Review The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Developer: CDProjekt Red Studio Publisher: Atari (North America) Genre: Action/Adventure/RPG Release Date: 2007/Enhanced Edition October, 2008 Platform: Review by Alfred Giovetti November 21, 2008		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

Below is a review of The Witcher by Al Giovetti, followed by a updated review of the newly released enhanced edition of the game.

The Witcher is bar none the best role playing game of this year (2008). The plot is complex. The animation and graphics are high quality. The music, sound effects and voice acting have that edge to them. And the quests are plentiful and unique in their choices and twists.

The game is an action/adventure. The game player can choose over the shoulder (OTS) or high or low isometric perspective. I found over the shoulder perspective the easiest to play. OTS enables the AWSD movement rather than point and click. The type of adventure is a computer role playing adventure (CRPG).

Like most RPG games, as the protagonist gains experience his skills become more proficient and his "level" increases. The main character attributes of strength, dexterity, stamina and intelligence increase as the experience increases. Bronze, silver, and gold talents are added in several areas such as proficiency with the steel sword, silver sword, and other skill areas. Alchemical mutagens can also enhance talents permanently or temporarily.

There are thirteen context sensitive cursor modes. When you exit an area the cursor will be replaced with an exit icon. If you hover over a character you can speak with you will enter speaking mode.

There are ten game play icons: trade, storage, pay, bribe, gift, signet, rest/meditation, weapon enhancement, fistfight, dice/poker, or drink. Signet indicates that you show your signet ring to gain admittance to an area or to get more information from the conversation. Many of these icons are similar to other game play modes used in other games.

There are places in The Witcher where what you say affects the rest of the game. The questions you ask and who you ask them of determine the flow of the rest of the game. You have to save often, think ahead, and you might want to go back and do a crucial quest differently the second time to check out how the game progresses with your new choices.

Just to give you an idea of the complexity in this game, the Prima electronic game guide by Fletcher Black is 59 pages long and it is only one of the many paths through the game. The Games Pressure guide is 290 pages and even that is not complete.

The game is based upon the fantasy short stories and five novels of Polish fantasy novelist Andrezej Sapkowski. Witchers are monster-hunters who receive special training and modify their bodies by eating mutagenic food that gives them superhuman powers to battle the monsters. The books have been adapted into a movie, television series, computer game, graphic novel and other adaptations.

Geralt of Rivia is the protagonist in the stories. Geralt is a young witcher with extraordinary powers. The stories are executed with a wit and some references to modern culture. Geralt is constantly placed in the world of moral dilemma when he roots out all the facts; many times everyone is guilty to some degree and sometimes he is forced to take sides.

Sapkowski does not use the good and evil equation the way some fantasy novels do. All characters in the Witcher world are composed of grey and there are no clear choices. Often, the Witcher is forced to get involved to help one side or another or everyone will die. Sometimes the person or monster who looks guilty is merely a victim of the "good" people.

For example, in the computer game, there is a witch who has provided poisons and spells for the townspeople to kill, rape and otherwise take advantage of their fellow townsfolk. The townspeople demand that the Witcher kill the witch because she be-witched them. The truth is that the townspeople were evil and used the witch as an accomplice. You have the choice whether to kill the witch, kill the townspeople, or kill them all.

There is also a sexual aspect to the game. In the European game, full frontal nudity is the rule for the illustrations and animations. In the North American release, these erotic drawings and animations are toned down to the point where all the "naughty bits" are concealed. The sound of "oohs" and "ahhs" still emanate from the speakers but to my knowledge there is no "hot coffee mod" for this version.

Geralt finds himself in a dilemma when helping females. Many of the women he meets will grant Geralt a liaison if he wants one. There is a sub game trying to figure out how to bed all the available women in the game. Some might find this quest unsavory and may want to skip it while others might find this the high point of the game.

Most of the women want to have children. Geralt cannot have children due to the process which transformed his body into a Witcher. Many women will not accept him as a life mate without the ability to have children. So Geralt finds himself condemned to one night stands mostly with women of loose morals.

For every conquest that Geralt makes he gets a trophy card of the woman in a provocative pose. The European version of the game exposes various "naughty bits" of the women. The USA release is more modest and has strategically placed hair, cloth, curtains, etc. to conceal the "naughty bits." Fear not, the European cards are available on the internet if you are so inclined.

The game is divided into a prologue, five chapters and an epilogue. Geralt has to protect the castle stronghold of a Witcher academy, rid the town outside the capital city gates of a monster caused by the town's innate evil, solve the plague and other problems of the capital temple district, go to the lakeside to help those there with a monster problem, and finally return to the city to help the returning king restore peace and his daughter who has reverted to a monster. The plot is a typical save the universe from the evil whatever.

Interesting choices occur from conversations. Depending upon what path the conversation leads may determine what happens hours later in the game. Early on you become acquainted with a dwarf whose bank is stolen from him by humans. If you pledge to help the dwarf regain his bank and stay consistent with that decision you find yourself embroiled in a war between humans and non-human bigots.

If you align with the humans you will find yourself in situations where you must kill non humans and vice versa. If you align with no one you end up having to kill both groups. The game basically forces you to choose the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately, the decision to align with one group or the other is made for you by choices you make early on in the game. You cannot easily go back to a save point and change your decision and continue with the game.

The dialogue in the US and other non-Polish editions was noticeably shorter than in the Polish edition. Designer Michal Madej and writer Sande Chen claim that the shortness was not to tone down the language but to save money on the voice acting in these editions. The game uses voice acting throughout, and there is a tremendous amount of dialogue for all the versions of the game released.

Along the way there are interesting things to do. You can play poker and drink to develop skill and pursue a quest line. You can accumulate books and scrolls which expand your skills, spells and experience. You can dabble in alchemy and make potions from the flowers and reagents you collect. You can enchant and commission special armor and weapons to improve your combat fighting skills.

The view of the game is over the shoulder and at times the camera is controlled by the game itself making navigation and combat somewhat awkward. Special moves activate by double tapping the WASD keys to jump/roll, leap/spin and quick turn with the F key. Sequence moves combine simpler moves into combinations ending with a whirl, streak or slash.

I first saw this game at E3, shortly before it was released. When I discussed possible problems with their combat interface, they were so excited about it that they really did not listen. I sincerely doubted that the interface would be fun for someone who might have problems with clicking on small characters in multiple ways for each of the complex hits. I am glad to say I was wrong about the fun.

Combat requires you to click continuously on your opponent to get Geralt to hit the other guy. Initially the combat is one of the most confusing and challenging things in the game. The learning curve on this may be too steep for some. After struggling with the combat interface unsuccessfully for a long time, I had to put the game down and not play for awhile. When I came back later and played, I had an epiphany on how to play.

After the epiphany, I rather enjoyed the constant clicking as a challenge to master the unusual system. My carpel tunnel syndrome and arthritis were not sufficiently inflamed to merit a law suit. I do believe the game designers need to consider that 33% of people over the age 65 and some younger people with hand pain want to play these games. Making interfaces that take these problems into consideration may increase the potential audience for the game.

There are three stances you choose from when in combat: group, quick, and heavy. The quick style is faster but hits with less force. The heavy style hits slower but with more force. The group style allows you to hit multiple opponents with one swing.

Geralt, and all witchers, have two swords: a steel one and a silver one. The steel sword is for normal human and animals. The silver sword is needed for supernatural beasts including monsters like were wolves and vampires. There is a large number of different beasts and natural opponents.

As you get older your eyes get darker and darker. You cannot see dark things easily. Most of these games are so dark that adjusting the gamma does nothing to help those with vision issues see the game any better. This is another area that game designers need to be considerate of the infirm who want to play. Graphics in The Witcher are very dark.

I found the artistic style of the game to be unique. The combat animations were consistent with the developer's concept that most game animation fighting is boring. The developers wanted a combat system that gave the game player the richness of a multitude of fighting techniques that mirrored the richness of fencing with a sword or fighting barehanded with a karate or judo champion. When fighting, the characters use multiple strikes designed to give richness to each and every combat.

Shadows were made more realistic with the lightmaps in 3ds Max which was used to develop the environments. Skybox and water effects made the sky and the water behave more realistically. Water actually moves more like the real thing. Direct X9 water effects, bump mapping, environment mapping and other effects also enhanced the graphics developed for the game.

Animations were made more lifelike with motion capture, a new physics effects system, and new mechanics. The cinematic introduction to the game is stunningly well done and beautiful. In the introduction Geralt battles with and saves Princes Adda from her transformation into a monster. Geralt and others prescribe a treatment for Adda that will prevent the transformation from occurring in the future. The princess figures prominently in the game after chapter two.

I give the game an overall grade of A-. As good as this game is, there is room for improvement in several areas.

The Witcher Enhanced Version/ Article Addendum by Al Giovetti

Over 5,000 lines of English dialogue were re-recorded and rewritten (and the German edition was redone entirely) and 200 gesture animations were added which makes the characters more believable. The inventory now has a separate sack for alchemical ingredients which automatically sort and stack so you spend more time playing the game and less time micro-managing your inventory. All games should have this feature. The game as improved by condensing code which reduced inventory and graphic location loading times, reduced crashes (greater stability), and made the combat more fluid and responsive.

The auto save can be set to off or on. Although I am unsure what advantage turning off the auto save would be. Monster encounters were given more variety. The character graphics now randomizes dozens of colors on the in-game monster models. A multi-lingual disk will allow you to experience The Witcher in the original Polish language, German, and English.

Premium packaging on the enhanced edition would imply “collectors’ edition” status, but this is the regular version of the game. Included are music CDs of the original soundtrack featuring celtic, hard rock, metal, vocal experiments, reggae/dub, and electronic music. The making-of DVD has the remastered behind-the-scenes story of making The Witcher and developer interviews. Also included is the official game guide and a short story from The Witcher author, Andrzej Sapkowski about Geralt.

With the enhancements, bump up the Final Grade to an A.

Minimum System Requirements:

• Windows® XP SP2 or Vista
• Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz or AMD Athlon 64 2800+
• 1 GB RAM (XP) 1536 MB RAM (Vista)
• 128 MB VRAM with DX9 shader/ Pixel shader 2.0 support (Nvidia GeForce 6600 or ATI 9800 or better)
• 8.5 GB Hard Disk Space
• DirectX 9.0c compliant soundcard, plus speakers or headphones
• DVD-ROM
• Keyboard, Mouse

Recommended System Requirements:

• Windows® XP SP2 or Vista
• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz or AMD X2 5600+
• 2GB RAM
• Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX or ATI Radion X1950 PRO
• 8.5 GB Hard Disk Space
• DirectX 9.0c compliant soundcard, plus speakers or headphones
• DVD-ROM
• Keyboard, Mouse