The Witcher 2 - 12 Splendid Things
 

Alec Meer writes 12 Splendid Things About The Witcher 2 for Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
More information.

I am struggling to keep away from previews but the improved writing bit got me to read this
one…

Everything sounds bloody great. If this guy is accurate I'll have to concede GhanBuriGhan his GPE (Gothic Percentage Estimation tm) for TW2 :)

I am also trying not to read anything more. And why ?
Everyone seems to agree its very good. No need to read more ;)

So much hype. Too much overreaching to be credible. Nearing perfection when it comes to the false moral dilemna.

Games at their current state can not approach the burden associated with such decisions. Going in one way or another is a life changer. They are choices that insiduously change the life of people who opt for them. Impossible at the current stage of video games to represent.

So you get that false moral dilemna paradigm, with no/flimsy strings attached to them, inflated in their content as both sides are extremistic in their stance and depending on the moral agenda one supports, the government or its opponents are either black or white, they are not grey. If one thinks that the primary duty of a government is to protect its citizens, then the government is white. If you think that the government first duty is to provide an equal approach through law, then it is black. Works the same for the opponents.

No grays, no nuances, no compromizes. Things are defined as polar opposites and thus easily weighted.

This, of course, if the game works as the report says it works.

Sounds rather like Dragon Age 2 to me.

Big differences though:

• Bioware have become quite arrogant and conceded in recent years because of their previous successes, which has unfortunately been waning. Sure their stories and vocals are still fairly good, but their gameplay has gotten horribly dumbed down, little to no adventure and exploration and they just aren't as fun anymore!

• CD Projekt, while I havn't known of them for long, well about 4-5 years now since the Witcher, and now The Witcher II, at least to me they seem like a young Bioware when their games were great! {heck they even translated many of Bioware's titles into Polish no less!}

Anyway…my thoughts!

Remind me what a music critic was writing, proud music stars don't make it anymore, public don't like, they want the stars be kind and sweet with them.

In short, music stars need learn lick feet first, and make a good music is optional now, that's what the public want, and they get it, crap music and good lickers.

NVM, this is just a waste of time.

I'm looking forward to TW2 but sycophantic articles like this put me off.

gunna wait for sum fools to play this game first.

thats right watchers! do you duty, play this game to see if its shit when it comes out then tell me about it!

not that i trust you though

Hmm… So what is this guy's track record that he is met with such distrust by default ?
(Just asking, a bit bored to look it up myself right now). He was a bit enthusiastic but so
are many people that like the first game it seems and get their hands on the preview
versions…

I find it hard to reconcile all this vitriol with the rather nice prior experience I had with TW1.

Or is trolling a new sport around here ? Perhaps people getting back for another round
after all the DA2 flame Wars ? Strange hobby…

I posted his review of TW1 in another thread. He basically didn't like it for quite valid reasons.

That he is going bananas over TW2 either means he has no journalistic integrity at all, since he has not addressed a single complaint he had for TW1, or that TW2 is as good as he makes it out to be. I find the latter rather unlikely though, given CDP's track record of unrealistic overhyping of very mundane things.

Interesting.

Yes, that sheds a rather different light in his preview even if I disagree with his assessment
of part 1.

Still Like I said in another thread even an incremental refinement of TW1 will be enough for me. I doubt it will make people that hated #1 to love #2 though…

That review is shit.
For example, The Witcher is not "cutscene-bloated nonsense", the only "cutscene-bloated" part is the prologue. Also, leaving my opinion aside, the author obviously didn´t understand how the combat works. His "rapist" example also shows he didn´t pay attention while playing.
I doubt he got further than the first chapter.
I do agree with this though: "I'm sure The Witcher will find a faithful audience, but it's not the best place to go if you're hungry for more Oblivioning."

Anyway, preview articles like this may be good to get some info on what features are in, but when it comes to info on the actual quality of the game, they´re mostly completely worthless as far as I´m concerned.

He may not have understood how the combat works, but this doesn't change the fact that it is still by far the worst combat of any action RPG.

He is right on several other important points:
"This action-RPG certainly tries to give the people what they want. But then, so does a pop band formed by the votes of a reality TV show audience."
This is one of my main issues with TW1. There is just too much pandering going on. This is to be expected of a license game of course; however, since Geralt is portrayed very differently than he is in the books, this whole book to game transition seems superfluous.

"[a] charisma-free lead character. "

"Unfortunately, most of these [quests] involving running a very long way to get there, and then a very long way back again afterwards. Running is boring, especially when there's not even a jump button to help you shortcut over the omnipresent tiny fences. "

"[The combat mechanic] feels entirely disconnected from all the heroic chopping, stabbing and pirouetting Albino Viggo is busy doing on-screen."
If you cannot see how this cuts straight to the truth, you are in severe denial.

Actually, in my opinion and that of quite a number of other people I've read comments from even the story was rather weak in DA2. I felt it was disjointed and the acts didn't really connect together very well. There was also almost no change shown for a game that makes a big point to cover such a long span of time. In most cases the choices lead to the same outcome and it was really more of a choice of how your character would react than a choice that causes any real change of outcome.

The voice acting was also hammy in spots, to the point where people have poked fun at some of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37eiBVOWtFM

As for all the positive reviews of TW2, well let's wait and see. Maybe it's hype maybe it's not, maybe it's a little bit of both. I think it's a little premature to conclude the reviewers are all full of it and the game will be a let down seeing as it hasn't even been released and there's not a large amount of regular player comments to gauge from.

I will say that DA2 set the bar for a high profile RPG release really low so in light of that I can't imagine TW2 won't look good. The proof is in the actual gameplay though and no doubt we will have plenty of opinions to read in the coming weeks.

Why do people insist on posting their opinions as facts. I don't think the witcher was perfect by any means.

Imo though, diablo 1&2, oblivion, gothic 3 (pre-ee patch), dungeon siege and fable had worse combat. Just off the top of my head i'm sure there's more.

I will agree about the endless running around and being able to jump fences would have been nice.

As for tw2 i'm sure it will be in between the glowing reviews and the people who swear it will be s*** before ever playing it.

I usually defend these things, "of course it's my opinion I wrote it," but he really did present that way too much as a fact.

I liked The Witcher's combat. I consider it to be much better than many other action RPG games' combat, for example Divinity 2 or any Diablo style game. That's my opinion and it's as valid as any other.

And yeah, Alec Meer really missed the point of the original in quite a lot of ways. Some of his complaints are valid and I do think The Witcher was very flawed, but Meer has a political agenda when it comes to the women in the game and he also seems to be on a quest to knock the game for not being as streamlined as Oblivion, which arguably is a benefit and not a negative. His preview is thus kind of odd, but since every preview speaks highly of the game I'm not stressing it too much.

What track record is that? Care to give some examples?

While you're at it, how about making some more blatantly false statements? ;)

I'm currently playing Witcher 1, (yes, I'm that slow) and I'm enjoying it. Especially since the game really opens up after chapter 3; getting into chapter 4 really opened up Witcher 1's greatness for me. After reading the manual (yes, I know, I know), I'm getting to figure out the combat.

In the first Witcher, there was choices and there was consequence, if you sided with the elves, the games would play out differently than if we you sided with the Order, the game would play out differently. And in certain quests, you have at least 2 or 3 (or more) ways to complete them. The only other game I've seen do this - is Dragon Age: Origins. The cutscenes in Witcher 1 matters, not least as a way to tell the story, to further the story along…

I also like the idea, the concept of having quests spanning over three-four chapters. As far as I can DA2 tries to do the same, but does not come close to Witcher 1's fine design and execution of this design.