The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Reviews
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The problem with exploring and talking to people is that the game has to load for each area you enter, including houses and inns. While short, the load times make it annoying to get things done more quickly. Interestingly enough, every NPC has its own dialogue, which is very cool to see. While The Witcher doesn't have the best voice actors around, it's still commendable that CDProjekt would even bother when many other games don't. The art style and visuals of the game are also incredibly nice, and while it certainly doesn't hold up to something like Oblivion, graphically it does a good job, and even the load screens contain some fantastic pieces of art, almost making you not care about seeing them so frequently. Well, almost. The engine seems fairly scalable being the same engine that powered Neverwinter Nights 2, so you shouldn't have to worry too much about specs, either.1UP goes with a "B".
Overall, The Witcher is a great game when there are enemies to kill and the story is actually progressing, but when everything slows down it really doesn't work out so well. The new additions in the Enchanced Edition are certainly a large incentive to pick up the game this time around, especially when you factor in the non-game content. This game is as good as it gets for most RPG fans on the PC, and The Witcher is sure to give you an enjoyable experience despite the pacing issue.
Thus, we must offer many blessings upon CD Projekt for the tweaks they've made to the Enhanced Edition of their debut role-playing game, The Witcher -- the best of which is the ability to mix and match voice and subtitle languages. I went with the original Polish voices with English subs, but you can choose French with Spanish, Czech with Czech, or whatever strikes your bilingual fancy. This little tweak alone does wonders to ameliorate (or at least mask) the bad acting and writing in the original version, and it represents a stroke of simple genius that all overseas game companies should consider (I'm looking at you, Japan).
Aside from the myriad language options, Witcher Enhanced offers a couple of new adventures, somewhat improves the original's annoying load-time problems, and adds a bevy of new animations and an expanded color palette. This stuff's all nice (as are the included "goodies" -- like the soundtrack CD and the short story from Andrzej Sapkowski, the Polish author of the Witcher novels), but it doesn't alter the game in any material way. If you liked the simple-yet-powerful combat system the first time around, you'll like it here. And if you enjoyed the engrossing story of the first game, you'll appreciate the two new chapters -- although neither allows you to import your character from the main storyline, which is a major letdown.
