The Witcher Preview

[GameBanshee News]

Shacknews adds their impressions of the recently gone gold Polish product The Witcher. They seem to be a bit unhinged by the RPG's raw bluntness and, as they'd put it, "Europeanness", but are overall impressed.

"Your momma sucks dwarf cock."

What.

What?

Doesn't this guy realize that I'm The mother****ing Witcher? The infamous slayer of monsters and devilry? The pale-faced, bar-hopping amnesiac? The sterile, dwarf-loving tough guy? I have silver swords and ****. What is he thinking?

"You fight like a lass," he says, taunting me.

What the hell is this game?

The Witcher isn't exactly a breath of fresh air. It's more like the musty, stimulating smell of an old library; somewhat stale, but comforting, nostalgic. It's a throwback to an age when the ESRB didn't exist, and when game designers were free to fling as much sex and violence around as they saw fit; when they were willing to fill their RPGs with outlandish one-liners and depressingly realistic scenarios, and to pose nude on box covers.

Take the main character of Geralt, The Witcher's silver-haired antihero whose role you'll be playing out. Within the first 30 minutes of the game, players will see him coring the chest cavities of guards, banging his female co-star, and attending a reverent funeral. From there, it's a short hop to an inn, where you can participate in an endless round of bar fights and drunken slavering.

No, this isn't your average G-rated Star Wars RPG. This is something else. This is European.

[Xandax]

European rocks

[dragon wench]

No, this isn't your average G-rated Star Wars RPG. This is something else. This is European.

In other words.... it has far fewer hangups about sexually explicit material..

This murder law illustrates the difference between The Witcher and something like Oblivion. Whereas you won't be stealing people's jewelry or rearranging their physics-enabled furniture in The Witcher, you do have a far more fleshed-out story to chew on than is presented in Bethesda's game. A huge amount of NPCs are waiting with full dialogue trees and quests to present, and while playing the game, I never once felt the boredom that would lead me to a mindless slaughter of innocents. I wanted to hear what these people had to say.

Finally, however, a comparison to Oblivion that puts Bethsoft's game in the more unfavorable light, it's about time!

[Crolug]

Yes, Borelivion compared to any real cRPG is a childtoy...

and I guess difference between Oblivion and The Witcher is similar to difference between American Hollywood movie and any movie from Europe, picked up at random. Whole two different worlds...

Of course I don't have to add that I prefer the latter?