Hey, I've not done a single Game Review. What's the deal? Here we go then, The Witcher 2. To be fair, I'm only 1/4 of the way through the story, but I'm mostly going to talk about the mechanics anyway.
I'm clearly getting old. There was a time when an extensive inventory and crafting system was exhilarating. When managing what you can carry was a trifle or an added challenge. When a complex combat system mixing spells and swordplay offered interesting variety. These days, these things feel more like tedious busy work than intriguing game-play. And in the case of The Witcher 2, these aspects are all too prevalent.
To be fair, I've always been a little put off by limited space in inventory in games like this, going back to Diablo as one of the first games that really drove me nuts in this category. The difference being that in games like Diablo, if I was a Barbarian, I knew I could sell any magic wands or staves or cloaks I acquired when I returned to a shop. In the case of W2, most of what one loots is hunks of whatever it was looted from; hearts, eyes, teeth, etc. The problem being, that there is no clear way to tell what parts of what monsters one might need in the future to make potions or craft weapons or armor. Some are obvious; one will always need iron ore to make the next Steel Sword upgrade for example. But others are fairly vague. After working on a quest to kill a bunch of giant plant crab something or others called Endragoras or whatever, I had gathered my maximum amount of loot I could carry. After slowly trudging my way back to town (yes, it's one of those games) I sold off a ton of stuff I didn't think I'd need, including a handful of Plant Crab teeth which I hadn't found a use for yet. Then I stopped at the smithy later and found that the best Steel Sword required 15 of them to make for some reason. I couldn't buy them back so I had to go pointlessly murder the now much less common crab spiders for their teeth.
This brings up another point, the dual sword system. Now, the idea of a monster hunter who carries two swords, a steel sword for slaying humans, and a silver sword for slaying monsters sounds pretty awesome at face value. And the hero, Geralt looks pretty cool with two swords slung over his back, no denying it, and as far as a Fantasy Novel character device goes, it is a pretty interesting one. The problem comes in when you implement it into the game. For a start, you will find yourself very frequently upgrading your steel sword in the first chapter and not fighting a lot of humans til the close of the chapter. Not to mention that there is only one Silver Sword upgrade in the first chapter, and it comes immediately before the end of said chapter, just in time for the afore-mentioned human bloodbath. So for the whole first chapter, you will mostly be using the basic silver sword and upgrading your steel sword for really no good reason. And it bears mentioning that if you use the wrong sword on a type of enemy, it will do almost no damage. This makes sense and would not be a problem if there weren't instances where human bandits and monsters will stop fighting one another in order to collectively kick your ass, so you have to choose a sword, weed out the appropriate enemies, then switch swords and kill the others. And again, this would not be that big of a problem if not for buggy and occasionally unresponsive controls.
The controls appear simple enough. Press 1 to draw/sheath your Steel Humanoid slaying Sword, press 2 to draw/sheath your Silver Monster chopper. Easy enough. The only problem is at times, if you get surprised by an enemy, and just hit the mouse button, Geralt will draw whatever sword he was last using. If it's the wrong one for the enemy, you will have a few moments when you will be vulnerable as you switch. And that's assuming Geralt responds at all. I've had plenty of times where I've found myself mashing the 2 button as a monster beats my face to a pulp and Geralt stands there getting pummeled with his Steel sword drawn. So then I would try to press 1 to put the steel sword away, and he still stands there like a bloody bump on a log. Another time, I was fighting a group of elves and as the last one died, I heard a distant scream like a large cat, announcing that some Nekkar's were on their way. They were far off yet, couldn't even see them, so I pressed 1 to Sheath my Steel sword. Nothing. Tried it again as I spotted a Nekkar off in the distance. Nothing. Okay, I'll push 2 to draw my Silver Sword. Nothing. Getting closer, could really use my silver sword sooner than later, pressing 2. Nothing. They are about to start punching the guts out of me, back to 1. NoF'ingThing. They've reached me, and are stomping my gizzards flat, pressing 1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2. Guess What, Nothing! So finally I start swinging with my Steel Sword and Rolling to dodge their assault. After I flail ineffectually against the nearest Nekkar and do almost no damage, I tried 2 one more time in a moment of grim jocularity. The white haired Git finally switched swords.
I heard the Nekkars coming from a country mile off, and was at half health before Geralt decided it was a good idea to draw the appropriate sword.
And that's to say nothing of the combat system itself. Don't even get me started on the incomprehensibly named spells. But the swordplay mechanics are either brilliantly complex or idiotically simple, and I honestly can't tell which. It doesn't help that W2 takes the tack that you must have just finished W1 on the hardest setting or you wouldn't be playing W2 (I never played 1 by the way), so it throws you into combat with almost no instruction and cheerfully watches you get mercilessly slaughtered several times by the first enemies you encounter. I had to go down to easy mode just to get through the damn intro.
Another niggling point that drives me batty are the quick time events. I'm already bored to death with the concept now that every action game since God of War has aped it, but it doesn't help that W2's variety is a tiny indicator in a strange, orangish sepia tone that almost always gets washed out by the backgrounds. For example, at one point I had to rescue some elf girls from a burning building before we were all consumed by the flames. I found the girls and one said "Release us" so I went over and clicked on her, then pissed away precious seconds before I realized that I was standing there not actually releasing her, because for some reason it was deemed necessary to attach a 'Click a whole bunch' Quick Time Event to this action. Needless to say we all burned, and I was forced to repeat the cut-scene (skipable, but still had to load) and a combat sequence before climbing the tower and trying again. All because I couldn't see the tiny little QTE bar.
Now don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good reasons to play W2, or I would have quit a long time before the end of the intro. The visuals are downright gorgeous, and the voice acting is pretty good, with Geralt's occasional Batman voice and the repetition of lines from townsfolk being the only real issues. The world is very deep and the story impressive. Again, I feel I must warn any others who skipped W1, prepare to be confused, and it may not be a bad idea to find a plot summary on line to get up to speed, because again, the game assumes you are an old hand and will know exactly who's who and what's happening. But, the story that unfolds is very interesting so far and worth the effort of bashing your head through some of this games failings.
And really that's the only problem. At times, Witcher 2 feels very much like a game that does not want to be played. As though it is actively trying to twart your attempts to advance by bugging out at all the wrong times, sending Geralt careening across the room to strike the one enemy standing 10 feet away and ignoring the other seven standing right next to him trying to spill his innards. All in all, it's worth the annoyances.
Just remember to breath and count to 10.
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