Kalniel's The Witcher 2 review (spoiler free)

[j.o.s.h.1408]

refromat did the trick!

WHat are your thoughts on that lads? i had to do a reformat and it worked fine. great game. Kal diddnt dissapoint me

[j.o.s.h.1408]

im still on chapter 1 i think and its brilliant. i love it. soo much better then mass effect games in which IMO are overrated if im perfectly honest.

i prefer THIS sort of old school rpg games. loving it so far. Im loving the storyline and dialog. And the graphicS? beautiful. just utter beautiful.

[Terbinator]

I caved and bought this and I'm really enjoying it. I have a question though, I'm at the first proper village [where the elf/dwarf are being hanged] and the enemy difficulty seems to have shot through the roof - has everyone's experience been like this?

For instance, I'm doing a side-quest where i have to clear this elf of murder or something by investigating a cave outside the town and the creatures in there tear 10 shades of the brown stuff out of me. I'm dying in like 4 hits and my damage output is minimal [even using the right sword].

Another example is walking through the woods to research the tentacle monster thing and i got tore a new one by a group of bandits. I have basic combat mechanics nailed as far as I'm aware, and i played the full prologue but as i mentioned up above, the difficulty seems to have shot up considerably for no apparent reason.

Edit: Also for anyone wondering, the game runs fine with everything on highest settings (except uber-sampling) on the system to the left. I know the game had a reputation for being a ball breaker when it came out but it would appear the patches and/or drivers have remedied that.

[Ferral]

I've had to knock it down to easy as I was getting wasted in the forest, the spider / scorpion hybrids in the forest and the wraiths in the old mental hospital finally did it so I caved and dropped the difficulty. Even on easy the wraiths were killing me in the hospital, a few hits and dead so set traps etc as there were appearing and used the sign that slows things down giving me the upper hand.

I have heard that it gets easier once you reach chapter 2. I need to get some of the other skill trees unlocked also as Witcher is nearly maxxed out. I cant find a trainer though in this village.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Yea im in the village as well

[kalniel]

1) Please keep this thread spoiler free in case people are continuing to read it before playing the game.

2) You bunch of wusses Yes, the game is hard, almost brutal, if you don't use the right tactics, but there are lots of ways of finding out the right tactics in game - almost all enemies have some kind of weakness to certain tactics that you can learn about. The same tactics don't work for different enemies.

[Terbinator]

1) Please keep this thread spoiler free in case people are continuing to read it before playing the game.

2) You bunch of wusses Yes, the game is hard, almost brutal, if you don't use the right tactics, but there are lots of ways of finding out the right tactics in game - almost all enemies have some kind of weakness to certain tactics that you can learn about. The same tactics don't work for different enemies.

Y Y Y Y.

Not sure what 'heavy' attack is on KB/M

Edit: I'll white out the descriptive parts.

[kalniel]

Y Y Y Y.

You are going to get slaughtered (unless you're playing on easy - when it works fine).

PS: right mouse

[j.o.s.h.1408]

PS. X button on the 360 pad

[Terbinator]

PS. X button on the 360 pad

Heavy attack is Y on 360 -

Is there any real combos as well? I've tried stringing a few X&Y combos together but there doesn't seem to be much variety both in the attack and the damage/knockbacks they do.

[kalniel]

Heavy attack is Y on 360 -

Is there any real combos as well? I've tried stringing a few X&Y combos together but there doesn't seem to be much variety both in the attack and the damage/knockbacks they do.

No combos in terms of what geralt does, but in terms of the effects on different enemies there are (eg using heavy to open up a block, following up with a couple of lights while a vulnerable area is unprotected). Positioning plays a bigger role though (as you'd expect for the lightly armour fighter Geralt is) so it's more about moving/dodging to get in a good position, using your own blocks and spells to help.

[Terbinator]

New question. As some of the quests are time dependant,t hat is they can only be done during the night etc, is there anyway to speed up the day cycle? I had a look at the Inn and didn't come across a sleeping option and visiting a 'lady of the night' ( ) didn't doing anything either.

[Mama Sumae]

Its a wonderful game I would strongly recommend anyone who hasn't played the original to have a go too, the fighting mechanics are somehow different but the story flows rather nicely in my opinion.

New question. As some of the quests are time dependant,t hat is they can only be done during the night etc, is there anyway to speed up the day cycle? I had a look at the Inn and didn't come across a sleeping option and visiting a 'lady of the night' ( ) didn't doing anything either.

On the PC version you can meditate pretty much everywhere, just bring up the signs selection menu (ctrl on PCs) and select the middle circle. You will be able to create/drink potions and advance time as much as you want

On the Xbox it appears to be the Left trigger + A.

[Ferral]

I've just defeated the Kayran, pretty epic fight I thought. Loving this game, its just so playable.

On a side note, I just bought Arcania : Gothic 4. Not as good as The Witcher but still a really good game. One thing I didnt actually like about the first 3 Gothic games was the vague directions you got for the quests and you could end up running around aimlesley trying to find something. This one actually has the option to put markers on the map and outer edge like The Witcher to help you get to the general direction you need to be in. Combat also has a block function where you can roll about when shield is up making it fast paced.

Basically if you like the play style of The Witcher 2 forget the bad reviews for Arcania and grab it, its a fun game in a decent setting (Voice acting is poor to cheesy at times but it happens! ). Its currently on 2 games for £30 in GAME, I got Arcania and Homefront and pleased with my purchase.

[Splash]

Finally got around to finishing it over the weekend. Think I'll have another playthrough of DA2 (maybe as a mage, played rogue last time), then run through TW2 again with some different decisions. Likely by the time I'm done with that ME3 will be out

[j.o.s.h.1408]

this games blooming hard. cant defeat Kayran.