The Witcher - Review @ The Jerusalem Post

from the tone of his post, it doesnt appear that he cares much about the sensitivities of the local population

Freed from the shackles of communism, Polish software developers feel at liberty to go as far as they want

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You know, after seeing that sentence I felt a pressing urge to stop reading.

Seriously, I almost expected to see a line "also, they support the nazi ideology, and eat babies" next.

*shrugs*

Anyway, I can only assume that the author of this short review has not read the books.

Freed from the shackles of communism, Polish software developers feel at liberty to go as far as they want

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Well, yeah, they do, and right in your face.

First of all its refreshing to notice that this particular reviewer actually played the game. So I can somewhat respect his opinion no matter how idiotic it may look like. My personal take on his views however is that me an him live in a whole dfferent planet

Games are harmless if you compare them what is shown on tv. Even most t-rated movies show more bare skin than witcher or any game for that matter does. (besides what is so horrible in naked people or sexuality?) When are we going to see the end to this stupid hypocrisy? I'm getting really tired of this buzz surrounding witcher. These people are somehow trying to claim that witcher is a really rebellious game. EEK nudity, violence and even cursing! How dare they?!

Don't 'these people' ever step outside in the real world? Haven't they ever see anyone naked? Haven't they heard anyone cursing? Whats the fucking problem really? Don't they read any books? don't they watch telly? Don't go in the cinema? Most of all don't they spend any time with real people? I'm finding it really difficult to understand why games are such a special case to these guardians of moral? Why games can't be allowed to 'violate' their moral code?

EDIT: Sorry for my outburst, but somehow this is just getting so old. I don't really know what i was trying to say exactly, maybe just needed to put some steam off Witcher has one of the best storylines I've seen in years yet there is huge buzz about trivial things such as geralt having sex with triss (which is the most natural between two lovers, don't you agree?). The quality of writing is suberb and the whole game was like a breath of fresh air. Defining again what roleplaying is about. Its like watching an academy awarded movie and whining in a review why do the main characters have sex and curse so much even if it belongs to the film's context.

Understandable about blowing off the steam, Dez. It does get old, all the fuss. I have no problem understanding that people may not want to look at nudity, hear people swearing or be presented with situations that don't agree with their moral outlook, but what I'll never understand is why other people doing it bothers them so much. The fact that it even exists seems to bother them. I just don't get it.

Let's face it, the game is not going to insidiously creep onto all the harddrives in the world and take them all over like a Die Hard movie--and if and when software *is* capable of that, you'll have a lot more to worry about than a partially naked lady on trading card.

You sure about that? There are plenty of cases of people claiming that pictures of naked ladies spontaneously crawled onto their hard drives. Why would a game with them be any different?

@ Dez
They do watch movies, just not American ones with all the cursing. Bollywood is as big (bigger?) as Hollywood, and you'd have to dig deep if you were to find nudity or cursing in such movies. I don't know exactly what movies they watch in Israel, but I wouldn't be surprised if the were more along the lines of Bollywood than Hollywood.

Edit: Interesting stats: http://www.businessweek.com//magazine/content/02_48/art02_48/a48tab37.gif

In many cultures around the world, verbal abuse (cursing) is considered as bad as punching someone in the face (or worse). Is that such a strange thing? There are far more people having problems due to verbal abuse than being beat up - being beat up is something you can shrug off as soon as the pain is gone; verbal abuse stays in your mind.

I know it might seem very strange to someone born and raised in the West, but they really do see things quite differently. I know quite a few in China, for example, and they'd consider it a far bigger insult if you said "Fuck you" than try to beat the crap out of them. Most of them consider our ways of constantly cursing "barbaric" and "stupid", and I can't say I disagree.

Talk about making a fuss; I don't see why people are making such a fuss that the reviewer is writing for an audience not too similar to the crowd here on the forums. I don't see any of you reacting when GamerDad writes about the blood level, sexual level and generally how "adult" the game is. "Oh, but they're writing towards parents and their kids!". Right, a different audience. My point exactly.

However, the "freed from the shackles of communism" comment is just plain silly. I don't know how much this reviewer knows about communism and the Soviet Union, but he should've looked that part up before writing about it. If they were Russian developers it would make sense; it makes very little sense when talking about Polish developers.

Maylander said:

@ Dez
They do watch movies, just not American ones with all the cursing. Bollywood is as big (bigger?) as Hollywood, and you'd have to dig deep if you were to find nudity or cursing in such movies. I don't know exactly what movies they watch in Israel, but I wouldn't be surprised if the were more along the lines of Bollywood than Hollywood.

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Maylander, if you think that Israelis watch Bollywood over Hollywood, or that Israeli culture is dramatically different from European or American culture, you're very much mistaken. If Israel was situated in Europe, it'd fit in great in the EU. Lots of Israelis are originally from Europe or the US anyway.

Maylander said:

However, the "freed from the shackles of communism" comment is just plain silly. I don't know how much this reviewer knows about communism and the Soviet Union, but he should've looked that part up before writing about it. If they were Russian developers it would make sense; it makes very little sense when talking about Polish developers.

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It wouldn't make any more sense if it they were Russian developers. It's just a silly comment.

Well, developers in the Soviet Union certainly didn't have "freedom of speech". Far from it. The Witcher touches subjects like racism and war, which is certainly not something the Soviet government would allow. Every kind of media in the old Soviet Union was pretty much controlled by the government, so "going as far as the want" (which is what the author mentioned) would've been impossible.

Still, the comment was aimed towards Poland, and in Poland they've had liberty for quite a long time.

Maylander said:

Well, developers in the Soviet Union certainly didn't have "freedom of speech". Far from it. The Witcher touches subjects like racism and war, which is certainly not something the Soviet government would allow. Every kind of media in the old Soviet Union was pretty much controlled by the government, so "going as far as the want" (which is what the author mentioned) would've been impossible.

Still, the comment was aimed towards Poland, and in Poland they've had liberty for quite a long time.

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Um, no. The USSR fell in 1991. The Polish Communist government fell all of two years before that, in 1989. The cracks in the Polish Communist regime started to show in the early 1980's; in Russia, Gorbachev came to power in 1985 -- again, a difference of maybe 2-3 years. Jaruzelski was a good bit more repressive than Gorbachev, and Gierek and Gomulka weren't much better than Brezhnev and Khrushchev.

But the main point is that the 20-ish developers making games in both countries would have been in primary school when all that went down. They're certainly not enjoying the first wild, heady days of freedom after a lifetime of oppression.

Maylander said:

Still, the comment was aimed towards Poland, and in Poland they've had liberty for quite a long time.

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Well, the twins were about to change that, as it appears to me.

We got rid of one of the twins, fortunately.

Maylander said:

Still, the comment was aimed towards Poland, and in Poland they've had liberty for quite a long time.

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Prime Junta said:

But the main point is that the 20-ish developers making games in both countries would have been in primary school when all that went down. They're certainly not enjoying the first wild, heady days of freedom after a lifetime of oppression.

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Exactly. We (in Poland) didn't regain our freedom yesterday, that's why to me that comment was so ridiculous, if not just stupid or even rude in a way. Anyway, you want to know how many serious game developing companies there were in Poland before 1989? Hm, lemme see... - you know what, I have no idea, but I think it's safe to say that it was something around zero.

Maylander said:

I know it might seem very strange to someone born and raised in the West, but they really do see things quite differently. I know quite a few in China, for example, and they'd consider it a far bigger insult if you said "Fuck you" than try to beat the crap out of them. Most of them consider our ways of constantly cursing "barbaric" and "stupid", and I can't say I disagree.

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I don't know about Israel, but in Poland we have a very "liberal" law when it comes to games (Unfortunately, this might change). I know I've seen many cases in the past where a game got a 18+ rating in the U.S. or the U.K., and in Poland it got a 16+. Which doesn't really matter, because a 15-year-old can still buy a 18+ game. I don't recall a game ever being censored. Of course, The Witcher is considered a game with a lot of adult content around here as well, but then again, there aren't as many games developed in Poland as in some other countries.

I can't speak for the people at CDProjekt Red, but I believe I am right when I say that The Witcher was developed for the Polish audience/standards in terms of content, *and* published in other countries. Well, the devs might have thought about the reaction in the States, but certainly not about Israel or China. Maybe that's why people from other cultures could be overly offended by it - but can you blame the devs? Imagine, if while making a game any group of developers was like "Oh, no, we can't have that - it will offend x", "And this will offend y" and so on, and so forth. Something tells me the game would be boring, if it was a game with any story or dialogues.

Hm, I think Tetris is one of the few games that can be enjoyed by people worldwide. I may be wrong, though.

That review sounds just like another "Evil, evil games are evil" article. Does anyone here frequent that website? - 'cause I'm wondering what do they usually say about games?

Anyway, if The Witcher isn't fit for the cultural standards in Israel, then perhaps the reviewer shouldn't start off with attacking the developers, but rather ask who allowed this game to be published there.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Well, the twins were about to change that, as it appears to me.

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*sigh* Appearances can be deceiving , you know.

Krzychu said:

Hm, I think Tetris is one of the few games that can be enjoyed by people worldwide. I may be wrong, though.

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Which was written by Aleksey Pajitnov, a Soviet computer scientist. Has this discussion come full circle or what?

Yeah, if only people would take the same stance and defend the Danish cartoon of Allah or Muhammad or whatever it was.

I almost guarantee this thread would have a different tone if this was an Iranian or Palestinian review of the Witcher. I guess some bigotries and hatreds are buried too deep inside us, either that or we are so scarred of Muslims we refuse to critisize their religious psycho-babble nonsensical violence, but since the Jews won't kill you for moking them or being a heretic its okay to do so. They're only filthy Jews after all. Curse them and their savage way of life and opinions on games. We can only hope they get nuked soon and we won't have to share the world with those greedy bastards who have the audacity to have a newspaper that could not like a game because of content that is objectionable to the members of its religion and who share there objection in a non-violent and non-threatening way. Burn them!!!!! Burn those big nosed barbarians!!!!! Throw them down the well so our country can be free!!!!!

If the use of the term Jew was offensive please replace it with the more PC term Zionist.

Welcome to the forums, Unrestigered. Too bad you were too chicken to post that under a "restigered" identity.

You know what's really sad? It's that anti-Semitism is very real -- but your kind of ranting that sees it even when it's not there trivializes and even legitimizes it. Not to mention implicitly conflating Zionists and Jews like in your parenthesis.

Put another way, it can't be right if I'm only allowed to dislike someone if he's white (but not Jewish), secularized, and left of center, just like my little self.

(By the way, there's been plenty of criticism -- and more than criticism -- of Muslims both individual and collective here; just leaf through some threads in Politics & Religion.)

Most of the criticism in this thread has been pretty mild, IMO and I find it hard to find any threats of violence or an "I hate Jews theme" running through it. Still, I'll clarify my own remarks about "all the fuss," however.

Unregistered, whoever you are, you may not be aware that since this game was released, its adult content and mature themes have been slammed by many people for moral reasons. This is also a bigger issue in the media in general, and gamers are constantly seeing any mature content in games vilified, frequently without any attempt at impartiality. (Google "Fox News and Mass Effect" for an extreme example.)

After several months of hearing the 'moral' issues in a game that was never intended for children being stressed out of proportion to the other aspects of the game, it gets old.

The Jewish press as represented in this article is certainly not a main focus in particular of my or I think anyone here's resentment , but comes under some legitimate fire for referring to profanity and non-compulsory mild visual references to consensual heterosexual sex as filth and perversion, not to mention dragging in some personal slurs about the devs' ethnic and political background which seem pretty irrelevant to a game review.

That said, several posters in this thread have found the review to be otherwise fair, and have mentioned it. For me personally, the review was spoiled by the intrusion of a moral agenda, but if my unwitting remarks were offensive, I do apologize. It's never my intention to belittle anyone for their racial, ethnic, religious or idealogical identity.

Prime Junta said:

Welcome to the forums, Unrestigered. Too bad you were too chicken to post that under a "restigered" identity.

You know what's really sad? It's that anti-Semitism is very real -- but your kind of ranting that sees it even when it's not there trivializes and even legitimizes it. Not to mention implicitly conflating Zionists and Jews like in your parenthesis.

Put another way, it can't be right if I'm only allowed to dislike someone if he's white (but not Jewish), secularized, and left of center, just like my little self.

(By the way, there's been plenty of criticism -- and more than criticism -- of Muslims both individual and collective here; just leaf through some threads in Politics & Religion.)

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Conflating as in grouping all the Jews that live in the only Jewish country in the world together with all the Jews that don't live in that country who believe that Jews should be able to live in that country, and saying they make up an overwhelmingly vast enough percentage of the total Jewish world population that the term Zionist and Jew can be used interchangably, than yes. Yes, I conflated. I'm a conflator. An implicit conflator. I know, I know, its crazy. Or I'm crazy. Crazy like glue.

I think people should review the term narrative. Lets say the Jews played The Witcher, and decided to review it with a Jew Narrative in mind, and found it prefectly suitable for Jew consumption. Thats when people should say, "Huh? Thats crazy! The Jews have lost their Jew minds! "

Or let me use an example that will translate better to this audience. Michael Moore reviews a game in which guns are sold to children without healthcare in order to fund an oil war with Sudan in which Bush is shown to be a smart, compasionate gentleman who is loved by the world, and the world loves America, and America is good, and soldiers aren't brainless automatons, and the war was good, and Moore says the game is not good due to ethical reasons, would that make sense?

Yes, it would make perfect sense.

If a group with a specific narrative reviews a game and the logical conclusion, with that narrative in mind, is stated it usually isn't suprising. But in the last ten or so years people are bogled by the statements of groups with specific narratives when that statement is a given. It confuses me.

Here are some comment worthy headlines that would not be at all confusing if people were suprised upon hearing:

"Muslim terrorist group decides to put on a performance of Hairspray at a gay wedding in Saudi Arabia"

"A Cambridge family decides to stop giving children psychotropic meds"

"Al Sharpton caught on tape talking about how much he hates negros, money, and the spotlight"

"Hillary Clinton becomes a nun and has sex with six donkeys in Tijuana"

"France invades Germany, states 'Revenge is a dish best served cold, Bitches!!!!'"

"Atkins diet sweaps Italy, pasta banned from its shores for good"

"World poll finds that 98% of men find sex to be disgusting and not worth the effort"

"Study finds that obese people who abuse drugs, drink, and smoke have the longest life expectancy and would be near immortal if they contracted AIDS"

"Pope Benedict XVI caught on tape eating babies at a satanic ritual during a death metal concert"

"Al Roker and Nancy Reagan sex video over-downloading crashes the internet forever"

"Al Gore says Global Warming is awesome as he sprays carbon particles into the atmosphere before signing on as Ralph Nadar's Vice Presidential running mate"

I could go on because I have a good imagination. All those things above are suprising and comment worthy. The NAACP saying blacks are awesome is not. Neither is a Christian group proclaiming their belief in God. Nor is a newspaper revview of a Jewish religion State with a Jewish narrative saying The Witcher has some immoral content.

The communist stuff Magerette highlights is interesting, but I can't think of a communist regime that was Jew-friendly. Night of the Murdered Poets is a funny title, but something could have been lost during translation.

Anyhow, I like the review. Maybe because getting into the mind of a Jew makes me feel dirty and evil. I stopped putting stock in reviews a long time ago, so all I can get out of them is entertainment. And this review entertains. Calling me a chicken hurts. Maybe we could temporarily place a hold on the "no personal insults" policy so you can roll up your sleeves and let some really bad ones rip, like poop-face and caca-head. Throwing in a yellow belly dirt-bag would be a capital idea, if your keen on it.

Unrestigered said:

Conflating as in grouping all the Jews that live in the only Jewish country in the world together with all the Jews that don't live in that country who believe that Jews should be able to live in that country, and saying they make up an overwhelmingly vast enough percentage of the total Jewish world population that the term Zionist and Jew can be used interchangably, than yes. Yes, I conflated. I'm a conflator. An implicit conflator. I know, I know, its crazy. Or I'm crazy. Crazy like glue.

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Um, no. And you're not crazy, just disingenuous, or someone who bought the propaganda wholesale.

Zionism is Jewish integral nationalism, just like Banderism is Ukrainian integral nationalism. It's perfectly legitimate to oppose Banderism without being anti-Ukrainian, just like it's perfectly possible to oppose Zionism without being anti-Semitic. This would be true even if every Ukrainian was Banderist or every Jew was Zionist -- which is not the case. Conflating the two is simply a shoddy attempt to legitimize a political ideology by branding any opposition to it as racist.

(Feel free to substitute "Nazism/Germans," "Communism/Russians," "Jihadism/Muslims," or any other ideology currently or formerly associated with any particular ethnic or religious group.)

I think people should review the term narrative. Lets say the Jews played The Witcher, and decided to review it with a Jew Narrative in mind, and found it prefectly suitable for Jew consumption. Thats when people should say, "Huh? Thats crazy! The Jews have lost their Jew minds! "

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I didn't find anything specifically Jewish about the JPost review to start with. I did find lots of facile references to its "moral values" of the kind that I've seen in lots of other places -- and a gratuitous slur at Poles and their history.

(Snip a rest of rant with red herrings right and left.)

Maylander said:

I know it might seem very strange to someone born and raised in the West, but they really do see things quite differently. I know quite a few in China, for example, and they'd consider it a far bigger insult if you said "Fuck you" than try to beat the crap out of them. Most of them consider our ways of constantly cursing "barbaric" and "stupid", and I can't say I disagree.

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Are you sure about that statement? I'm not sure about China but in Taiwan saying "gan" and "gan lin mia" are the prefered way of insulting someone over beating the crap out of them. "Gan" and "Gan lin mia" directly translated from Taiwanese it means "fuck" and "motherfucker." It's not just for insulting someone too, kids will say it when they're messing around with each other. Seeing as most Taiwanese are from China I would think that the two cultures are very similar.

You should see some of the legislators in the Legislative Yuan cursing out each other. It's truly funny to watch.

I'm not touching unrestigered's comments with a ten foot pole. Some people just want to cause problems where none existed.