Witcher 2: Prelim
Well, while sitting at work waiting for remote support to figure things out and call me back, I seem to have a few minutes to comment on The Witcher 2. I picked it up Friday night and have been playing on and off through the weekend.
Two thoughts strike me at this point:
1) Pretty much everything I read in the reviews, good and bad, is true.
2) This game really wants to be an actiony console game.
It's one of the visually prettiest games I've seen, I think. Lots of detail, appropriate color, good movement (on high settings with my hardware). The storyline is reasonably engaging, though some of the side quests are pretty random and unrelated. I suppose as a monster hunter for hire, you get those sorts of jobs.
The manual is an invaluable tool for looking up commands, as there's barely any tutorial-ish boxes in-game. That seems somewhat two-decades-ago, and may be a disadvantage for all those who downloaded it rather than buying a physical copy. The online registration and DLC isn't currently working, though they've included some of that in patch 1.1.
Normal mode is a bitch. After dying three times, I think, to the first fight with a group of three enemies (and having to reload a minute or two back), I switched things over to easy. Easy is... very, very much easier. Suddenly, three opponents are a joke. I haven't been threatened seriously by less than about six, and most fights are button-mashable. I really wish the difference weren't that severe, as I'd like enough challenge to get better at the game without having to reload repeatedly everytime I'm jumped. Easy mode also seems to neuter or simplify the game's quick time events. Fleeing a dragon on a bridge went from what I was lead to believe would be tough and potentially lethal to little more than a cut scene.
Part of the difficulty, I think, comes from the interface/targetting design. The whole thing feels like you should be able to manually change facing and swing to hit what's there - as many console games. Instead, you only hit what you're targetting, and you auto-target whatever's closest... theoretically. Sometimes it seems to favor proximity, sometimes it seems to favor the direction you're facing. Whatever the case, it's hard to stay fixed on one target (though there is a command for that somewhere) or to switch to the specific target you really want on demand.
The inventory system is workable, but clunky. You're sort of encouraged to pick up all these herbs and other things across the world, but you're limited by weight which leaves you trying to decide what to off load. It took a bit to get any weapons/armor that could take enhancement, so I was wondering what to do with those. Now I'm still confused about mutagens, which are supposed to enhance abilities, but I still haven't seen any abilities that accept them.
So far, I'm enjoying it, but easy difficulty makes everything feel sort of cheap when I'm not focusing on plot.
Two thoughts strike me at this point:
1) Pretty much everything I read in the reviews, good and bad, is true.
2) This game really wants to be an actiony console game.
It's one of the visually prettiest games I've seen, I think. Lots of detail, appropriate color, good movement (on high settings with my hardware). The storyline is reasonably engaging, though some of the side quests are pretty random and unrelated. I suppose as a monster hunter for hire, you get those sorts of jobs.
The manual is an invaluable tool for looking up commands, as there's barely any tutorial-ish boxes in-game. That seems somewhat two-decades-ago, and may be a disadvantage for all those who downloaded it rather than buying a physical copy. The online registration and DLC isn't currently working, though they've included some of that in patch 1.1.
Normal mode is a bitch. After dying three times, I think, to the first fight with a group of three enemies (and having to reload a minute or two back), I switched things over to easy. Easy is... very, very much easier. Suddenly, three opponents are a joke. I haven't been threatened seriously by less than about six, and most fights are button-mashable. I really wish the difference weren't that severe, as I'd like enough challenge to get better at the game without having to reload repeatedly everytime I'm jumped. Easy mode also seems to neuter or simplify the game's quick time events. Fleeing a dragon on a bridge went from what I was lead to believe would be tough and potentially lethal to little more than a cut scene.
Part of the difficulty, I think, comes from the interface/targetting design. The whole thing feels like you should be able to manually change facing and swing to hit what's there - as many console games. Instead, you only hit what you're targetting, and you auto-target whatever's closest... theoretically. Sometimes it seems to favor proximity, sometimes it seems to favor the direction you're facing. Whatever the case, it's hard to stay fixed on one target (though there is a command for that somewhere) or to switch to the specific target you really want on demand.
The inventory system is workable, but clunky. You're sort of encouraged to pick up all these herbs and other things across the world, but you're limited by weight which leaves you trying to decide what to off load. It took a bit to get any weapons/armor that could take enhancement, so I was wondering what to do with those. Now I'm still confused about mutagens, which are supposed to enhance abilities, but I still haven't seen any abilities that accept them.
So far, I'm enjoying it, but easy difficulty makes everything feel sort of cheap when I'm not focusing on plot.
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