Dhruin
SasqWatch
Steel_Wind from the NWN/2 content group DLA has posted some lengthy impressions of The Witcher from around the halfwat point. To say they are impressed would be an understatement:
More information.The spin in the gaming media is that The Witcher has been developed “in a style very similar to BioWare’s games and that if you like one, you’ll like the other”. While I don’t disagree with the overall sentiment, I think it’s only fair to clarify something we are perhaps a little better positioned than BioWare to comment upon: BioWare itself has never created a PC game as polished out of the gate as The Witcheralready is. The Witcher isn’t merely as good as a BioWare PC RPG; rather, based upon everything I have seen to date when playing this game and looking under the hood as to how it’s been developed, The Witcher is better than any BioWare PC RPG I’ve ever played. And I’ve played and kicked the tires of all of them folks. (To be clear, KotOR, which I consider to be primarily an Xbox title, still wins the overall best CRPG of all time, imo.)
So what makes The Witcher such a treat? Simply put: everything. It’s graphically leading edge and the art direction on the game is just awesome. The texture artists and environmental designers at CD Projekt have seriously raised the bar with the environmental artwork in this game. The authentic medieval feel to the buildings in The Witcheris, in a word, perfect. The look of The Witcher is like our own Tir Na n’Og design style used in Wyvern Crown of Cormyr, except on steroids; we absolutely love it.