The Witcher 2 Official Review

Every so often a game comes along that doesn't simply live up to expectations, doesn't even simply exceed those expectations, it completely redefines a genre.  That is what The Witcher 2 has done, it has established itself as the new Standard for Action RPGs.  The graphics, the sound, the storyline, the depth of characters and incredibly meaningful decisions that you make throughout the game, make this not just a great game, but truly an Epic Win.

 You are Geralt, the fellow on the right in this picture, with his significant other Triss, on the left.  Geralt is a famous Witcher, which is someone who has three major abilities, sword, magic, and alchemy, the latter being the ability to create and drink potions which temporarily improve your stats.  During the course of the game you'll use all of those abilities and more, although as you level up you'll choose which 'skill tree' or trees you'll be investing your ability points into.  Would you rather focus on your swordplay abilities, or maybe get some of both the swordplay and magic abilities?  The choices are yours, a theme that will be on powerful display throughout the game.  Choices and decisions are a huge part of what makes RPGs great, and you won't find better than TW2.  From very early in the game you'll make important decisions that can make a major difference in the gaming world.  Who lives and who dies is often up to you, and sometimes, like in one particularly important decision late in Chapter One, your decision will have a VERY profound effect on the world going forward, so much so that the second Chapter of the game plays out completely differently depending on that choice, from which town you end up in to which side of an upcoming war you side with, and all the consequences that naturally flow from all those things.  I know of no other game that has ever packed anywhere near this much power into the choices that you the player are allowed to make, the consequences are profound, and you really feel like you're making a huge difference in the world, because you are.

Whether you're on the side of this beautiful lady, Saskia, in her battle for Freedom and Independence is entirely up to you, your choices determine which side you end up on, hers or the king who seeks to crush her and her peasant-army.  But that isn't until Chapter Two, you've got a lot to do and accomplish before then Witcher!  And that, of course, includes romance.  Geralt begins the game with Triss (which, strangely, is even true if you import a save from TW1 in which you romanced Shani instead), a very attractive red-haired sorceress who is very much in love with you.  You, of course, can be in love with her as well, or not.  As this game is all about choices, you can choose to be faithful to Triss, or to stray with a number of different women.  In fact, as the game progresses another major love interest from Geralt's past is repeatedly mentioned and eluded to, and presumably you'll meet her either in a future DLC or Expansion for TW2, or in TW3.  But there are certainly enough women around already to test your committment to Triss.  Also, while on the topic of romances, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Love Scenes.  These aren't super-mild events like in Dragon Age 2, they aren't even tame-but-'controversial' like in Mass Effect.  These are very detailed scenes, tastefully done, but still quite graphic.  Overall they're a major improvement over the likes of DAO/DA2 and ME2, but they might be a bit much for some folks, so if you choose to share an intimate moment with the lady of your choice, be prepared for far more than anything you've seen in Ferelden or on the Normandy.

As you can see from the pictures, this game is a graphical masterpiece, a truly beautiful sight to behold.  The sounds, including the voice acting, are also awesome.  No game is without its faults, and TW2 does have a few, most notably that while Geralt is a fine Hero of the game, he isn't customizable at all.  You can't play as a female character, something that most folks would probably like to be able to do.  You can't change the skin color, hair color, eye color, etc. of the character in any way either.  The complete lack of customizing options is a letdown, and stands in stark contrast to most major RPGs these days, for whom character creation options are standard.  Hopefully the next TW game will have the same character customization options as games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fallout, and Fable, just to name a few.  As fun as it is playing as a generic male, white haired Witcher, it would probably be a lot more fun playing as a Witcher who looks like Triss or Saskia.  Also on the negative side, there's an over-abundance of bad language in the game.  I don't understand why they felt the need for so much bad language, there's certainly no need for it, its a shame they allowed so much bad language to pollute the beautiful environment of this game.

There's never been a game quite like The Witcher 2, it is simply incredible from start to finish.  From the challenging yet fun combat, to the beautiful characters and scenery, to the extremely impactful decisions you make that effect so much of the gaming world and the people in it, this game is quite simply a masterpiece.  The Witcher 2 gets a score of 98 out of 100.  A point off for all the bad language, a point off for the lack of Character Customization, other than that a perfect score!  I encourage everyone to buy and enjoy The Witcher 2 today!

More Witcher 2 Impressions

As you know, I've been playing the hit new game The Witcher 2, the most anticipated game since Dragon Age 2, and a possible contender for Game of the Year.  Since my early impressions, I've had the opportunity to play some more, and having done so I must say that while my initial impressions were overall positive, my subsequent impressions have been overwhelmingly positive.  There's just so much to like about this huge, huge world and the fascinating characters and situations.  As a fan of RPGs, this has got to be the deepest game I've played in a long, long time.  It rivals the Final Fantasy series, and I would argue that it even surpasses it.  I'm currently in Chapter Two, and I must say the storyline is still a fascinating mystery.  I don't know what's going on, I don't know what's going to happen next, and I'm loving every minute of this game.  The graphics are unbelievably awesome, the combat is incredibly difficult, which is still very frustrating at times, but better that than too easy I suppose :) .  Also, I should mention that I eventually got to one of the Love Scenes, later in Chapter one.  It featured Triss, and well, let's just say that I didn't know that a game could have a Love Scene that....detailed, let's say, and still have an M rating.  Certainly it makes the Mass Effect Love Scene, the one that got all that controversy at the time, look SUPER tame by comparison.  Ironically, since the original Mass Effect, Bioware's Love Scenes have gotten progressively more and more tame.  TW2 goes VERY much in the opposite direction, and we'll have to see which one the fans like better (I would imagine the vast majority of fans will prefer TW2's version).  

The Witcher 2 totally puts Dragon Age 2 to shame.  I wanted, and fully expected, DA2 to be the Game of the Year, to be amazingly awesome, to follow in Dragon Age Origin's footsteps and be even better than the original.  Instead, DA2 was a disappointment, and TW2 is the real deal, WAY beyond my expectations.  It's so vastly far ahead of DA2 in almost every way.  The graphics are much better, the combat, the storyline (some might ask, in regard to DA2, 'What storyline?'), the characters, TW2 has it all hands down.  DA2 still has the edge in terms of Character Creation, no doubt TW2 would be even better if you could create your own Hero instead of using a generic one, it makes every game so much more fun when you can do that, TW2 really should have that feature.  But that's about the only thing missing from this truly impressive game.  That, and Shani.  She's still nowhere to be seen, which is especially strange given that, again, if you played the original you actually had the chance to basicly marry her (you can buy her, or Triss, whichever one you choose, a ring, and you basicly adopt an orphan as well, so you're like one big happy family).  Obviously Triss is a central figure in the game, as she should be.  Shani should be equally so, instead she's like, totally gone, its very strange.  But its not like the game is short on interesting characters, there are a ton!  I'm enjoying the amazing exploration possibilities, the super awesome Main and Side Quests, it's just super awesome.  I look forward to tons more awesome adventures as I progress in the world of The Witcher 2!

The Witcher 2 Early Impressions

I must say, my early impressions of The Witcher 2 weren't really what I expected them to be.  The game is far more different from the original than I expected, I know that there was some talk that they were making changes to help them one day sell a Console version, and they denied that, but it didn't take very long to come to the conclusion that the folks who surmised that were in fact entirely correct.  The changes 'have' to have been made for that reason, because the game is far too different for them to have just decided to make all these changes for no reason.

First, the game plays VERY differently, for starters there is NO mouse cursor!  Of course the cursor was an integral part of what made the original game so great.  In its place is a more conventional, and inferior, system whereby you have to make your character stand in a certain area to see if there's anything there, such as something to pick up.  It is MUCH harder now to find things that you need to pick up, especially the 'alchemy' items, because there's so much (very beautiful) scenery, flowers, bushes, etc. it's very hard to at times to tell whether a certain part contains something you can pick up or not, and you can't click on it from a distance, you have to walk over to it and see if something comes up that says you can pick it up.  That is extremely annoying at first, eventually you get used to it, but obviously it would be better if things had stayed the same from the original, where you can tell from far away what's what, and you can click on it from anywhere to pick it up.

The combat is also radically changed, with no cursor that means the entire TW combat system is right out the window.  The new combat system is very reminiscent of Gothic 3, for those of you who played that.  In fact the game overall has a major Gothic 3 sort of feel, from the combat to the music.  Of course the graphics are much nicer in TW2, which is a major plus, and for their sakes hopefully the fact that it looks so much nicer than G3 will prevent too many comparisons between the two games.  The combat in TW was a combination of action based and turn based, sort of.  It was highly unique stuff, and quite cool.  That has been replaced by a pure hack and slash style combat, which again is extremely similar to Gothic 3's system, but it should be noted that TW2's combat is MUCH harder than G3's, and that's on 'normal' mode!  There are actually two higher level modes, I can't even fathom how difficult they must be.  It is extremely important to save VERY VERY often, because you're probably going to die a WHOLE lot, and it's going to be extremely frustrating.  Minimize that frustration by hitting the F5 button with extreme regularity. 

The single worst change from TW to TW2 is in the extremely bad language.  There's just a tremendous amount of horrible language in TW2, obviously TW had a bit of bad language as well, but nothing remotely like this, its just unfathomably bad.  To give you some idea, I'm still in Chapter 1, and I probably have LITERALLY heard the f word spoken more than 100 times.  Its WAY WAY WAY overboard with the bad language, just no excuse for something like that.  Also, on a more subjective note, you may or may not like the idea of nudity in games, and there is very little of it so far, it's not at all avoidable like in a game like Mass Effect, where you can see the love scene or not.  In the very beginning of the game, your character's girlfriend/wife/whatever (its somewhat undefined) Triss is in bed with the Main Character, and she's naked.  And I do mean naked.  She's very attractive, surprisingly so in fact, but the fact that seeing her au natural isn't at all optional might upset some folks.  Of course a strong case can be made that its a lot like a regular movie in that regard, an argument I would be sympathetic toward personally, but everybody will have their own opinion on that.  The bottom line on this is that TW2 goes WAY out of its way to earn its 'M' rating, completely unnecessarily in the case of the vulgar language, far less extremely in the case of the very brief nudity, but make no mistake, you MUST be 18 or older to play this game.

Back to the graphics, they really are impressive.  TW's graphics were awesome, and TW2's graphics are even moreso.  Such beautiful scenery, and plenty of it.  From the trees and plants and such, to the lifelike people, the VERY well designed monsters, it's truly a feast for the eyes.  On the downside, the main character, who was always a generic and bland looking sort of character, really doesn't look any better at all.  There's still zero customization, not only can you not play as a male or female character, you can't even customize the character's face at all.  The lack of customization options, which are so well done in games like Mass Effect, Fallout, Dragon Age, and Fable, is especially unfortunate since clearly the graphics are so impressive that the character you would design could be a MILLION times better than the one you're stuck with.  But certainly the other characters are very nicely done, whether you're talking about the previously mentioned Triss, or any of the other multitude of characters in the game.  There's tremendous individuality and uniqueness about them, they're so well done.  Hopefully eventually they'll get the message that fans like the ability to create their own character, there is so much potential there, the graphics simply blow other RPGs out of the water, it's time they let us use them to create our own character.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm still in Chapter 1, I've played quite a long time, and I feel like I may be nearing the end of the Chapter, but the story is already pretty interesting.  One thing missing is that I'm still hoping to define my relationship with Triss in some way, obviously she's my character's girlfriend at a minimum, but exactly how close they are isn't something I've really had the chance to figure out or influence at all.  In the original, you had the chance to basicly marry either her or one other woman in the game.  So is she the one your character married by default?  Certanily the other woman, Shani, is nowhere to be seen so far in the sequel, inexplicably so, which makes you wonder what the exact default nature of those relationships truly is.  Also, while I've had no chance to influence my character's relationship with Triss or any other woman in the game, I've also had very little to no opportunity to influence the storyline so far either, something that was a very strong point in the original TW as well, but certainly in that one the major decisions didn't come until later also, so hopefully that will still happen in a big way.

The bottom line right now is that I'm quite impressed in certain ways, unbelievably underwhelmed/disappointed in others, but overall it's been a lot of fun, the storyline is interesting, the combat takes a LOT of getting used to but once you do its at least tolerable, and hopefully it'll only get better and better as the game goes on!  In the meantime, have fun everybody!  I've got some more TW2 to play :) . 

The Witcher 2 Preview

At last, the much anticipated Preview for the potential 2011 Game of the Year, The Witcher 2, is here!  In preparation for this Preview, I actually went back and played a lot of the old game, the original, the very first Witcher game, and I have to say, that while of course there was room for improvement, it really was an awesome game, even better than I remembered.  We know that the Graphics of The Witcher 2 are going to be superior to the original, they're top of the line and cutting edge, but the original's graphics were already pretty awesome! 

 This is just a taste of what we can expect in the sequel.  I suppose this picture reveals not only the graphical strength of the game, but also, sadly, its one, glaring weakness.  Particularly when you compare it to games like Fallout or Dragon Age, the one area where the game falls not just short but badly short, is in the area of Character Customization.  In most modern RPGs you can create your own character, give them whatever face and gender you want, dress them up however you want.  All that is entirely absent in The Witcher series, and it's a shame, as a world this incredibly detailed and deep should be explorable by a character of your own creation, one that you as a player are guaranteed to enjoy playing as, not a completely un-editable generic character that may or may not appeal to an individual gamer.  For all the amazing advancements these folks have brought not just to the series but to Action-RPG gaming as a whole, this area is very sorely lacking.  The excuse they give is that the character is 'based on a book', and that's why they didn't include customization.  That of course is an absurd excuse, because we aren't playing a book, we're playing a game, and as a game it would be much nicer if we could decide how the character looks.  The character could be the same basic person, from the same land, have the same personality, the same friends, the same missions, etc. regardless of their race/gender/clothing.  So leaving this common, and very important feature, out of the game is a definite negative, no two ways about it.

Having gotten the negative out of the way, I really see nothing else but positive ahead.  I mentioned the graphics, we all know that cool graphics are nice, but they aren't everything, FAR from it.  It truly is the Gameplay that is where The Witcher shines, and where I believe that The Witcher 2 will shine, if indeed it is as good as it seems that it will be.  Let me start right out by mentioning someething that they have Officially confirmed, and that is that not only are there 16 different Endings to the game, but there are 4 different openings!  Of course that's because the strength of this game has always been its epic storylines, and more importantly your opportunity to shape them.  No doubt a lot of the criticism of Dragon Age 2, released a couple months ago to very mixed reviews, was due to the fact that they inexplicably decided to go away from the very cool model of the original, of giving the player plenty of opportunities to make meaningful decisions that impact the main storyline.  It can be said that DA2 is a lot closer to FF13 than DAO in that regard.  The Witcher, and The Witcher 2, by contrast, are much more in line with the DAO tradition of meaningful and impactful choices and decision-making.  This is what we as gamers want, we want our decisions not only to feel good at the time, but to matter down the line.  That's what TW2 promises, and I look forward to seeing if they truly do deliver, as I expect they will.

Doesn't that look like a really cool forest to explore?  I can't wait!  I'm definitely looking forward to The Witcher 2's release, it's less than 24 hours away!  Thanks to a deal that the TW2 folks made with a wesbite called 'Good Old Games', a site that is actually known for selling older games (including the original Witcher game) you can actually download the game RIGHT NOW, over 9GB worth of download, and then play the game on the 17th, and not only that, but you get 5 dollars off the regular price!  That's right, 44.99 instead of 49.99, you can't beat that deal!  If you haven't preordered yet, I highly reccomend you do so right away, I honestly believe there is a real potential for this game to be the 2011 Game of the Year, don't miss it!

Major News Update

As many of you probably know, yesterday Texas Congressman Ron Paul officially announced his candidacy for President of the United States.  This comes just two days after Newt Gengrich announced his own candidacy, and tonight, just minutes ago on his Fox News TV show, Former Governor Mike Huckabee announced he would NOT run.  As a Christian myself, I like Mike and it's a bit sad that he isn't running, even though I wasn't actually a supporter of his, he certainly would have been better than a lot the ones who are either running or are expected to run.     

The announcements are coming fast and furious now, the action is really heating up!  I'm definitely looking forward to the campaign, hopefully we can get a major focus on personal liberty issues like the right to play Poker.  We know that Ron Paul supports our right to play Poker when and where we choose, in 2008 he was the only major candidate in either party to do so.  Will we see some progress this year?  I certainly hope so,but  even if Ron is once again the only one, if we can at least get some major media attention on the issue and our rights, that will be helpful. 

Of course that's not the only major news out there.  Tomorrow the Eastern Conference Finals begins, the Bulls vs the Heat!  And of course, Game 7 in the Memphis vs OKC series!  Definitely looking forward to a big Sports day tomorrow!  And don't forget, I've still got my bigtime Preview for 'The Witcher 2' coming up, I've been playing the original Witcher a lot lately in preparation for the sequel's impending arrival on Tuesday, so I'll have a lot to say about that very soon!  In the meantime, have fun everybody!

Big Sports Night Tonight!

Tonight we Sports fans have a really good thing going.  Not only do we get Game 5 of the Miami Heat vs Boston Celtics series, a game that will feature either the Heat closing out the series, or Boston winning and then having the opportunity to tie the series at home, giving them a very real chance to advance, but in addition to that we get another classic Baseball game between two arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs and the St Louis Cardinals! 

First, to the NBA.  The Heat-Celtics series has been closer than the 3-1 series score appears, Boston could very easily be up 3-1 themselves, such has been the nature of the games, they've been close, Boston generally leads at least somewhat late in the game before ultimately losing the games they lose, and it's not out of the question that they could get hot and win three straight.  Of course the Heat, featuring all that incredible talent, could very easily win tonight's game at home and close out the series.  They've been so impressive, as you might expect of a team containing Dwayne Wade and Labron James.  Tonight's game could be really special, and I can't wait to see how it ends up!

On to the MLB, where the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry takes center stage.  This is actually the second game of the series, the Cubbies working hard to lose last night's game, and did so in reasonably impressive fashion.  Multiple fielding blunders helped them give up a bunch of runs, enough to overcome the impressive offensive performance they had against Cardinals Ace Chris Carpenter.  13 Hits and 4 runs against Carpenter, but Mr Kerry Wood and that legendary Cubs Defense stepped up their 'lets give it away anyway' game, and got the job done.  Despite having a good bit of talent, the Cubbies are pretty bad this year, as usual, and despite the fact that the Cardinals have a lot of weaknesses themselves, notably the fact that their stars seem to be getting real old real fast, it's quite reasonable to except a Cardinal win tonight, and sweep of the series, even though the Cubbies are at home.  As a Cubs fan myself, it's sad and frustrating to watch all that talent go to waste year after year, I honestly don't know how they manage to do it.  Is it the coaching?  Is it the sheer momentum of being perpetual losers that fosters a losing mentality year after year?  Whatever it is, it sure would be nice if something could change it, but right now I don't know what that would be.

I want to close out this post with a teaser for my upcoming Preview of the amazing RPG Game due out next week, The Witcher 2.  It's got the potential to be this year's Game of the Year, it looks simply amazing, everything I've not only seen but read suggests it could truly be epic.  Here's just a small taste of what we have to look forward to next week when the game comes out.  We play as the man in the front of that picture, Geralt, the same man who was also the star of the original The Witcher game, which was so popular when it came out some time back.  I've also included a Preview Clip from Youtube as well, which features some actual gameplay from early in the game.  Look forward to my Preview of The Witcher 2, I'll be posting that soon!  In the meantime, feel free to comment as always, and have fun everybody!

Exciting News from SirGladiator!

First let me thank all of you for tuning into my blog every day, I do my best to give you high quality entertainment, as well as informative information, and I appreciate your support.  I have an announcement to make, its some good news, and some bad news, but the bad news isn't bad news for you, just me, so don't worry :) .  As you know, I'm a supporter of the Rights of Poker Players, and I'm also a fan of Video Games (see my previous review of the Dragon Age 2 game, and my commentary on the loss of Poker Players Rights, both still available here on the Main Page of the Site, if you haven't already done so), and I decided to create an entire website to cover and promote those very things!  Don't worry, I'll still be providing just as much high quality information here as always, especially because I really don't know how to create websites, Im just a regular person :) . 

So I now own a website, and if I ever learn how to impliment my vision of super-coolness and fun on it I'll let you know.  In the meantime, if anybody would like to reccomend anything for me in the comments, something to help me learn how to do a website, that'd be really swell.  If I learn how to do it I won't leave any of you hanging, you'll still get plenty of updates here, AND at my new site!  But again, that's not now, and it may not be anytime soon either, so rest assured that everything is going to still operate completely normally here at the Gladiator Blog!  In fact, I plan on giving you an update soon on a REALLY cool game called 'The Witcher 2' that is due out next week, and appears to be amazingly awesome, super cool, and even a potential 'Game of the Year' Title.  Of course there's plenty of competition for that Title, and the year is young, but trust me, while obviously I haven't played the game yet since it isn't out and all, so of course it could still suck, everything I've seen and read suggests this game is in fact the real deal, and I'm going to give you the lowdown on it really soon, so stay tuned for that!  Once again a big thank you to all my friends out there, every single one of you who read my blog, you guys are awesome!