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Oh, boy, is this bloody! Let's start our game reviews with the title having
the biggest impact on us this year: The Witcher. It is a single player
RPG hack'n'slay game in a very dark fantasy setting with simply awesome
graphics. It's based on a heavily modified version of Bioware's Aurora Engine
even used by Neverwither Nights (not that there is the slightest similarity
between those two games...) and plays pretty "consolish". Nevertheless it
is a full blown DirectX9 powered PC based game. It's about a male guy (sorry,
no choices on that issue) being trained from birth on to be a professonial
monster slayer, offering his services for money. Due to some not much
more mentioned "experiments" in child-age he's got some limited magical
capabilities and can consume ability enhancing herbs and potions being
deadly for normal humans.
He's running around in a very dark low-fantasy
world where dwarfes and elves exist but the world is more or less ruled
by human kingdoms like in medieval times. Even the whole architecture is
based on historical blueprints and all the buildings and castles (huge castles!)
we have seen do look like right of the history book about the darkest times
of European culture. It's acutally based on the books of the Polish autor
Andrzej Sapkowski.
In this world the everywhere present guards impress by two things:
they do look like stinky, grumpy, bored, aggressive, organized, armed and
disbelieving guys in tattered tabards and that whole impression is made
visible by very highly detailed graphics, animations, sounds and voices.
Those guards are aren't just attackable enemies but they seem like
living inhabitants of this world, with own motivations and habbits.
E.x. you can offer the more "unrighteous" of the two gate guards some
beers and after a drinking session (which you survive better due to the
above mentioned supernatural resistences) he wanders of for a pee - just to
drop sleeping on the way to a tree and a back alley. Now you can approach
the other guy (loyal, focused but a bad fighter) and knock him out. In the
case that both still had been there one of them would have rung the alarm
bell next to them for sure. As the developers showed to us this had been
only one of many solutions to get through the guarded gate. One other
option included a street whore and the some other a payed bandit gang.
It always was a big point mentioned by the developers that you are very
free in your choices and how those choices afflict the gameplay and the
storyline. Your reputation in the world is actually an issue and there
never is a clear line between good and evil. It's about choices (if you
can believe the PR guys...). As a final note concerning guards I want
to mention a little ingame event that (in my personal view) added a
incredible huge boost concerning the atmosphere: when some developer
wanted to show us the lovely detailed weapons he made the character pull
out his broad sword - in the middle of the town. While it looked definitely
great I was more impressed by a handful guards immediately rushing toward
him yelling "hey, you over there, put that weapon down!". I'm sure they
would have attacked him if we wouldn't put his sword on his back again.
No weapons in town - it's that little details that make games special.
Back to the world: as I said it's a full blown 3D game with bells and whistles.
What impressed me was the high viewing distance, the "naturality" of the
smooth shadows and the vast diversity of daylight, clouds and weather effects.
In a fast forward we had been shown a full day, from dawn till dusk, with
different light colors and correct lenghtening of shadows. Afterwards some
raining was shown, with water drops and splashes everywhere and clouds
slowly darking the skies. Reminded me on the good ol' days of Arena The Elder
Scrolls where I for the very first time in a computer game watches the sun
go up. The Witcher seems to bring it on the next level
Physics is yet another modern thing making a world really living. In The
Witcher's case its the Karma engine with full ragdoll and physics support.
Well, have fun with psi powers, hehe.
For bringing in the supernatural part the developers invented many potions.
One of them is the nightvision potion which enables the main character
to see in the many darker areas of the game. Acutally this os no on/off
effect but a slow one where his eyes addapt to the current light. So e.x.
if you enter a dark dungeon after some seconds the tiny leftover contrasts
are enhanced by some very, very cool effect. It gets a little black&white
comic style but remains to be clear and easy navigatable. In addiion
it remains very "natural" since if you light up a torch you get instantly
blinded and the normal vision comes back only slowly. If you extinquish
the torch again everything stays dark - till his eyes adapt to the
surroundings again. Wow, that all is really, really cool - and probably
done with some very advanced shader effect. An even stronger version
of the nightvision one reminded me to thermal viewing of modern shooter
games and is probably very helpful for the sneaky part of the game.
So in this world of rotten places, stinky guards and slimy monsters there
is running around the main character. We had been told it's an RPG with
character development concerning stats and attributes and such (which we
can't confirm since we have never seen a character screen or so) and
because they made a strong emphasis on an emotionally involving story
(which we even can't confirm simply due to the "short" time of maybe
one hour of presentation). hexe of course mentioned instantly the lack
of the possibility of a female main character but, well, you all know
hexe... so, due to mission information let's skip this part and get
to the real stuff: carnage
It might be a RPG in a very detailed world but let's not forget the
main thing: it's a hack'n'slay style gameplay. Not without reason
you are the monster hunter and not without reason there's an aweful
lot to do for you. As a weapon of choice you can wield any weapon
there is ingame and in addition you can use your supernatural powers
to wreak havoc. We have seen the guys sword fighting and actually there
are always three different combat modes, switchable instantly: "strong"
to inflict heavy damage on a single target, "agile" to be sure to hit
even very evasive creatures and "group" to do area-of-effect attacks
if you get surrounded. From my impressions the fights are less "clickery"
than Diablo 2 and more "involving" than Dungeon Siege 1 where you could
say "follow buddy" and then get a cup of coffee. Basically you point&click
where you want to go or what you want to attack. If attacking you
start a swing with your sword - if you click again (too early) your
first swing is interupted and you start again. So hammering the mouse
won't do anything. Actually it's possible to do "strike combos": your
mouse cursor changes colors based on the current state of your attack
and when clicking in the right moment you will do an follow-up attack
using the swing of you previous attack and involving more damage.
It's pretty much the same as in Summoner, a game from 2000. I'm not
uncertain whether that system is good or bad, gotta try it myself,
but I can remember me bragging around with 9-consecutive-hit-combos
with my character in Summoner, hehe.
So much for the "how you fight" technically, now to the "how you fight"
visually. As I said: oh, boy, is this bloody! Let me get this straight:
this game ain't good for your kids! It's a game for adults, not
only due to the dark fantasy setting with some wicked plot elements
(getting laid by all twenty street whores will get you a special bonus)
but especialy due to the bloody and gory
massacres you'll take part in. You slice and chop, you kick and jab,
blood splasing everywhere and occasionally some limbs and and heads
flying away. It's like in the movies, like in the dark, evil dreams
of big boys, where they do smooth moves, mowing down one by one the
enemy surring them. It's pure carnage - and it just looks so damn good.
Honestly, I love that stuff, but I consider myself old and mature enough
to cope games like that and to know that games like that are a part
of phantasy and not reality. Nevertheless I wouldn't allow my kids
(if I had some) to play this... And just to increase the effect you have
right in the middle of the fight some bullet time sequences, chopping of
a head or finishing a prone enemy by ramming your sword from right above
into his chest, resulting in a sparkling fountain of blood after pulling
it out again, swinging it in rage at the next poor monster staying around.
To conclude this bloody chapter with a giggle I'd like to mention that
the phrase "getting beaten by a goblin" get's a whole new meaning
in this game if the goblin is swung by an ogre...
Wow, immersive, huh?! For cooling down to some fact based informations:
the game is made by a developer team from Poland, completely funded
by the Polish publisher CDProjekt. They had a pretty huge booth in the
business center of GC (so unreachable by the normal gamer) and they
made up date and times of presentation shows. They made all this trouble
to find a publisher making their game available worldwide. So when
you're a guy-in-charge with a lot of money and the possibility of
distribution then give those girls and boys a try since their game
(IMHO) has the capabilities to offer fun for a lot of gamers out there.
I want to say a big "thanks" the the whole crew of the booth,
especially Joanna Kobylecka, for giving us a hearty welcome, a full-blown
presentations and all the answers to our questions. From us the very best
wishes for success!
If you, dear reader, got interested by now we'd point you to the
official website of The Witcher
to get even better impression of the game.
Aaaaaand at the end the booth got invaded by some Stormtroopers which
resulted in some major fun and hillarious photos I don't want to hide
from you. Sword meets Blaster, lol.
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