The Witcher 2 is one of those games that is either loved or hated for its qualities. It excels and sometimes exceeds gaming standards, but falls flat in other areas. These minor cons may not be serious to some people, but it also can be game-breaker to others. This review will be covering all the highlights that makes this game shine above crowds and the cons that could ruin the experience.
Story:
The Witcher 2 revolves around the main character Geralt; a witcher with amnesia. He is accused of murdering the king of Temeria and must clear his name and find the assassin who is responsible. Him and his comrades travels around the Nilfgaardian Empire and recover his memories which is somehow linked to assassin. The story itself is interesting enough to keep someone new to the witcher games on his toes, but I highly recommend playing the first game to be familiar with the names of places and people. Helps dissolve any confusion.
Graphics:
The visuals are one the main highlights of the game. The Witcher 2 is one of the best-looking games today, rivaling games like Crysis and Uncharted. It uses the latest technologies such as real-time day and night cycles and dynamic shadows to further immerse the gamer into the world. Everything from the trees of a forest to the tunnels of caves looks meticulously crafted and made with care in mind. Nothing in the game looks the same and it seems like the developers spent a majority of their time making the world with special care. I shamelessly spent some of my time just sparing at the sky as the sunlight pierces through the branches of the trees. However, the pretty visuals comes with the cost of performance. This game is not for the average PC. High-end video cards are needed to run maxed, and certain settings like ubersampling are meant for duel video cards. I am running this game with a Phenom x4 CPU and HD 5850 at the "high spec" settings and the game suffers from random frame dips below 30. These dips happen for no particular reason and occurs in the most random moments.
Gameplay:
The game has almost a similar hack 'n slash feel like Dragon Age 2, but battles are much more imitate. Enemies are limited in numbers and much harder to kill. Geralt is equipped with two swords, magically powers, bombs and traps to fend himself from these monsters. The two swords he carries on his back have different functions: the silver sword is used for killing creatures and the steel sword for normal humans. Remembering to switch between them can be cumbersome which can lead to fatal moments. All the magical powers are available in the beginning, but it is the gamer's responsibly to upgrade them. Bombs, traps, and potions can be forged using alchemy. Combat is solid for the most part but has its flaw. One flaw worth mentioning is the auto targeting system. The auto targeting system is very inaccurate. Geralt could be fighting an enemy one moment then deciding to attack the person behind him without warning. Another serious problem is the clunky menu system. Everything from trading items to upgrading your abilities is an absolute chore. This game without a doubt has a difficult learning curve than most games, so get use to reading the journal for the first hours of the game. The most annoying thing of all is the glitches and this game is chalked full it. Some of these glitches blocks the game from progressing and forces you to restart to the next checkpoint. I personally found myself resetting a few times. Seems like the developers didn't bother to playing some the quests themselves and just decided to release it.
Conclusion:
The Witcher 2 is not a game for the impatient. It requires a lot of reading to learn and understand all the functions. While the game does manages to do extremely well in the visuals and story, there are just too many glitches to keep it from becoming a perfect game. The Witcher 2 is going to ported to consoles. I expect them to thoroughly iron out these glitches and refine the gameplay, so maybe the game will be more enjoyable to play for the Xbox 360. I defiantly recommend picking this game up on Xbox when it comes out.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - Enhanced Edition debuted on Xbox 360 10 years ago, laying the foundations of CDPR's console releases.
I take the Witcher 3 over part 2, but Cyberpunk was a disappointment. God I hated Johnny Silverhand so much.
Jack writes: "Before viewers who raved about The Witcher Netflix series could be called posers by those who have played The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, gamers who raved about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt could be called posers by those who already played The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings."
I just started the first playthrough of this game in years.
I love Witcher 3, and think it's one of the best open world RPGs had, but I have to say I think that the more focused content had here is more enjoyable as a whole.
As just a pure action RPG experience, I think they did better with Witcher 2.
I have a soft spot for W2, it hit so many of the right notes for me. brutally hard combat, a cool narrative that splits up into 2 parts, a beautiful world even though the gritty style wasnt for everyone. I preferred it over W3 which open world was gorgeous but felt kind of empty when it came to discovery since for me having an "x" or a "?" on the world map for you to go to doesnt feel as exploration to me, it just feels like you are being led on rails to your next reward. maybe im suffering from open world fatigue or i just dont like that style of reward chasing.
Ill join you in replaying it, this got me excited to play it again
RIP CDPR. Corrupted by American investors and shareholders. The Witcher 2 was the peak, TW3 didnt have the same soul as TW2.
Farewell to the White Wolf has finally launched today, a fan-made epilogue story expansion made with The Witcher 2's engine that has been in development since 2015,
Cool. I just started the original game last night with plans to play through the series again. Definitely going to download this when I get to 2.
First Witcher 2 user review. Nice =)
Nice review. I agree with your score, The Witcher 2 is at least a 9.
Should I play the first before this one?