An excellent game held back somewhat by an outdated engine and a few technical issues. Better than the sum of its parts.
Let's start with the negative technical aspects first and get those out of the way:
Most of the negatives are technical in nature and pretty much all of them stem from the Aurora engine which runs The Witcher. By far, the biggest aggravation are the load transitions, which occur *very* frequently and can be on the long side, depending on the map and the speed of one's hardware. The big outdoor maps usually take anywhere from 6-10 seconds to load (on my machine) and the indoor maps (houses, etc.) take 3-5 seconds. This becomes a problem as you'll have to enter and exit houses very often to talk to people and work through quests, and it begins to seriously disrupt the flow of the game. On top of that, there is no option to turn off autosaving, which also occurs very frequently, always after a quest is given, updated, or completed. This adds another 5-10 seconds to the overall transition time. The autosave option will probably be corrected in an upcoming patch and hopefully the map load times can be reduced significantly as well. I deducted 1/2 a point from my score solely because of this problem.
The performance of the engine is okay, though it does get choppy at times (on a C2D@3.2GHz and 8800GTS@650/1000, 1600x1200). I'd say it's better than the Aurora version running NWN2, considering that the maps are much bigger with more detail and characters. Too bad they couldn't use the Gamebryo engine. Atmosphere/Environment:
This game most resembles Gothic when it comes to environment. The big difference is that this game is broken up into separate maps while Gothic is mostly free-roaming. The outdoor maps in The Witcher are much larger than those found in NWN2, at least 9 times bigger in area on average (3x3), having more of a feeling of openness, with rolling hills, forests and lakes seen in the distance. Early in the game, most of the maps have defined paths separated by fences and fields which cannot be crossed. Later in the game, the maps become more open, where one can run up, down and across hills, fields, and swamps. The scenery looks quite nice on maximum settings, vastly superior to NWN2. For those who are accustomed to the semi-free-roam of Oblivion or Gothic, it may take a while to get used to the limits of the maps, but it's still nowhere near as confining as NWN1/2. As to the atmosphere, again it very closely resembles Gothic. Characters have day/night cycles. During the day they work and walk around, sweep the streets, hammer swords on anvils, eat, drink, dance, play, chop wood, wash clothes, pray, converse with other characters, etc. and even run under cover when it rains. The range of AI activities helps to convey the feeling of a living world, probably even better than Gothic.
The game has physics, unlike NWN, although it's not at the level of Oblivion. Monsters go ragdoll when killed and can fall off ledges and such, and the wind spell can destroy and throw objects.
Graphics/Artistic Quality/Animations:
The environments show attention to detail, and they seem more true to a medieval fantasy world than the stuff coming from US/Canadian studios, which seems sterile by comparison. The character models look pretty good for the most part, although the faces, while well-modeled, lack any discernible emotions whether angry, sad, or happy. Characters' lips don't move too much at all when they're talking, and the syncing is sometimes off. Some of the hands and arms look a bit odd, but whatever. You will notice that you're seeing the same character models used over and over... fat merchant with bell, poor man with bag around neck, old woman with one tooth and mole, priest with beard and robe, etc. Over time, it bothered me less and less - it just didn't seem to hurt my experience that much. Unlike Oblivion, The Witcher uses set meshes. There are no add-on clothing/armor pieces to mix and match different outfits for the characters, nor are there different heads for each body. Even the character you're playing, Geralt, only has a handful of unique-looking armors available to wear, no more than 3 I believe. For some, the lack of visual upgrades might be a real turn-off. While I do like customization, it didn't put a dent in my enjoyment of this game. I guess there were more interesting things to do other than play dress-up.
The combat animations are all mocap and really do look convincing, very fluid. Conversation animations are less impressive, containing some wierd hand gestures and body movements which often don't match the character's disposition. Overall, nothing so bad that it detracts from the game.
There is enough variety in the monster races to keep things interesting, although subraces do look quite similar, really only differing in size, color, and small features like horns and teeth. They're all very well animated. Combat Mechanics:
The combat is a combination of twitch and 'dice' rolls. You initiate an attack by clicking on an enemy, which begins a sequence of blows. You must wait until the sequence enters its final stage, signified by an orange flash from the blade, at which point another click launches a second, more advanced and damaging sequence, and third, and fourth, provided you have those skills. If you click too early or too late, the attack is interrupted, the chain of sequences broken, and you must start over from the base attack. 'Dice' rolls come into play when an attack is first launched, where they may be dodged or parried automatically, both by Geralt and his enemies. There are different weapons styles as well: strong, fast, group. You switch between these on the fly depending on which type of opponent(s) you're facing.
I found this combat system to be more to my liking than that of Gothic. It reminds me a bit of Blade of Darkness, with combos and chained attacks, yet simpler and easier to control. Other comparisons could be made to Vampire: Bloodlines or Jade Empire. At any rate, it never drove me to boredom. By comparison, Oblivion's combat had me bored within a few hours. There's also magic (signs), which tends to become overpowered at high skill levels: air (knockdown/stun), fire, shield, trap, and hex (charm). Some magic skills work in combination with sword skills, like doing extra damage to an opponent who is blinded or on fire. Tedious combat can ruin a game. Thankfully that didn't happen with The Witcher. There's enough going on to keep it from turning into a mindless clickfest.
My biggest gripe with the combat is the sheathing/unsheathing of the sword and how the game deals with hostile/safe areas. You can only unsheathe your sword if the area you are in is hostile, indicated by red claw marks across the day/night circle. If you're in a 'safe' area with hostiles, you must click your mouse pointer on the hostile creature and then the sword will be unsheathed. Problems arise when you need to get your sword out really fast in a tight situation, where say you've just entered a house with 6 enemies right on top of you, all of whom already have their weapons drawn. You'll get hit at least a dozen times before you can respond since it takes over a second for the unsheathing animation to complete, and then Geralt becomes unresponsive for another second after that. When no enemies are in close proximity, Geralt auto-sheathes his sword after a certain period of time, something I find annoying, especially when I'm running towards a monster and he sheathes 5 feet away from it. I guess the safe zone thing was done to prevent players from killing neutral characters who are important to the story, thereby breaking the game.
There are a few problems with proper spacing while attacking a knocked-down opponent, where he's either too close and can't attack, or goes into an unbreakable animation loop while attempting a coup de grace.
Also, combat with large, slow monsters, like the golem and striga, is way too easy. Just run in circles or stand on the other side of an obstacle.
Sound:
The music is excellent, some of the best I've ever heard in a game. The ambient music used in towns and taverns is folk, with flutes and strings. The combat themes are heavy with drums, chants, and electric guitars. It beats the crap out of the 'epic' retreads found in other cRPGs.
The voice acting is a mixed bag. Personally, I found the worst voice over to be that of the main character, Geralt. Unfortunately, he's the guy you'll be listening to most of the time. His delivery is dry to say the least and sometimes way off base, several times responding to a friendly statement with an extremely hostile tone, among other things. His gravely voice wore on me a bit. Other than him, most of the voice acting is pretty good, far better than Oblivion and Gothic, although the same small group of actors is used to voice the bulk of the secondary characters - the inkeepers all share the same voice, one for dwarves, elves, and so on.
Character Development:
Geralt gains 'talents' whenever he levels up - bronze, silver, or gold, depending on his level. These are basically spent like money to acquire new abilities. Most of them give a percentage increase to a given ability, like +30% damage or +25% stamina regeneration. There is some diversity as to what kind of Geralt one wishes to create, though by the end, you'll almost certainly have all the bases covered.
Story:
This is by far the best part of the game. The story is dynamic to an extent. Characters may die as the result of your actions. Certain future events may or may not take place depending on how you resolve situations early on, changing the storyline and the outcome of the game. The consequences of your actions are not immediately obvious, and most become manifest much later in the game, so the 'reload the last 5 minutes and pick option B' trick isn't going to show you all of the game. The characters themselves are well-written and the translation to english is excellent... very little appears to have been lost. Some of the voice overs are lacking, but that's not enough to bring it down. There are romances to be had, if one chooses to take them on, and even a father-son relationship, which plays a role in the final outcome. Most of the side quests are interesting and fleshed out, with only the witcher contracts (get x number of x) being of the Fedex variety. Aside from the human/nonhuman conflict, much of the story revolves around Geralt's position as a witcher, whether he has free will, or is merely a monster-killing tool. Certain conversations regarding this also seem to have an effect on the ending. The cutscenes, which are all in-engine, are really nicely done. Of course, there are also seduction quests, which provide a little diversion and humor. Minigames:
The dice game is a joke because the AI is braindead. Four of a kind and they'll reroll two out of the four. This will probably be fixed at some point. Boxing is amusing if only to see some nice punching and taunting animations.
Bugs:
I had at least 10 crashes during the course of my 40+ hours playing. You'll be lucky to only get 10 crashes. People with Vista/x64 are having serious problems getting this game to run. I'm running WinXP.
Conclusion:
Despite the bugs and other annoyances, it has been a while since I've had this much fun playing a game. It was hard to tear away at times, and I came back to it as soon as I was able. When something is engaging like this, the flaws seem inconsequential. The Witcher is much greater than the sum of its parts. I will definitely replay this later to see a different side of the story and ending, but will probably wait until the loading issue is resolved.