Review: The Witcher, "There is no good, no evil..." Options

[stargelman]

The Witcher review by Stargelman



The game I'm going to review today is The Witcher, a game made by the Polish company CDProjekt which until recently was only known for distribution and localization of games in Eastern Europe. The game is based on the Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski, a Polish fantasy author famous mostly throughout Eastern Europe and puts the player in the role of Geralt of Rivia, a witcher. Witchers belong to an ancient order that is dedicated to one thing and one thing only: to protect humanity from all kinds of monsters. The sacred code of the Witchers forbids members of the order from harming humans other than in self-defense, and the protection against monsters traditionally only extends to humans, not other races such as elves, dwarfs or gnomes. Geralt of Rivia - known as the White Wolf - is not just any witcher, he is one of the best. Known throughout the Northern Kingdoms not only for his heroic deeds and enormous skill, he is also an infamous womanizer, despite the fact that his white hair, vertical pupils and many scars make him almost look like a monster himself. In fact many fear the Witchers and more than a few wouldn't mind if all of them fell victim to something very nasty.

Screenshot: Geralt of Rivia

Since the story of the game is heavily based on the character of Geralt of Rivia from the books by Sapkowski, there is no character creation or customization of any kind in this game. While this may be disappointing to some that think of RPGs as a more personal Sims experience, it provides a solid base for a good story.

Geralts strange look is the result of genetic manipulations that every witcher has to undergo. Most of the candidates - many of them orphans with nowhere else to go - do not survive this process. Those that do become stronger, faster, can master a limited repertoire of magic... and become permanently sterile. The low survival rate of witcher candidates and the methods of appropriating young candidates are one of the reasons why Witchers are not universally appreciated.

While the world the witchers live in is rooted in standard fantasy cliches, a few things really set it apart. Walking through the streets of Vizima, the principal location for most of the game, you will find the best and worst of society: brave knights and busy peasants on one side, filthy slums, thugs and hookers on the other. Everything is not well in this world: one war has just ended, another is on the horizon. Racism is rampant: elves and dwarves feel they are being oppressed by humans, resistance is forming. The humans blame the "non-humans" to conspire against them and even consider them the source of all evil. One very beautiful and welcomed aspect to all of this is that the game makes no attempt to present any one side to an issue as good or evil - such moral judgements are left to the player. This extends to a number of decisions to be made throughout the game that heavily influence the later stages as well as the outcome of the game. Oftentimes you will find that making a decision is rather difficult and requires some consideration: there is no clear good-evil right-wrong path through this game. In fact, oftentimes you'll have to choose the lesser of two evils and just hope that it will pan out in the end. There are one or two major plot changing decisions to be made in each of the five chapters of the game.

Screenshot: Hookers and thugs


The game begins

The game itself is partitioned into a prologue, five chapters and an epilogue. The prologue basically is a tutorial with a lot of cutscenes that takes a bit of patience to get through. While you're thrown right into the action having to fight off an assault on the stronghold of the witchers, Kaer Morhen, it takes a while to get to the point where you can roam and explore the vast and beautiful game world. Before doing that, you will have learned how to fight with a sword in a number of different styles (strong, fast and group) as well as how to prepare potions, which are essential to the work of a witcher.

Location, location.

After the prologue/tutorial is done, you will enter the general neighbourhood of Vizima, the capital city of the Northern Kingdom of Temeria ruled by king Foltest with whom Geralt had some earlier dealings when he freed his daughter Adda from a terrible curse that turned her into a Striga, a rather icky creature feeding on humans. Of course Geralt doesn't remember any of that because - what a novel concept - he has lost his memory just before the story of the game sets in. Aside from the city itself which you only enter in chapter two, there are swamps, graveyards, countrysides, caves, dungeons and crypts to explore. The world is beautifully crafted, sometimes fresh and green and full of light, sometimes cold, dark and nasty.


...so little time

Of course the game would be rather pointless if this world wasn't filled with things to do and monsters to slay. Aside from the main quest which consists of a number of sub quests that often have to be done in parallel, the game also provides a good number of side quests. As Geralt is a monster slayer, most of these deal with just that - slaying monsters. The main quest oftentimes will give you a number of choices on how to handle a situation and the game will react to your decisions accordingly. Again, there is no "right thing" to do, instead you will just have to do what you believe is right and then deal with the consequences, many of which are unforseeable and surprising. After all, the motto of the game is "There is no good, no evil, only decisions and consequences."

Screenshot: It even has ingame ads!

Most of the really important decisions are made in dialog which is an integral part of this game. Those that are too lazy to read will appreciate that the dialog comes with full voice-overs of heavily varying quality. For everyone else it is nice to see that once again games are being made where dialog is not reduced to silly cliche riddled one-liners with pointless dialog choices. One rather bitter fact is that the original language version, the Polish version, is said to have much better dialog than other versions - supposedly 20% of the original Polish dialog has been lost in translation. Luckily, from all I heard the English version while being inferior to the original is still leaps above other localizations. Especially users of the German and Spanish versions have complained about poor translations. However, in my opinion the dialog in this game is still magnitudes better than what else is on the market right now, safe perhaps Mask of the Betrayer which I have yet to play.


The good book

There will usually be a large amount of open quests, many of them with several stages and it would be easy to get severely lost in a very short time if it wasn't for the excellent journal. Quests can be shown by chapters, side- or mainquests and inactive quests and quest stages can be filtered out. The journal provides good summaries on what is to be done as well as a "quest tracking" feature similar to the quest compass in Oblivion, with the exception that it can be enabled and disabled on a per-quest basis and only points to locations where NPCs or items usually are to be found, not their actual and specific locations. But the journal does more: it gives you a full overview over everything you have learned, from locations and monsters to the various characters you can encounter in the game or alchemic formulas. Entries are added as you learn of new things and they are updated once you learn more. The journal is designed to be very practical, easy to use and comprehensive.

Screenshot: Journal: Characters
Screenshot: Journal: Monsters
Screenshot: Journal: Quests

Many of the entries in your journal will concern quests to bring back alchemic ingredients that have to be extracted from monsters. To "harvest" the various body parts of monsters as well as to extract useful ingredients from plants, Geralt needs to have some knowledge of them in the first place. To this end, books provide the necessary details. Once read, the journal will be updated with the relevant information and Geralt will be able to recognize and use sources of ingredients.


Something's a-cooking

Of course ingredients are not just important for quests but for Geralt's own dabbling in alchemy as well. Potions give Witchers that extra edge against monsters, and the way they work in this game is rather different from what one is used to. For one, most potions stay active for a very long time, some even for a whole day. Instead of insta-regen health potions, you have potions like "swallow" that will continuously regenerate your health while it remains active. Another important difference is that in the Witcher, one really has to be careful what potion to use when: drinking too many potions at the same time will result in Geralt becoming weaker from toxic sideeffects. A few too many, and you will start to see red dots appear in your vision. Rather too many and your heart will start to pound like a steam engine, severely limiting your combat readiness. But potion poisoning is not the only way to incapacitate yourself: you can also do it the old fashioned way and just drink yourself silly with booze. Your vision will start to blur, your walk becomes that of a drunken sailor and in combat you'll be lucky to hit the broad side of a wall.

Screenshot: What to cook?

Making a potion involves a number of things: a formula or recipe which has to be obtained, the alchemic ingredients as well as some alcohol as a base for the potion. Aside from potions, in time Geralt can also learn to prepare sword oils which increase damage against his opponents as well as bombs that are usually thrown at the ground to adversly affect a large number of enemies simultaneously. But alchemy also takes time and concentration, which is why Geralt needs a quite place to meditate over his work which he will find at fireplaces and in inns.

Screenshot: Ommmmmmmmmm


The face of adversity

And enemies there are plenty. Aside from a rather large variety of monsters there are many humanoids that consider Geralt a serious threat to their ambitions, and these individuals will do everything in their power to remove that threat. The journal can be consulted to find out about strengths and weaknesses of individual monsters. A feature of the game I very much like because it really adds to the realism is that while the streets of towns and villages are perfectly save in daylight, they may not be at night. Where during the day kids and old people, peasants and nobles are going about their business, at night dangerous creatures may roam, only disturbed by a few guards and the man himself. Wait.... kids? Yes, you heard right. You cannot use magic or draw your weapon during daylight while you're in a town or village, so that whole child slaying issue doesn't exist.

Screenshot: Peaceful during the day...
Screenshot: ..deadly during the night.
Screenshot: What a nice kid!
Screenshot: Poor granny!

To fight his enemies, Geralt has several time-tested means at his disposal: a silver sword for monsters, a steel sword for humans and a set of five different spells he can use to subdue his enemies or protect himself from harm. These spells, as well as all other skills and attributes can be improved as Geralt levels up using a system of bronze, silver and gold points that can be invested in a tree-like skill system. There are four attributes, strength, dexterity, stamina and intelligence; five magical "signs", Aard(push away/knock out), Igni(fire), Quen(protective shield), Axii(trap) and Yrden(panic) as well as three combat styles (strong, fast and group) for each of the two weapon types, steel and silver. Leveling up requires some concentration, just like alchemy and can only be done while meditating.

Screenshot: Skills and leveling up

Interesting fact: there are very few magic users of any kind. Unlike in some game universes, magic seems a rare gift in these parts...

The actual combat is a bit irritating at first: while it is realtime, the activity of the player is reduced to left-clicking on a monster and then clicking again at a specific -very short- time when the cursor turns orange to execute the next in a chain of progressively more powerful moves. Too late, and the chain starts from the beginning, too early and you will suffer a penalty that will render you temporarily unable to function properly. A right click will unleash one of the five signs or spell effects. When sufficiently enhanced, spell effects can also be charged and may behave in very different ways in such instances. One annoying property of combat in The Witcher is that sometimes when Geralt is fighting a large group of enemies, the game may slow down severely and it becomes very hard to properly react to the situation. Some even go so far as to call this game The Twitcher, but that's probably a bit harsh. When it gets too much, you can always pause combat with the space bar.

Luckily, there are sometimes ways to avoid fighting people, and when you're fighting outsides, you can almost always just run away. After all, he who fights and runs away... Thankfully for those who try to avoid combat, most experience points are rewarded for finishing quests, not killing monsters.



Where is it?

The automap feature of this game is useful when you try to find your way around the big city as well as in other of the larger locations. All locations relevant to your quests are indicated by a marker which flashes if you have enabled quest tracking. To see the full extent of the map you will of course have to do some exploring first. The normal map aside there is a small compass/minimap combination in the HUD that -if enabled- shows you the way to your quest target.

Screenshot: Map of one of Vizimas quarters


Details, details!

When you are tired of fighting, you can head on over to an inn and play some dice-poker - a minigame that can win or lose you a lot of money - take part in a boxing match, listen to live music or watch the jester juggle balls or balance a staff on his nose. All in all a lot of love has been put into details in this game. The number of character animations is astonishing, and there are many small things that make the world seem that much more realistic, from groups of birds rising up into the air when you pass by them to random NPCs talking to eachothers or to themselves to the impressive weather system. Similar to VtM: Bloodlines, the choice of color on things like textures also works towards setting the right mood for the world.

Screenshot: Dice poker - got you now!
Screenshot: The trading quarter jester
Screenshot: The trading quarter jester
Screenshot: Live music in an inn

But the game is not only visually stunning (and I use that phrase despite considering graphics a minor issue) a good part of the great atmosphere in this game is created by the score. I haven't counted, but there is a huge number of individual tracks for individual locations and situations, and it's of great quality.

Oh, I almost forget to mention: the game view has three settings, isometric high and low and "over the shoulder." The first two provide a sort of birds eye view in which you simply click where you want to go, while the third provides a more Gothic or Ultima 9 like experience in which Geralt is moved around WASD style. Most people seem to prefer the "over the shoulder" perspective as camera movement in the other two is too cumbersome and there is no real advantage to it anyway, considering the combat is realtime.

Screenshot: Isometric view

Oi! Where's the loot?

Loot gets a special treatment in this game. While traditionally player characters very quickly transformed into packrats, The Witcher will not let you carry around several kilotons of equipment. In fact you can only ever carry up to four weapons and one armor at any one time. This however is not a big problem as the world of The Witcher is not one filled to the brim with magical trinkets and uber items. You get to carry around a number of potions, ingredients, books and jewels, each of which take up the same space in the inventory and most of which stack. There is a special section for quest items which does not appear to be limited in size. Sooner or later, once your inventory is full you will have to decide what to throw away, so making billions by selling "phat loot" is not an option in this game. Most of the money Geralt makes comes from fulfilling quests or selling jewels he may find on his adventures - or, if you have the skill and are lucky enough, from gambling.

There are however options for storing unused items throughout the game, for example by handing them to an inn keeper who keeps them save for you.

Screenshot: Shopping for books
Screenshot: Travelling light



Boobies?

This game is not for children, that much is certain. While I would argue that the amount of violence in this game is a good reason for that, others might point at the foul language sometimes used. But the mature theme of this game extends beyond that and into the realm of sexuality: Geralt, being a famous womanizer, can be steered into the embracing arms of many a fair maiden - or hooker. All of that is optional, but still has stirred some controversy, mainly because of a feature that adds a kind of "trading card" to the journals character entry of every woman Geralt has a sexual encounter with. These cards show the respective character in the nude, some with full view of the breasts. While the display of breasts would shock only a puritan, the trophy character of those cards may seem a bit questionable.

Screenshot: Trading cards


The verdict

The Witcher is CDProjekts first game ever, and it was a huge endeavour. A budget of seven million seems small compared to that of other games currently on the market, but it translates to 70 people working for four years, and it shows. Despite the patch being released on release day, the game seems remarkably polished and for the most part stable. After finishing it, the only trouble I had was the game crashing every now and then, but if you consider the complexity of the game there is remarkably little fault with it. This is certainly in sharp contrast to a game such as Gothic 3 that even a year after release and after several patches still doesn't work properly. A second patch has already been announced and will likely be released before christmas, hopefully fixing the last open bugs.

Aside from a few bugs and crashes, the biggest annoyances are load times. Everytime you travel from one area to another or enter or leave a house, the game presents you with a loading screen. While these screens show rather nicely done concept art they get really annoying after a while, especially when the game decides to autosave at that time, which often seems entierly superfluous and is done every time after a quest entry has been updated and a new location is loaded. Luckily it seems this will be addressed in the next patch. Apart from that I think what I cursed most is that sometimes controls react rather clumsily, especially in combat and there especially when you are about to die. Something on the ground may prevent you from escaping, even if it's just a log extending a mere few inches above the ground. Why? You can't jump.

Screenshot: These you will love.


But, to reach a verdict, I for one can live with that. This game has a level of greatness to it that I haven't seen since VtM: Bloodlines. It is not only a well-polished and rounded game with a nice and useful interface, it brings back many of the qualities of cRPGs that I have missed dearly in games that rather jokingly call themselves RPGs: a good story, choices with actual consequences to that story, an interesting and believable world with real issues and politics and on top a mature theme to it all.




Developer: CDProjekt Red
Distributor: Atari
Game Homepage: TheWitcher.com - Skip flash



Some more screenshots, filmed on location:

Screenshot: Another day in the Swamp
Screenshot: Another day in the Swamp 2
Screenshot: Random cave
Screenshot: The Dike
Screenshot: Fields
Screenshot: Landscape with corpse
Screenshot: "Little Mahakam"
Screenshot: A pub
Screenshot: Also a pub
Screenshot: The seaside
Screenshot: Down in the sewers
Screenshot: More sewers
Screenshot: Entry to the Vizima sewers

Screenshot: A boat ride
Screenshot: Night sky

[Freddo]

Nice review Especially liked this screenie. Can't wait for the demo!

[Agent Griff]

Great review Stargelman! With this review and other information such as screenshots and other reviews, I'll be aiming to get this game in the near future.

[mplantinga]

Thanks for the review. This game has been on my wishlist for quite a while, and your review ensures that it will stay there. I'll have to get a new computer before I can play it; my old PC just won't handle something this complex.

[Agent Griff]

I've gotten the game and played it quite a lot over the past few days. I must say that it's quite addicting. Everything, from the combat system to the dialogues to the environments is done with great taste and a penchant for realism. To compare with Oblivion, if the Imperial City was the jewel of the Imperial Province, clean cut marble all over the place, Vizima (the main city of the game) is nastier than Bravil. It's literally a compassion-hole. There are thugs, hookers, drunkards, gamblers and drug addicts and the poor quarter has a genuine dirty and miserable feel to it. Things get even more nasty at night on the small back-alleys. You never know who's going to come up and point a blade (or a claw if it's a monster) at you. Of course, Geralt doesn't back down from a good fight, and what fights this game has!

The combat system is one of the best ones I've seen. It really has an epic feel when you fight several monsters at once using the Group style. Knocking one of them down, cutting the throat of another one. It can be a bit confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be wondering why no one's ever come up with something like this before. Geralt has a repertoire of particularly gruesome finishing moves, cutting off the heads of his opponents and whatnot.

This is a game I highly reccomend to anyone who's gotten sick of idealistic RPGs with simple, Black and White "Good" and "Evil" morality systems.

[mplantinga]

I wish I were playing it, but my computer is too old for a game like this. I'm hoping to get a new one in a few months, and then maybe I'll finally be able to give it a try.

[minque]

Ahhh, another game that I would like if I ever get around to get it....very good review Stargie! And awesome screenies...

[Ibis]

Will this demo/game be available in the US or only in Europe?

[Rane]

Will this demo/game be available in the US or only in Europe?

The game was released in the US already back in October and you can get the demo from one of the mirrors on this page.

[Ethelle]

Ah, thanks for the review. The moment I heard about the Witcher, I knew I needed to get that game. However, most people told me it was terrible. I replied that I didn't care, because the concept was appealing enough. Now thanks to this review, I am certain I will enjoy this game.

[Agent Griff]

The Witcher Extended Edition will appear this month if I'm not mistaken. It adds a lot of new dialogues to the game, a score of new quests and fixes some plot-holes in the original story. It also comes with the adventure editor and the ability to make mods for the game, but I'm not sure about that part.

I'm sure as hell getting it.

[Blackthorne]

This game so needs to be ported onto the 360 or the PS3 so I can play it.

[Badda-Tish]

I read in pcgamer and they said you could find nude pictures of men. now thats gay.

[milanius]

The following statement that sums my sentiments about this game is as follows:

WOW.

I haven't been excited about some game like this in a LOOOONG time. Every single penny I've invested into my new PC is worth it.

[Zalphon]

Maybe I should try it.