The Witcher - Reviews @ BlueAlien and GamersInfo

Dhruin

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Two new reviews are around for The Witcher - let's start at BlueAlien, who scored the game at a hefty 9.25/10:
The Witcher has three possible endings that depend entirely on the actions you take in the game. On top of the multiple endings each of the actions that lead to them have different in-game consequences. Supporting one group of people over another, or taking a neutral stance, will affect the game multiple chapters down the road. For example, you are tasked by a merchant to kill some monsters that have been interfering with his business. After you are finished with them you notice a group of people are starting to run off with the merchant's stuff. How you respond to this situation will make the next chapter more or less difficult but I won't say how. The Witcher is full of little choices and paths like this. There are a number of sidequests that are not necessary to the main plot but help to flesh out the world and, of course improve your character through money, equipment and experience. There are also two minigames that can be found throughout the course of the game, fistfighting, essentially drunken brawling, and dice poker. Both are the subject of own, entirely optional quests. Dice poker is played by rolling a set of five dice, looking for doubles, triples, straights and the like while fistfighting and drinking games are accomplished as you would think - hitting things and drinking things.
...the next is at GamersInfo, who have underestimated the choices if I am thinking of the right part of the game:
There are other issues as well: I found some quests to be a bit inconsistent in the way they handled multiple moving parts. For example (and I'll try to avoid spoilers), one ongoing mission involves multiple characters whom Geralt is investigating. The game allows the player to make up his own mind as to a particular character's guilt or innocence. But, a problem arises when the next step in the quest requires the player to contradict that choice. For instance, I had determined a character's innocence; however the mission-giver then required me to kill that character in the following step of the quest. As Geralt is unquestionably an intelligent being, it makes little sense for him to betray what he knows to be true in such a way. Yet in order to proceed with the remainder of the quest, the player must kill that innocent character. It just feels broken.
More information.
 
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And yes, the example given by Gamersinfo is incorrect. Of course you do not need to kill the innocent person. I didn't do it and completed the quest differently.
I was able to turn the table around, too. Some detective stories set traps in narratives. Similarly, if the quest log stops making much sense, then, why not stop to think?
 
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GamersInfo touches on the excellent bestiary/characters/formulas all that, which really is a nice feature, since the most we usually get from RPGs is some half-baked journal. This game has lots of nice little features like that which help to make it great overall.
 
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Realistically, the inventory isnt that bad. Items take only one slot, so it's not like youre shuffling around a lot of stuff trying to find the right pattern to fit.

I think it's of reasonable size as well, he has to have a hell of a backpack to fit in all that stuff!
 
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I thought the inventory could have been much better if they would have had separate tabs for Ingredients, Potions, Food and Articles (for rings and items).

Another problem I am starting to notice after spending so much time playing is the Quests are often times not intuitive, often you are required to look at the Journal to see what to do next and having each Quest phase flashed on the screen at every stage adds to the annoyance. I should be glad it's not a popup like oblivion, right? :)

An example (no spoilers) that comes to mind is in chap 4 you are asked to solve a problem and should visit someone with a specific profession (according to your journal not from the NPC conversation). Yet if you stop and talk to your old buddy as you walk out of the bar, surprise he has a topic about something that seems related to your next quest. So once you ask him about it boom, you have a new log entry telling you what to look for and where, completely cutting out the first phase and possibly losing xp for missing it. Why? Because you didn't look at your Journal and do exactly what it said to next, instead you did something natural and intuitive, talk to your friend, picking the new topic.

It's really a great game design and a great engine that seems incompatible with each other. The constant loading and scripted scenes would have been much better served with a engine like PB uses, eliminating 90% of the loading, not to mention cheaper and less time redoing Bioware's engine.

While I really think it's a very good looking game, mostly due to the amazing artistry, I would much rather have seen them license PB's Gothic 2 engine with less graphic quality, than have prettier engine they are using. They seemed to have quite possibly the worst game ever made in regards to constant loading, surpassing even Invisible War, sadly.
 
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Inventory category tabs are not the answer imho.

Your "Satchel" already has three "sections." Four if you count the quest items section. They just needed to autosort the items into logical groupings. Having equal slots for each section presents a problem though, as Geralt gathers a lot more "gross stuff" than items like food, trinkets and baubles.
 
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I found inventory problematic, too. It's hard to discern each ingredients and the inventory becomes full quickly when I gather as many ingredients as possible. Some may point out that realism is important but the universal storage in inns ruin it anyway.
 
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Does the developer go with a more realistic style inventory or suspend reality for the sake of fun? That is a question a lot of developers have a hard time answering. I can have fun with either kind. Like in Gothic I just pretend my guy has a bottomless pouch that weighs nothing.

If you go more realistic, it sometimes takes away from the fun factor. Though it does add to the strategic elements of the game. It makes you ask yourself. How many potions do I bring? What potions do I bring? Do I bring bombs or grease. What about ingrediants? Will I have enough space to pick ingrediants?

I like the inventory in The Witcher but like Acleacius said it would of been better if there were different compartments to store ingrediants ect...
 
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I simply don't like to find out an item is missing and have to go back to inns to solve a simple quest. Quest items have their special places in the inventory but some items to loosen up lips of potential informant are not. I let Geralt carry alcohol for alchemy but some NPCs request specific type.

Another issue is that the players are not sure how useful new ingredients can be. Quite many people complained of the same thing about Arcanum especially when they invested on crafting skills. The ability is a good motivation for exploration but you feel the inventory restrictive when you play such character.

Does the developer go with a more realistic style inventory or suspend reality for the sake of fun? That is a question a lot of developers have a hard time answering.
It is a tough question. I think the inventory of the Witcher missed some points but especially games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., the weight limit plays a role in terms of immersion and strategic choices. Furthermore, in S.T.A.K.E.R.'s case, the designers might be thinking of letting the players use vehicles as carriers. If so, it would be a good solution since the players still need to choose what they carry before entering areas where vehicles cannot enter. Also, being forced to play on foot in the earlier part of the game would be good enough to create survival feel. Furthermore, in earlier part, the players are not supposed to have too many items. Most Sci-Fi and modern setting would be compatible with this solution and the vehicles can be replaced by animals such as horses in historical and fantasy settings. The idea itself is not original and I think the designers struggle with the engine to implement them.
 
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The Gothic 3 engine was too performance un-friendly for me to ever wish any game used it. Loading times for a single save game would equal about 3 Witcher loading screens, so I don't really see the big advantage there.

Everyone is complaining about the loading screens. That's fine if that's your beef. But I personally have never played an RPG that looks this good with the fluidity and smooth performance of The Witcher.

I would have to say that if Gothic 3 used The Witcher's engine that would be THE game.
 
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Actually I was sort of talking about how terrible the Inn storage was needing tabs, however if that wouldn't have worked on Geralt, then the solution would have been free unlimited storage in backpack of Ingredients, this alone could remedy 60% of the inventory headaches.

Yeah the Gothic 3 engine might have been alittle to resource heavy.
 
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