Welcome to My World
The Witcher is powered by BioWare's Aurora 2007 engine, a heavily modified version of the engine behind Neverwinter Nights — and it really is heavily modified, to the point where if the BioWare logo wasn't present on the box, you likely wouldn't make the connection. Initially launched in late October 2007, The Witcher is set in a dark, violent world perched on the brink of destruction. Your job, naturally, is to take the role of the Geralt, the White Wolf (from The Witcher books — now apparently resurrected without much of his memory) and set things right.
 It's good to be the king |
How you happen to define "right" will affect certain aspects of the game; as the box says, "There is no good, no evil — only decisions and consequences." If you read the marketing material, you'll find information about how you have to make tough decisions that have world changing consequences. Depending on the choices you make, the game will branch down different paths with three supposedly unique endings. I'm also a big fan of the Fallout games, so perhaps I got my hopes up a little too much. Suffice it to say, while there are a few major decisions to make throughout the game, the actual impact on the game world appears to be extremely small, mostly determining whom you have to fight and which characters "like" you. The three "unique" endings are achieved by deciding to side with the bad guys, the other bad guys, or by refusing to choose a side and remaining neutral — and you get to fight both parties of "bad" guys.
 The ice age cometh |
Okay, so perhaps it's not quite that simplistic, but if you're looking for an ending where everything turns out okay, prepare to be disappointed. This is not to say that the ending is bad, but this isn't a story put together by your typical Hollywood think-tank, and Walt Disney definitely wouldn't approve. This is a mature game with mature themes, and like the real world rarely do things and "happily ever after". That said, the ending was satisfying, even if it does leave the door open for future titles.
 American dryads have long hair and wear thongs; European dryads are less inhibited |
One final item worth mentioning before we get into the heart of the review is that this really is a mature game, in every sense of the word. The Witcher definitely earns its 17+ ESRB rating, with the following content: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, and Violence. Yes, that's correct: your in-game avatar can actually participate in sex during the game, with a variety of women. Before any of you get too excited, the reality is that the sexual content doesn't even match what you're likely to see on primetime television or soap operas, basically giving you a fade to black with a picture of a woman in a revealing pose. Of course, if you're capable of reading this article, you're more than capable of finding much worse material in a matter of seconds. [Note: The non-US version is apparently less prudish, featuring actual nudity at parts. The European version would qualify as an R-rated movie, in computer game form.]
If you enjoy listening to the Jack Thompsons of the world, games like this are contributing to the downfall of society and turn people into raging sociopaths. Apparently, The Witcher doesn't have a large enough following as yet to warrant his attention, and I have managed to stave off the urge to kill anyone or go looking for a prostitute. Still, if any of the last two paragraphs offend you, definitely give The Witcher a wide berth. [Ed: There goes another three readers….] Okay, with that out of the way, let's get into the nitty-gritty details of The Witcher.
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JarredWalton - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
I believe I covered that on page 6:[quote]Then there are the mini-games: drinking, gambling, and womanizing. Okay, the last one doesn't really count as a "mini-game", but the presentation does make one wonder if the developers/writers behind The Witcher aren't a bunch of misogynistic — or at least sexually repressed — men.[/quote]
Amazingly enough, I don't encourage young children to play 17+ rated games, and I wouldn't suggest parents buy this game for their pre-teen kids.
Foxy1 - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
I’ll make myself clearer, as you missed the obvious intent of my question: In your opinion,1) Does The Witcher portray women as vile temptresses, witches and whores?
2) Are women treated reprehensibly by all the male characters in The Witcher?
3) Is the underlying theme of The Witcher the sexual conquest of women?
4) As a father of a young daughter, were you offended by the objectification of women in The Witcher?
And regarding your comment: “I wouldn’t suggest parents buy this game for their pre-teen kids.” – what about teenagers (ages 13-17)?
JarredWalton - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
1) Yes. It also portrays men as depraved, evil, murdering jerks; other women are nurses, concerned mothers, peasants, old women, etc.2) Hardly.
3) If you're hard up, maybe? I can think of better ways to get my jollies than playing an 80 hour game just so I can see a few PG-13 rated scenes and cards.
4) Nope, because it didn't exist any more than it does in the real world. There are women that have sex for money, sex for pleasure, or hate men - all of these are present in The Witcher.
Perhaps you should notify people like Jack Thompson about this game; at least he would care enough to be outraged.
chizow - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
Lighten up guy, you're 700 years early on the topic of suffrage and equal rights in a fantasy world. Its a video game, squarely marketed towards the 18-35 male demographic that dominates the industry (and most others too). The game is rated 17-18+ in Europe and M (18+) in the US, so be a good parent and don't buy it for your 13-17 year old kids if you don't want them playing it.homercles337 - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
Why was there no time spent discussing the flawed DRM? Many people with this game have serious, game stopping issues with the DRM--FOR NO REASON. There is a 20 page thread at The Witcher Forums discussing this with no resolution.Overall though, i was happy to see a Witcher review right here at AT. :)
nHeat - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
Without a doubt, that was the most idiotic introduction ever written on a Witcher review. Anyone else agree?vijay333 - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/edit...">http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article...tion/283...JarredWalton - Friday, January 25, 2008 - link
You might notice that this link is already in the article, on the last page. Thanks for reading. ;)chizow - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
Nice review Jarred, I certainly agree with many of the points you've covered. I also wanted to give a BIG thumbs-up on incorporating some of the hardware/performance aspects of the game into the review to give it that techy edge. HardOCP has also done some featured game/patch performance reviews. I'd like to see more reviews of this type that bridge the gap between game reviews and bar graphs and help the end-user understand how they can improve their gaming experience.As for the game itself, I also found it very enjoyable. There's certainly some annoyances, many of which you covered in your review. My main gripe is with looting, how you can't loot while aggro'd and even something as simple as a "Loot All" bind key or making it closer to the center of the screen would cut down on the annoyance that is looting corpses. Some things I'd add to help new players or potential players is:
1) Books: Always buy Monster books for Bestiary entries ASAP. This will help advance some secondary/bounty quests and cut down on some of the running back and forth or frustrations with limited spawn monsters. Look for the Antiquary or Book vendors in new areas first.
2) Looting corpses: for Junk mobs, don't bother looting all of them all the time. Best way is to just find 1 readily available alchemy ingredient for each component and stick to only looting that (6 items). For advanced players, you can do this for each sub component too (18-24 items).
3) Gathering Herbs: same as above, only focus on the ones you need for specific alchemical values, ignore the rest. When buying books buy monster books first, then Plants if you have the extra scratch.
4) Sell everything unless you're sure you'll need it (meteorite, runes, potion alcohol, key alchemy ingredients), you can usually buy it back later and anything essential goes to quest items.
5) Food is pretty much useless, sell it off and keep only 1-2 stacks to help free up inventory.
Interesting comments about performance, glad you were able to compare on multiple systems. I ran the game with Vista 64 and 8GB from the start and found it very stable even before the 1.2 patch, but saw many others complaining about crashes in the forums. At first I wasn't sure if the game was /largeaddressaware but as soon as I got to Chapter 2/3 I saw the game would certainly take advantage of extra RAM and a 64-bit OS with all the zoning and transitioning. I've seen Witcher commit hit 2.85GB (~4GB system total) with another 4GB cached in Vista 64 but I'm sure they can improve load times even more.
I also found the game to be very CPU intensive. On a C2D E6400 @ 3.1GHz, the system would use 80-85% with CPU 0 pegged at 100% and CPU 1 fluctuating between 60-80%. Didn't really seem to impact performance until I ran FRAPs, at which point both cores would be pegged at 100% (similar experience with other games with FRAPs in Vista) and I would see a negative impact on performance with choppy gameplay. Upgrading to a C2Q @ 3.5GHz smoothed things out a bit, especially with FRAPs running. Only 25-30% (max 80% on Core 0) instead of 80% on a slower C2D. With FRAPs recording utilization hits 50-60% and gameplay is noticeably smoother with the Quad core. The Quad didn't address the brief slowdown I experience when zoning from indoor to outdoor in Chapter 3 (Trade Quarters) during the day. Figured this was a memory management issue and part of the reason transitions took so long, as the game is loading up all of the dynamic objects and NPCs.
Oh btw, when are we going to see that Vista 64 vs Vista 32/XP comparison? I know Derek was out sick for awhile so maybe that slowed things down, but we're starting to see more and more games that perform better/worst on 32 or 64-bit even if it doesn't show up on an FPS graph.
ghoti - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
Thanks for the comprehensive game review, Jarred.