The Witcher - Review @ ComputerGames.ro
 

ComputerGames.ro posts their detailed review of CDProjekt's recently released cRPG, The Witcher, giving it a score of 86/100:
More information.

I agree with the load times, but not with the crashes. Haven't had one yet personally. AFAIC this game is the most stable that I've bought in many months. Need for Speed Pro Street (my only other recently purchased title) is less stable than The Witcher!

Not sure what he means by "artificially limited freedom of movement." Isn't the whole game 'artificial?' ;)

… I think I know what he means, but the limited movement (if he is talking about not jumping or inability to go anywhere you want) is not high on my list of personal requirements.

Yeah, he made a pretty big gripe out of not being able to run or jump in one of the earlier pages of the review, suggesting it would have been less irritating if things were fenced off with large obstructions so you knew you couldn't go there (??)-but he still managed to play the game for 80 hours so he managed to adapt. ;)

I don't know what he means about crashes either--I haven't had any so far through Act 4--maybe it's a Vista thing. The load times are getting seriously distracting though, so I'm waiting for the patch--well, when I can keep myself from playing…:)

I have only had one crash when I first installed it and that I found out was a driver issue on my rig. Since then not a crash. And it was the sound drivers at fault, so maybe he needed to make some changes?

I've had crashes: several times while I'm exiting from the game, and twice in chapter changes (was annoying when I finally beat the Beast, and it crashed).

I guess the game might have some problems when unloading lots of information from memory. I'm on XP.

yep, I think it's my only crash so far too, when I finally managed to beat the beast.

Oh,.. now that you mentioned it, yeah, my game crashes every time I exit. But I never really thought of it as being a 'crash', because I was intentionally exiting the game anyhow. I just get that familiar XP error message that "the Witcher has encountered a problem and needs to close." But I've never had it crash on me while playing the game.

I am seriously slacking off playing the Witcher lately, I have no guarantee that saves will work with 1.2 and through all the loading it just killing the game for me. :(

Tends to crash on saving for me but apart from that excellent game so far.

Never thought about that one but you're right - I would hate to get halfway through the game or more and then find out I have to start over. My allowable time for games being what it is, I rarely play through a game more than once, no matter how good it is.

I've been engrossed in Need for Speed Pro Street for the past few days, so I might just wait for the patch like you.

I've had numerous crashes, but only in certain areas. And looking about the net it seems that this is not isolated to just vista, as some have claimed. That aside there are a number of other niggles - all interface/gameplay related - such as auto-sheathing of weapons at inopportune times, not being able to draw your sword in "safe" areas etc This bugs the hell out of me, since monsters can pop up quickly even in "safe" areas. That's not to say the game is not excellent, just that it has flaws/issues and people should recognize those and not put it on a pedestal a la Oblivion.

Yeah, surprise attacks often don't work, as the game performs the one thing I hate; a Cut Scene/ Dialogue right before the fight. Then you have your sword sheathed, and usually they don't!! grrrr.

That bugged the heck outta me too at first, but then I realized that Geralt draws his weapon so stinking fast it didn't matter much. Usually I have my weapon ready to go and even if they strike first he usually parries the blow. Not trying to defend that aspect because I think it's stupid too, but at least it's not a big deal.

Forced Sheathing, forced cutscenes and stupid bell that sounds that won't allpw you to draw your weapon, irritate the hell out of me too. :shakefist:

I have had a few crashes doing loading scenes. Nothing that I have cursed to much over though.

One thing I have found irritating though was when fighting in cities and you get guards or civilians to help and they are "blue", its quite easy to click on them by mistake and then they turn red and attack you.

Otherwise, a really great game. Not had such a good game experience since I played Morrowind.

True, the engine seems rather limited in it's design of the hitbox area of the NPCs and even loot/objects you need to pick up.
This forces you constantly to either shift your camera view, change your position or both, yet it's so good, I keep plugging away at this game. :)

One thing I don't understand about these smaller independent developers is why they don't get more help from their fans, when they see themselves falling behind, it's totally bizarre and as if they don't even think of this.
As an example all Cd Projekt had to do was have a contest of fan modders for the top 10 best NPC skins and boom they would have had access to 100s of choices, with just offering a little credit to the authors.
Additionally they must have had 100s if not 1000s of fans in Poland willing to help with testing, as PB could have done with G3 and all the fans in Germany.
I really don't see how independents are going to be able to exist without the help of fans.

Good point.

This is totally nit-picky I know, but the lack of variety in modeling doesn't just end with the NPCs. Have you noticed how many guards and soldiers carry around a 'witcher's steel sword?' The only difference is that it's strapped to their sides instead of on their backs.
I personally feel that a high quality Witcher's sword should look unique and apart from any other weapons.

Just one minor nitpick here: fans don't (necessarily) make good beta testers.

Still, though, I agree - there's no reason game developers shouldn't ask fans for help, they just shouldn't expect to get 1000's of professional models/whatever (but rather 1, 2 or 5).

The game crashes for me during The Beast encounter. First time it was just at the cut scene upon exiting the cave. NOW, it happens every time I kill The Beast and get attacked by the villagers. The user interface just disappears and the screen freezes. First time I had to reboot to even get my computer back. Second time I was able to close the game using Task Manager.

Yes, I have the latest drivers.

Eliaurese post some system specs and maybe someone could help you sort out what the cause is.

1st idea: try again (if you've tried just twice, you haven't tried enough)
2nd idea: wait longer (I get some interface freezes myself, but time heals many ails - as long as some lamps are still blinking, there's something going on)
3rd idea: do what Cm said and hope someone has better ideas than me. :P

I can say from my experience of taking a week to get the game to even be playable, it was the Newest Drivers causing the problem for me, so you might want to consider downgrading, especially if you have an ATI, I would go back to say 7.6 though 7.4 Omega ATI drivers are better.

Specs
 

I have a homebuilt PC. E6600 Dual-Core, 2 GB DDR RAM, nVidia 8800 GTX, Soundblaster Xi-Fi, no overclocking or mods, couple of 150 GB 10K RPM SATA drives, running XP.

I originally had older video drivers running about two revisions old, so after I upgraded I had the second post Beast crash. I'm not sure how long is too long to wait, I'm pretty sure I waited upwards of five minutes for the game to come back. I guess I can give it another shot and see if I can defeat BOTH beast and bug.