.

 

[ríomhaire]

I only played a little bit, but I must say Geralt's stance when you're using the offensive combat mode is lol-worthy.

 

[Destructo-Bot]

Most of the praise from the Witcher comes from the fact that it's an unapologetic crap-hole word and it forces you to make fairly tough decisions and stand by them... because those decisions will come into play much further down the road. There are no quick-save do-overs here, you make a choice and live with it.

That said it was fairly monotonous until you get halfway through Vizima, the outskirts and town are fairly slow at the start. Keep in mind that I would have said much the same about STALKER: SOC at first... but after sticking with it STALKER became on of my favorites games.

 

[Warbie]

I'm stuggling to get into the Witcher. The combat is pretty crap and the missions so far have been dull. Go here, fetch that.

 

[StardogChampion]

I played the demo when it first came out and thought it was balls.

 

[Qonfused]

I hated The Witcher.

 

[Laivasse]

Wall of christmas-booze-text incoming.

I rate The Witcher very highly, although I will say that within minutes of starting it, the English voiceover brought me close to vomiting, so I immediately switched to Polish VO with English subs, which sounds more natural on the whole and allows you to play without having your immersion broken by every duff line. I switched so early on that I had almost forgotten the game had an English language dub at all. Divorced from the terrible (? I'll confess I didn't give it much of a chance) English delivery, the writing, which is excellent on the whole, is able to stand on its own strengths.

IMO it does a very good job of creating a fantasy medieval setting without glossing over the realistically ugly aspects that such a world should have, like male chauvinism, racism, woman-beating, promiscuity, poverty, and what have you. Likewise it confronts you with no-win moral decisions which stay with you for a long time afterwards (providing you were sufficiently immersed at the time you made them - refer to the bit about bad voice acting). I've played through the game twice and I'm still not certain who was in the wrong in the denouement to the Outskirts chapter.

As for some of the sexy talk in the game... Geralt is not a blank slate everyman; he has a history and pre-set personality which, like it or not, includes a fixation with the opposite sex (and it's hinted that this is possibly a form of compensation for his sterility). He's supposed to be a kind of casanova who gets into bawdy misadventures as well as gritty, ambiguous moral crusades. A lot of fuss has been made of the card collection sex 'game', which IMO is less a 'game' than a smart way of avoiding the inclusion of incredibly awkward sex cut-scenes (of which there are only two in the game, one optional and pitched as humourous); instead of watching mannequins bump and grind, you're instead given a picture which says 'there was this character, Geralt had sex with her, it was something like this, no need to elaborate'. As a game, it knows that not every aspect of its storytelling is massively cerebral, so it incorporates its more juvenile elements into the personality of the main character.

It does have a lot of flaws, although I don't think they outweigh its strengths by a long way. It starts slower than any RPG I've ever played; every other good RPG I've played has had a sense of great care and attention having gone into its early chapters and then a rushed ending, while The Witcher has the most rushed-feeling intro chapter and introductory cut scenes (pre-Chapter 1) I've experienced. It's a lot more linear than it pretends to be, with its 'non-linearity' boiling down to a few obvious branching points where you have to make a decision. The immersiveness is hampered by the dodgy character models, which even in the Enhanced Edition don't seem capable of any change in facial expression (I think their eyes can widen and narrow a little and that's it). The combat seems to be a like it or hate it thing, but the impression I get is that the more people approach it expecting an action RPG, the more they come away disappointed by the combat - really, it's not much more of an action game than, say, Baldur's Gate, since the combat is largely click-and-wait just with some tests of timing thrown in if you want to build combos.

As for Combine Hybrid comparing the writing to that of Dragon Age... I never played Dragon Age, so I don't know how that game turned out in its entirety. I will say, however, that for a while I was looking forward to that game and I checked out a hell of a lot of trailers, gameplay footage and teasers to get a feel for what the story and atmosphere would be like. In doing so, I didn't find a single clip of story exposition which was less cringe-worthy than the worst, cheesiest conversation in The Witcher. That's the impression I got, so there you go.

 

[Warbie]

The game has taken a bit of a u -turn for me and i'm enjoying it. It does itself no favours at the start, but now the momentum has built up the hours are flying by and I find myself typing this at 4.30 in the morning!

 

[taviow]

That was a quick u turn.

 

[Warbie]

Yup, something clicked into place. I'm treating it like Stalker now - there's a good game in here somewhere, just be patient and let it happen.

 

[Wanted Bob]

What really bothered me was I got at least halfway through the Witcher (got to the cave area), before I stopped playing. Now I'm trying to get the Enhanced Edition patch, but I can't register the game because Atari is stupid and didnt print CD keys on any Canadian boxes. They wont respond to my emails either so I'm basically stuck with a non-updatable version of the game.

 

[Warbie]

And now it sucks again. My last 4 hours have been spent running around either in town or in the swamp - being told to go from place to place and talk to person after person after person. It's endless. There's been the occasional fight, but nothing particularly exciting or remotely taxing. The story hasn't progressed much either and seems to be all waffle and padding!

 

[TheOneFreeMan]

I'm a little bit annoyed at myself, more than anything, because I'm not being exactly fair. The game's annoyed me early on, and I know I should give it the benefit of the doubt and keep going because a lot of people say it picks up, but I'm really struggling to find that motivation.

What's puzzling me is why the story is annoying me more than Dragon Age. I mean, they're both very similar, in very similar settings. I think that as generic and boring as DA's plot was, it was never in-your-face obvious and trite.

 

[Destructo-Bot]

Don't force yourself to play. Put it down and come back later.

 

[Paulaner]

I plan to start The Witcher again after Mass Effect 2. As I said, it's over-rated (imo), but still a very good game. I enjoyed Gothic 3, Two Worlds and Risen, so I can't pass The Witcher.