I need to buy the book after playing this game, I think!
STORY(9/10)
As it is based on the world from the same name novel by some editor-nightmare Polish writer, you'll be drawn to the flow of the story till the very end. Each character is unique, understandable and very much alive. One of the reason for this was the mature-themed of game, a very brave move by the developer. As it doesn't shy in the story-telling and character-developing, you won't feel like they're coming from a cheesy novel, but as true people with true feeling and needs. You play as a witcher, named Geralt of Rivia, a product of some crude experiment to produce the perfect killing machine with bio-genetic-mutation with the sole purpose to slay monster. They're meant to be emotionless, brutal and adept in swordsmanship, magic and alchemy. How will Geralt shape his path and destiny is up to your choice. Will he be a professional monster-slayer or a more human being?
GAMEPLAY(9/10)
Totally innovative in its way. The most amazing thing about this game is how the developer integrate nearly every thing of the witcher from the novel into the gameplay. He can perform a wide variety of swords-play: from strong style to fast style, from steel sword to silver sword,... He can use the Signs to perform magic as a supportive means to the attack: from the Fire spell that burns the enemy to the power that much alike 'the Force' from Star Wars. He can collect alchemy ingridients from monsters corpse, plants, herbs to make potions that helps him in many ways such as: mutate Geralt to grants him new ability, see in the dark, boost reflex by slowing time,...
There is a well-builted skill tree that consists of 4 main branch: Main Attributes, Signs Power, Steel Swords and Silver Swords. Each one has many categories, and each of them category has many levels. The levels are seperated to bronze, silver and gold type. To gain the level, you must have the corresponding talent type. If you want to gain the silver level, you must have a silver talent. These talent are gained by level up, the higher your level is, the more valuable talent you will gain.
The combat system is also special in its own way. In order to efficiency attack the enemy, you will have to chain up attack. After you clicked to make the first attack, you must click at the right time to chain the second attack, and so forth. It is this simple system that makes the game has a more action-oriented way to kill enemy. If you click it at the right time you can even parry the enemy's attack.
The journal contains all the useful informations like monster, quest, ingridients, ... But the interface could use a remake, as when the information becomes too much to store, it takes a lot of effort to find the information you need. For instance, they could expand the interface to the whole screen, not just the right half of the screen, damn it. The item icon is super-tiny, at 1 look I couldn't tell what the hell it is. I always have to get a closer look. The equip interface looks uncomfortable when there are so little space to display. On the bright side, the main interface when playing is very clean with no obstruction in view, mainly because of the super-tiny icon.
There are 3 camera modes: far point & click, medium point & click, and 3rd person. With them you'll have no trouble navigating the world. There are some mini games such as fistfight (which is lame anyway), poker, and collecting sex cards (feeling interested?). You'll have some moral choices that will affect the outcome of the game, as eventually you'll have to choose a side. One of the bad things about this game that most other RPG games doesn't have is that it is comprised of chapters, when you finished 1 chapter, you'll never go back to the area of the chapter again, which is sucks for a RPG game meant to be open-world.
TECHNICAL(7.5/10)
It has great visual performance with a lot of special effects: the lighting for particular. The ragdoll physics also takes part in this game and it done a pretty good job. The NPC animation looks good and their behaviour looks real, such as when it's raining they will try to find shelter. The sound effects and ambient are well designed with the sound of real animals. The original music soundtracks is a great feature of this game, you'll never get bored when roaming the world with the execellent composed soundtrack playing in the background. But... there is some seroius issue with playing in the Windows Vista/7 OS. I can't never play the game more than 2 hours, is crashes after an area transition, cutscene or auto-save; although I've reduced the game to the lowest level of graphics. Also the game isn't sufficently used the system resource, as it used up too much and too fast. The inconsitency in frame-rates is a display of this problem. Sometimes the voice in dialogs is out of sync with the lines. The cutscenes are mostly 2 characters standing and talking, some of the special cutscenes will have the characters moving around with animations. But they're never seemed to be boring.
And I have to say the opening and final cinematic movie is really epic.
RATING FOR THE WITCHER FAN: 10/10
RATING FOR RPG FAN: 9/10