The Witcher: Extended Edition

As some of you may be aware, following the recent failure of my Sony laptop, I opted to move that on and try a Dell. I opted for something that would be capable of running games, though having never bought a PC game before I wasn't sure I'd actually enjoy being separated from my xbox or PS3 controller. I also recently made a topic elsewhere asking for a good RPG, and having found Dark Chronicle utterly tedious, I found a download of The Witcher to try. Suffice to say, it was much more like what I was looking for, so I order the full game (or rather the extended cut) from eBay for a fiver. Bargain.

So, as a PC game virgin, my thoughts so far?

Well, firstly, a few PC quirks. Initially the game wouldn't run as it couldn't see my graphics card (the laptop running a system that means it runs on Intel HD graphics most of the time, only cutting the Nvidia graphics card in when required, in theory using a lot less power) so I had to fiddle with some settings to set up the Nvidia as the default card. With that done, the game started okay. And it looked... well, quite nice actually. It's a four year old game now, but running at 1920 x 1080 it looked very very crisp (much sharper than any of my PS3 or 360 games running at the same resolution on my 40" LCD tv), running at a pretty steady 45 FPS. Ah yes, FPS. Those three letters seem to be something of an obession for PC gaming, standing, of course, for frames-per-second. On a console, you plug the game in and play it. It runs as intended, often around 25-30FPS. On PC though, you start off at a given point and then spend hours fiddling with the settings to get it looking as pretty as possible while maintaining a decent frame rate. Running the maximum possible settings at 1920 x 1080, my laptop was managing around 45 FPS. This rises in quieter areas (I've seen up to 177FPS, though once you get over 60 it's hard to see the difference) and lowers accordingly in heavy combat. A few changes to non-essential settings, and the FPS was slightly higher, now around 50 but crucially but more steady - it still rises a fair bit, but in combat it never falls below 25.

So, the game itself?

It's quite an Old-skool RPG in many ways, following Geralt, the titular Witcher (who are basically superhumans who hunt monsters) as he searches for those who attacked and robbed his brethren in the prologue. The game can be played as either a top down isometric aadventure, where clicking the mouse handles moves character movement and any interactions in the game world, or from an over-the-shoulder POV, whereby movement is via keyboard leaving the mouse to handle combat. This method feels much more like a traditional RPG, and is much the preferred option. Thus far, I'm still very early on, having completed the prologue and arrived in the first town, but I've already discovered a world I'm going to enjoy spending time in. Also, special mention to the dwarven blacksmith in the first proper settlement you enter; when asked why he does business with a certain group of people, his response was "why do pricks go in cunts." I've never heard the c-bomb in a game before, so kudos to The Witcher for that.

SimianWonder wrote:

On PC though, you start off at a given point and then spend hours fiddling with the settings to get it looking as pretty as possible while maintaining a decent frame rate.

This is a common misconception, that takes like 5 minutes max unless you want to go crazy and fiddle with how your graphics card actually handles the game.

It was an exaggeration, yes, but not a wholly inaccurate one. Whilst I can thankfully play The Witcher with pretty much everything at High, I daresay more recent (and more demanding) games would require some time spent learning which options are worth bothering with and which I can do without.

Alright, finished the first chapter proper. Enjoyed it too. There seem to be a lot of choices to make in how you handle missions, but unlike Bioware's titles (which attempt a similar thing) there isn't an obvious good / evil divide, it's very much your own decision.

Take the decision at chapter one's finale for instance; a mob of villagers has chased a witch to a cave and is blaming her for summoning the monster that has plagued their village. Having defeated the monster, you have to make a choice; allow the mob to burn the witch, or defend her. I opted to defend her, having seen just how amoral the townsfolk were.

I daresay it would have played out a lot differently had I let her burn.

Did you end up finishing this, Simian?

Sadly not, no. I played through until part of chapter three and just... lost interest. It's a good game, but the combat got a bit repetitve and I wasn't really drawn into the world in the way I hoped I would be.

Heck, I've still got a sealed copy of The Witcher 2 sat on the shelf at home.

TW1 is a great game design and story wise but it really does drag a bit when you're in the swamp. Just trust me when I say it gets better, I think Skip said similar things when he played it. You should try pushing through Chapter 3, 4 and 5 have completely new areas and really ramp up the story.

SimianWonder wrote:

Sadly not, no. I played through until part of chapter three and just... lost interest. It's a good game, but the combat got a bit repetitve and I wasn't really drawn into the world in the way I hoped I would be.

Heck, I've still got a sealed copy of The Witcher 2 sat on the shelf at home.

Haha I know exactly what you mean, I stopped playing it for about a year then went back to it, powered through chapter 3 and it became engaging again. If nothing else you want to get through so you're well set up for Witcher 2 which is even better.