The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Reviews

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Written by Brother None on May 20th, 2011

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Combat itself is a matter of crowd control. You get hits in where you can, cast spells when you can't, and live in terror of being flanked. Being totally surrounded results in you getting bounced around like a football with such incredible brutality that it might be funny if it weren't happening to you.

When it works, it's fantastic. The game routinely pits you against a half-dozen or more enemies, and surviving these encounters by the skin of your teeth through quick thinking and preparation feels massively satisfying. There's a sense that Geralt wins fights not because he's the hero, but because of talent, training and intelligence. Which, of course, makes him even more of a hero. He's a great protagonist.

The problem is one of balancing. The Witcher 2 has an inverted difficulty curve. Rather than starting you off gently and getting tougher as you learn, The Witcher 2 starts off ungodly tough after an inadequate tutorial, then eventually plateaus into being hugely tricky, before you finally end up progressing far enough into the game's skill trees that everything becomes too easy.

The few rough edges in The Witcher 2, however, are easily forgotten due to the sheer delight that the game's full experience provides. It is, quite frankly, a gorgeous game, lovingly rendered with some of the best graphics ever seen in an RPG. Craggy castles, lush forests, murky swamps, rural villages, and stately cities are all rendered in impressive detail and look great even below "ultra" graphical settings. The models are excellent and full of character, especially Geralt, who manages to look like a man described as both frightening and irresistible. Characters both beautiful and ugly have been lovingly detailed, from the overdone makeup of a brothel madam to the droopy man-boobs of a flabby fist-fighter.

The sound design backs up the game's visual atmosphere, especially the ambient sounds. The villages sound busy and bustling, and random villagers have an impressive amount of ambient dialog. When exploring dangerous locations, the grunting and rustling of monsters in the distance constantly reminds the player that Geralt is not alone. The voice acting is thankfully well-done, lending credence to the game's writing, which is good but not always top-notch. Extra acclaim should be given to the voice actors of the game's dwarven characters, who bring that earthy, gleefully profane race to life and provide some of the game's most amusing moments without toppling fully into stereotype.

The trick is getting all the proper components together. For better items, you'll need special components. For example, to create a powerful set of armor you might need hardened leather. This can be purchased from vendors but tends to be expensive. So if you need something like eight pieces of hardened leather, you'll likely want to purchase the Diagram to just make it yourself. This adds a nice layering of craftable components common to MMOs. First you need to collect basic leather pieces and oil, then combine those to produce the hardened leather you need for the more powerful item of gear you ultimately want to make. It can require a bit of grinding as you run through caves plucking iron from walls or blatantly burglarizing every house you come across for timber and other valuables, but the usefulness of the components make the time spent feel worthwhile.

Though I like the system and have been excitedly purchasing new Diagrams whenever I have enough money to do so, I am a bit put off by the interface. It looks really pretty and, when all the appropriate components are gathered, is simple enough to use, but it's irritating to have to have to dive in and out of menus to get everything done. For instance, I'll be trying to build a new silver sword and find I'm short a few chunks of silver ore. I'm talking to a crafter that just so happens to sell it, but I can't simply purchase the silver through the crafting menu. Seems like it'd save time to combine the crafting and buy / sell menu. It's a minor knock, but something that's been bothering me the more I try out the system.

It's also been frustrating carting around all the components since there doesn't appear any way to store items in The Witcher 2. I'll keep hunting, but so far I've had to sell off a lot of items to stay under my weight limit. That would be fine, but normally in games like this there's a central storage space so I can stockpile what I find.

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