The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Reviews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on June 3rd, 2011

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The greatest strength of the game is the quests and the choices available to you in them. While you can finish the game in about 16-20 hours if you focus exclusively on the main plot (and are damn good at the fighting), there are dozens of side quests for you to undertake and flesh out the world. Even better are the choices you're presented with during those quests. Most RPGs have a clear cut good or bad choice for you to make. Here the choices are much more nuanced. You might have to decide to back one faction over another, but yet each faction might have legitimate reasons for you to take their side. There are choices that look good or bad, but can end up having the opposite consequences. You can be a good guy, but still be a bonafide prick. Early on you can save a group of innocent people from being burned alive, but you can then demand payment for your services. They'll complain about how they're poor, and one of the options given to you is, (Poor don't mean broke.) At that point, you can opt punch one of the poor bastards in the gut and force them to pay up.

The choices you make do have consequences. Piss one guy off and he might send killers after you later on. Make a good impression or help a person out and they might return the favor later on in the game. There are plenty of repercussions for your actions, so it's a good thing that you're a bad-ass.

Combat has been given an overhaul, making it simpler and less reliant on the awkward swordplay combos that sullied the first game. Simple doesn't mean easy though; Combat requires a keen degree of strategy and forward planning. You even have to ensure you're using the right sword; the ambidextrous Geralt has one for humans and another specifically for monsters. Running at a group of foes and trying to hack '˜n slash your way to victory will almost certainly leave you dead. Splitting that group up using traps, snares, diversions and of course magic. You can choose to focus your earned experience in to beefing up Geralt's witcher, alchemy, swordplay or magic skills, and doing so greatly influences how you'll play the game. You won't max out more than a single one of the branches in an entire playthrough, so you'll have to make your choices rather carefully. It's a far cry from the mindless, button-mashing combat we've seen other RPG's systems devolve in to.

The storyline itself seems (at first glance) like your typical fantasy RPG type of thing. Kings, wars, swordfights, wizards, that kind of thing. Gameplay wise, the story is told mostly through Geralts interactions with other characters and can be influenced by the players choices in dealing with these characters. The story is also told through combat and adventuring, as players will be required to pass certain points in the game in order to advance, like participating in a certain storyline quest and the like.

Side quests are much like the side quests in other games from this genre. They take place in the same area that your character is currently in and can optionally be completed for additional experience and rewards. The side-quests seem to be more of the same old (go here, kill x) type of missions, but it's done really well and you don't really notice it too much. They're also usually pretty short but some of them can be a little logic defying at times. Like this one sidequest early on where you have to bomb these tunnels that some monsters use to travel around through. The idea is to plant an explosive in the holes, but you can't just use any bombs, no, you have to use the correct bomb, even if you have one with very similar effects (or more deadly) effects.

Playing with swords and a little magic can get boring, as shocking as that may seem. Fortunately, this is not the only aspect of the game's combat system. The Witcher 2 utilises Geralt's potion-making skills, allowing you to make several concoctions to enhance certain abilities in preparation for whatever perils lie ahead. Knowing your enemy is an important lesson for any witcher to learn, and you are not automatically given all the tools to make your wares from the off. Recipes must be learnt and ingredients need to be farmed, making the use of strong potions most suited to boss fights only. This is not a (skip the challenge by using potion) sort of system, so it doesn't place itself at risk of imbalancing combat. You should be prepared to die a good number of times, but shouldn't face this as a particularly negative aspect of the game if you tailor the difficulty setting to your skill level.

The Witcher 2 is an epic undertaking and a masterpiece of design. Its slow pace, complex menu system and steep learning curve will put many off. But dismissing it would be folly, as CD Projeckt have delivered one of this generation's most incredible games.

The inventory system has also been greatly revamped for the better but still isn't perfect. You may now carry many more items and they are filtered into various categories including additional weapons, which defeats one of my annoyances with The Witcher. All of this is great but there is still no way to filter out junk to vendor quickly. New armor options have been added as well including boots, gloves and pants and you may enhance your chest armor.

The crafting system has been greatly enhanced as well giving you a ridiculous amount of crafting components and diagrams for creating bombs, potions, armor, weapons and even better crafting materials. Herbs play a big role in alchemy, and you no longer have to read about them before you may pick them.

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