The Witcher - Review @ GameDaily & Kotaku

Dhruin

SasqWatch
Joined
August 30, 2006
Messages
11,842
Location
Sydney, Australia
After a short run of positive reviews for The Witcher comes GameDaily, who don't sound like they enjoyed anything about it. The score is 6/10 and here's an except from the end:
The Witcher also has a day and night cycle, with the worst monsters coming out in the evening. Although there's nothing wrong with this, areas to rest and further the clock are spread out, and nothing is quite as annoying as waiting for some NPC to wake up, or for the sun to set so that some monsters can finally rise out of the water, but all of these issues build up to a larger one. It's hard to care about the story or any of the characters. Even though the game graphics generate some pretty good looking characters, they all lack facial expressions, and most don't even use hand gestures. With that said, characters rattle off lines while staring blankly into space, like statues with moving mouths. This game even has the silly role-playing convention where players can walk into any house and poke through the cupboards, cabinets and chests to take anything they please without repercussions. Then toss in the side story about non-human races like Dwarves and Elves forming guerilla squads against humans, and the narrative becomes almost impossible to take seriously, especially since the humans nicknamed these groups "squirrels."
...Kotaku's article isn't a full review but rather some impressions - and much more positive despite issues with the loading times:
Since I saw CD Projekt's PC action RPG The Witcher in action at the Atari room during E3 this year, I've been eager to get my hands on the title. Based on a series of short stories and novels by Poland's premier fantasy author Andrzej Sapkowski, the title promised a rich, atmospheric world, statless leveling, an interesting, combo-driven combat system, and decision system that blurs the lines between good and evil. Happily the final title delivers, albeit with a few minor flaws and one relatively major one. If not for the absolutely staggering loading times, The Witcher would have easily been one of my top PC RPGs of all time.
More information.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,842
Location
Sydney, Australia
On GameDaily, Oblivion got 9/10, despite:
- The Witchers' story is better.
- The facial expressions/graphics that the review of The Witcher complains about, are much worse in Oblivion.
- The combat is in no way more fun than that in The Witcher.
- They use the same voices over and over again in Oblivion as well. None of them a whole lot better than the ones in The Witcher, except the main characters (obviously).

I don't mind people saying good or bad things about a game, but at least make sure a certain site reviews games on the same level. Readers don't know, or care, that it might've been written by someone else.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
7,578
Location
Bergen
"...nothing is quite as annoying as waiting for some NPC to wake up, or for the sun to set so that some monsters can finally rise out of the water..."

Well, obviously this guy is not a fan of RPGs and therefore he should probably not have been the one to review this game. First of all - there are actually quite many places to rest, so if you want to progress the time it's simply a matter of travelling maybe 2 minutes (at worst) to the nearest camp site. They are even marked on the map. And have this guy actually tried to talk to a sleeping npc? I don't think so, because they'll wake up and talk to you even if it's the middle of the night. Regarding the other point - it seems this guy would have preferred if every monster simply waited for him at any time at their specified points in the world.. and the same for NPCs. Well, that might work better for him.. but in my mind that would significantly damage the immersivenes of the game. Anyway, I don't think I'll have to say what I think about this particular review... :)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
453
Haven't you noticed the author of review - Steven Wong? I mean.. come on! Wong? How could anyone hire a guy with lastname Wong? It doesn't make sense! And the best: Steven! :) Please... Steven Wong OMG! Its so ridicoulous :) What this guy did to his parents?? :) Oh man...
 
I don't really get the joke, sorry. I assume it's meant to be a racism thing or you wouldn't have logged out to make the comment? Or am I missing something?

There's plenty to criticise without worrying about his name. Ironically, I didn't see him mention the load times, which is actually the biggest problem.

Basically, many of the negatives he sees are actually positives to me.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,842
Location
Sydney, Australia
EuroGamesBotDaily reviews Andrej Sapkowski's novel "Witcher"

Polish fantasy author's novel "Witcher" is something I've been looking forward to for quite a while. We've had some promising previews, and have finally gotten our hands on the retail version. So, here's the review you've all been waiting for.

The dust jacket is printed of heavy-gauge, super-calandered glossy paper, with a nice emboss on the author's name. The title is in gold lettering. My copy had some problems with the gold leaf peeling off after some use, and I did notice a bit of bleed there too. The print raster is perhaps a bit too much on the fine side, which has reduced the tonal depth in it, although of course this means a higher resolution.

Once you remove the dust jacket, you'll be able to experience the cover. It's in medium-strength cardboard covered with dark red faux leather. The technical issues with the gold leaf are more evident here -- there's clear bleed of the leaf into the creases of the fake leather finish. Other than that, the cover is made competently enough, although we have reports from some of our readers that it does not survive being bent back on itself.

This brings us to one of the things that most impressed us about the book: the binding. While the triple-thread technique is considered somewhat dated, the creators of the novel have clearly spent much time and effort in bringing it up to date -- despite its limitations, the end result is an attractive and probably quite durable binding, notwithstanding the issues with bending it back on itself noted above. We didn't quite like the color combination of the threads being used.

The book itself is printed on matte, coated, acid-free medium-weight paper, clearly something of a compromise between durability, presentation, and cost. We would have preferred a slightly heavier weight, since the print can be seen through some of the line-art illustrations if you look carefully.

Overall, the novel presents a fairly high level of polish. We noticed some typos, a paragraph was repeated twice on page 133, and we've had reports of pages being stuck together at the edges from some of our readers. If you're particularly sensitive to technical concerns, these may adversely impact your enjoyment of the novel.

The most noteworthy thing about the novel is, of course, the sex scenes. This is proper tits-out Euro smut, too, not some implied stuff about walking off into the sunset. There's plenty of it, although the actual scenes were disappointingly short. The North American version has a few paragraphs removed to avoid offending the sensibilities of the US public.

All in all, we can only recommend the novel to fans of the swords-and-sorcery genre. If you prefer to read, for example, detective stories or books on economics, skip this one. However, if you can get past the technical issues above and like fantasy novels, this may well be worth a look.

Score: 7/10
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,540
I rate your review 10/10!
 
Joined
Nov 18, 2006
Messages
525
Location
Sweden
I'd say 6/10. Stuck pages are really reading-breaking.
 
Joined
Nov 11, 2006
Messages
257
I don't really get the joke, sorry. I assume it's meant to be a racism thing or you wouldn't have logged out to make the comment? Or am I missing something?

There's plenty to criticise without worrying about his name. Ironically, I didn't see him mention the load times, which is actually the biggest problem.

Basically, many of the negatives he sees are actually positives to me.

Maybe he talked about similarities of words: Wong - Wrong. I can't figure out nothing else.


Prime Junta - brilliant review :D
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 7, 2007
Messages
117
:lol: great review PJ.

Basically the reviewer for GameDaily is one of those people who think the movie "Batman & Robin" was better than "Batman Begins." I've ran across two or three of those so far, and you can't possibly take any of their opinions seriously after finding that out.
 
Joined
Oct 20, 2006
Messages
1,081
Location
Midwest, USA
Maybe he talked about similarities of words: Wong - Wrong. I can't figure out nothing else.
Prime Junta - brilliant review :D

Steven Wong - its so wrong! :)

And about the Prime Junta's review - hahahahaha :lol:
 
Joined
Oct 20, 2007
Messages
14
Back
Top Bottom