Witcher = Neutrality = Good?
Like many of the games that get released today, The Witcher is something of a diamond in the rough. Whether you're willing to put up with the flaws or wait for someone else to come along and polish it is up to the individual. Perhaps like the protagonist, the game is neither strictly good nor bad, but instead takes the neutral path. Depending on your own inclinations, neutrality may be just what the doctor ordered. Certainly, this isn't a game for everyone, and I imagine there are some people out there that absolutely despise it. Those people probably also hate games like Oblivion, Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Ultima Underworld, and a number of other games that I absolutely loved.
 Druids would be proud. |
If you liked any of the titles I just listed, chances are you will enjoy The Witcher, warts and all. The combat system is a refreshing change of pace, keeping things from getting bogged down in the turn-based world of Dungeons & Dragons without becoming completely twitch-based. The story is definitely compelling, and while the choices you make might not ultimately have a huge impact on the ending, I at least was left wanting more. The graphics and sound are good if not great, helping to draw the player into the rich world of Andrzej Sapkowski. In fact, after playing the game, I'm one of likely many people that will now go out and pick up his books, just to experience more of the world of Temeria and its denizens.
 Look - depth of field effect (which is only in cut scenes). |
The Witcher ranks as the best PC role-playing game I've played since Oblivion. Then again, outside of Neverwinter Nights 2, there haven't been all that many RPGs in the past two years for PCs. If you're willing to stretch the definition of RPG a bit, games like STALKER and Bioshock enter the picture, both of which I would rate above The Witcher. However, the game is a lot closer to Oblivion than it is to STALKER, so that's probably not a fair comparison. If you're like me — an RPG fan that detests MMORPGs and is eagerly waiting on Bethesda to finish up Fallout 3 — there simply aren't that many other options out there right now. Lucky for us, we have The Witcher to help tide us over. We may be left wondering how or why Geralt came back from the dead, but you certainly won't find me complaining about his reappearance.
| The Witcher Official Requirements | ||
| Required | Recommended | |
| CPU | Pentium 4 2.8GHz+ or Athon* 64 2800+ | Pentium 4 3.0GHz or Athlon* 64 3000+ |
| RAM | 1GB | 2GB |
| Storage | 8.5GB free HDD space, DVD-ROM** | 8.5GB free HDD space, DVD-ROM** |
| GPU | GeForce 6600 or Radeon 9800 | GeForce 7800 GTX or Radeon X1950 XT |
| DirectX | DirectX 9.0c | DirectX 9.0c |
| OS | Windows XP/Vista | Windows XP/Vista |
*: Athlon
XP series is not (officially) supported.
**: Direct2Drive version available.
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punko - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
Is the demo North American or European ;)legoman666 - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
I had major problems with the games DRM scheme. It absolutely refused to load even though I had a legal copy and the DVD was in the drive. It kept telling me to enter the original disc. I was at my wits end trying to fix it and I was about to take my copy of the game back.However, then I installed Vista x64 and it worked perfectly. (had XP x64 prior).
kilkennycat - Friday, January 25, 2008 - link
Er, did you have any virtual-disk software (Alcohol etc..) installed on the machine when you had your so-called DRM problems? If so, did you try experimentally uninstalling it to see if the problems cleared up?legoman666 - Friday, January 25, 2008 - link
Yes, I did have Daemon tools installed, but I uninstalled it and made sure there were no traces of it left in the registry.Ironcically, Using Daemon Tools Pro is how some people with DRM problems managed to get the game working. The game will install fine with the original disc, but then fail to load the game. A solution is to make an image of the DVD, and mount it using a virtual IDE drive with Daemon Tools Pro.
The reason it has to be an virtual IDE drive is because of the draconian DRM scheme that the game uses; It will not work on a scsi virtual drive (what Daemon Tools and Alcohol 120 use by default). Some people even reported having issues trying to play the game with their original disc using a sata drive.
BikeDude - Saturday, January 26, 2008 - link
Uninstalling the "offending" tool might not have much of an impact.I had briefly tried a tool for ripping discs (or similar -- I don't recall its name or purpose) and one game refused to run. Using Sysinternal's regmon (now Process Monitor) revealed that the DRM was looking at HKEY_CURRENT_USER and found the offending utility's user setup there. Most uninstallers leave HKCU alone, since users want to keep their settings in case they ever reinstall (or upgrade).
So, before you reinstall the OS, simply create a new user (thus giving you a fresh HKCU) and see if that helps. I think such DRM approaches warrants a full refund from the game's publisher. It is despicable.
FWIW: I use daemon tools to mount ISO images downloaded from a pirate site called msdn.microsoft.com. I get all sorts of OS and utility ISOs from there! grrr....
JarredWalton - Friday, January 25, 2008 - link
Amazing how often that clears up problems.... Anyway, I have Daemon Tools installed on many of my PCs, and that didn't interfere with The Witcher. I think I had it whine about not having the correct disc once in all of my testing... I just closed out of the dialog and restarted and it worked. I will say that I'm not using any SATA DVD drives right now, so maybe that helped?ecat - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
Nice review. Though I'd consider less emphasis on the problems to be more in keeping with the actual game play experience, I'm glad to see The Witcher receiving more main line coverage.I played this game in the run up to Xmas, best game I've played since VTM: Bloodlines. The writing and cross plots create a level of involvement that leaves Oblivion looking, well, empty. Bioshock ? Stalker ? Best I don't go there.
On stability:
XP, AMD 64 x2 (2.8GHz), 2Gb, 7800gt, DFI on board sound.
I could certainly play for 2 or more hours without a crash, but sometimes less. Crash was usually proceeded by voices starting to stutter.
Re-booting before starting the game appeared to help.
Greatest improvement came from forcing the game to run on a single core - fixed issues with stutter and allowed hours (and hours and.. lol :) of play.
dragosmp - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
The fix for the crashes is very well put on the official forums, but for whoever is interested here's how it goes:Start Command Line Console and write this (this DOES NOT apply to 64bit OSes):
"BCDEDIT /set IncreaseUserVa 3072"
This increases the max adresable memory/process from 2GB to 3GB. It works in 99% of the cases, but it's true that this game seems to urge for a 64 bit OS where the UserVa is no longer limited at 2GB.
Sc4freak - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
The reason it didn't crash as often on Vista x64 is probably because it allows the full 4gb virtual addressing range to any 32-bit program linked with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag. On Vista/XP 32-bit, this limit is by default 2gb (and expandable to ~3gb).Incidentally, you'll find the same behaviour with Supreme Commander. 32-bits just isn't enough for modern memory-hungry games.