The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Review

By Kieron Gillen Published 17 September, 2008

More bewitching than ever.

Version tested: PC

Not having read a film mag in years, I don't know if they still do this, but... I always despised the dual-mark DVD review section where they give separate marks for films and add-ons, with a similar sort of split shown in the actual reviews in terms of what they talk about. Because if a film is rubbish, who cares if it's got voiceover commentary by the entire cast's family? It's rubbish. You're reviewing. That's all that bloody matters.

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition has provided me with the latest in a long string of opportunities to be a dirty great hypocrite.

Because games are a cultural form I actually care about, the enormous bundle of stuff doesn't seem to be just extraneous guff. It's actually pretty neat. And since The Witcher has already been reviewed, and remains mostly the same game I can concentrate my attention on the new stuff - what's changed and why you may be interested, even if you weren't before.

A lot has changed for this single-character role-playing game, which is built around the popular (in Poland) Polish fantasy character of the title. When released it was in a somewhat twitchy state, and the patches have done much to sort that out. The biggest problem - long load times - has been dealt with to a significant degree. Only the first load in a session tends to leave you sighing, with the rest agreeably non-punishing. When the character has to bob in and out of hours on a quest, not caring that you have to do such a thing is a major boon for basic reasons of immersion.

The second problem to be tackled head-on is the issue of translation. For reasons unknown - though it's easy to speculate - the original Polish dialogue was much longer and more detailed than the English translation. And the voice-acting was uneven, and the characters did that Neverwinter Nights thing of standing still and reciting their lines sinisterly, which made some scenes pretty much unintelligible. It was so distracting that when I played the original Witcher, I actually installed the Polish voice files and used the unedited full English subtitles - treating it like a foreign film.

'The Witcher: Enhanced Edition' Screenshot 1

Very blue skies, the Witcher. It's like a Zelda who likes saying ["Go Away" - Ed] a lot.

All that's been tweaked, thankfully. Apparently over 5000 lines have been re-recorded, plus there are extra character animations. The results are not exactly overwhelming. The character animations are far better, but it's a case them now being acceptable rather than impressive. The translation changes are subtle and welcome, and result in rather less foot-in-mouth moments. To give one example, there's a scene in the original where the Head Witcher tells the others they should treat Love Interest Number 1 with more respect, before calling her "babe". In the new version, they've use the word "child" - so the paternalism they were aiming for now comes across.

There are still problems, however. The timing of conversations is an issue - especially when you loop back to the main conversation menu after an exchange. Each character you're talking to has a set refrain before you get to choose, and it often bears no relation to what's previously been said. Also the game's creators have a tendency to not understand that while setting a game in a sexist world (as in, characters really are terrible bastards) is fine and actually worthy of praise, adding sexist mechanics (as in, whenever you sleep with a character you get a collectable card of them posing for you) undercuts any serious intentions you may have had.

Which is a shame - as a revisionist, nasty fantasy, the Witcher has a lot going for it. It's the only PC RPG of the last couple of years which has committed to a high level of production values (at its best, the game is genuinely beautiful) to a traditional design (heavy on the conversation) with enough twists to make it feel novel. The setting being so nasty is a prime one - after a mass of sanitised RPGs, playing one where characters happily call each other abusive names makes a welcome change.

Another good twist is to choose to delve into the titular Witcher deeply, rather than choosing to simulate many classes shallowly. While there's room to choose your style of Witcher, throwing all effort into trying to make the game respond to your unique nature as a genetic-mutant potion-brewing sword-swinging freak has paid dividends. It does make you wonder what an RPG could be like if they threw all their efforts into another, relatively unexplored class.

But we wander into speculation, and there's still much more to talk about in this big box. And it is a big box. Firstly, it's worth stressing that a lot of this material's actually available online - for example, the Enhanced Edition changes will be available in a large downloadable patch to anyone who owned the original. However, for a deluxe package like this, the 30 quid RRP is impressively reasonable. The assorted things in the box are so spread out across the room that I'm having trouble finding all the discs included to work out how many there actually are. Well, from memory - there's the game disc. There's the extended edition disc (including two extra missions and the Witcher creator-toolkit). There's the the DVD commentary disc. There's the CD soundtrack disc. There's the "music-inspired by The Witcher game" disc.

Let's repeat that: "Music inspired by The Witcher game". It's an odd whistlestop tour through the Polish music scene and sounds like a mixtape by your D&D obsessed mood-swinging best mate, bouncing from metal to faux-medieval folk. Particularly bewildering is Lady Arrp who plays a celtic-harp over something akin to elvish dubstep. This isn't your grandad's bard. There are also three small books - the manual, a game guide and a novella by the original author of The Witcher, Andrzej Sapkowski.

Crikey. There's even a map. Not a cloth map, but you can't have everything.

The most interesting element for Witcher veterans are the two new missions. The Price of Neutrality is set in a new location near the Witcher's castle, and is - as the title suggests - set around one of those hard decisions the game tends to throw at you. Where it differs is, due to its closed structure, is that the fallout from the call is thrown at you, so you know how it all turns out.

'The Witcher: Enhanced Edition' Screenshot 2

The Witcher doesn't exactly make it easy to screenshot for a family magazine.

The second mission isn't as emotional, but perhaps a little more replayable - it's the simple task of trying to gain 2000 gold in a city to pay off a friend's debts. While constrained and re-using locations from the original game, it's actually a neat slice of the Witcher's world with some open-ended adventuring and coin-gaining - I played to completion without actually using some of the options for getting cash. They also show the potential in the game's toolkit to make further adventures in the game world, even if you have a limited lead - though it's likely to be a long time before the community realises something of a similar quality.

"Similar Quality" is nagging in my ears a bit. Last year was bad for the PC RPG. This year, at least so far, has been even worse. In such times it's easier to look kindly on The Witcher, even the original version. The new and improved package is increasingly attractive. There are still some rough edges, and moments of genuine drama are still undercut by how they're performed, but this is an agreeably driven RPG in an agreeably ornate package. I also believe the developers' continued support for the game and commitment to expensive improvements - which I stress you'll be able to download and patch into any existent version - should be applauded.

If you've been umming and ahhing over trying the Witcher, I think this is enough to push you into a straight Ah!

8 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Kieron.

About Kieron Gillen

Kieron is one of the founders of the lovely Rock, Paper, Shotgun and nowadays writes comics for Marvel starring characters that even his mum has heard of.

Read more articles from Kieron by visiting the Kieron Gillen archive page.

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Comments (73) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • MrChuckles #1 3 years ago

    I have been uhming and ahing, and with Fallout 3 and Fable 2 coming out, i'm still uhming and ahing....

    I think i'll wait for it to drop in price a bit, then pick it up, i have just got a new gfx card after all.

  • Dizzy #2 3 years ago

    >Enhanced Edition changes will be available in a large downloadable patch to anyone who owned the original

    Ha.. I can finally continue my Witcher adventures ;)

  • Widge #3 3 years ago

    Does this come with a free lawsuit?

  • sickpuppysoftware #4 3 years ago

    I'm finding myself in agreement with Commissar. When it originally came out I thought it sounded interesting but there was other stuff I got instead. My interest rose again when I heard about this new enhanced edition. Now that lawsuit business has left rather a sour taste and I'm wondering whether to bother now or not.

    By he time I make my mind up it'll be a tenner

  • dsmx #5 3 years ago

    Does it come with DRM since reviews constantly fail to mention something which does effect buying decisions.

  • Ravenger #6 3 years ago

    I played through the first game and loved it, even with the patchy voice acting and script. So I've now got the enhanced edition on order as I want the definitive version of the game.

    The best bit about the game is the choices, which aren't obviously good or evil like they are in the other RPGs. Instead you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, with the consequences of a choice only becoming apparent much later on in the game - by which time it's too late to do change them. It's the only game I've played where I've agonised over a decision for several minutes before making my choice.

  • Clive_Dunn #7 3 years ago

    I'd just like to say, for the record, I bought my copy of The Witcher and Atari haven't tried to sue me.

    Perhaps I'm alone, or perhaps the intardnet is just full of whinging downloaders. You just never know*.

    *Well you do really.

  • neilka #8 3 years ago

    "By he time I make my mind up it'll be a tenner"

    You can already buy the original for under £13 and patch it to the Enhanced Edition for free.

  • Skeletor #9 3 years ago

    "There are also three small books - the manual, a game guide and a novella by the original author of The Witcher, Andrezej Sapkowski."

    Actually, it's ANDRZEJ;-) Polish equivalent to the english name Andrew.

  • Ceatlan #10 3 years ago

    This was definitely one of my fave games of the last year, I'll probably give it another play through now :-)

    I too loved how the choices often weren't clear cut, and how you could never manage to please all of the people who were supposedly on your side.

  • jack_klugman #11 3 years ago

    The best bit about the game is the choices, which aren't obviously good or evil like they are in the other RPGs. Instead you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, with the consequences of a choice only becoming apparent much later on in the game - by which time it's too late to do change them.

    Ugh. That sounds horrible! I don't want my gameplay restricted by choices where the outcome isn't apparent until hours later and I'm forced to do lengthy replays to get the full experience I paid for. Bad!

  • Evolution #12 3 years ago

    @dsmx

    As far as I know, there isn't any DRM.

  • Plughead #13 3 years ago

    I've been waiting to buy this since I learned of the original's load time issues. I shall be using my Gamestation 20 quid off voucher for this very purpose!

  • Rirekon #14 3 years ago

    If this ends up on Steam I'll be getting it

  • Rizo #15 3 years ago

    DO NOT BUY THIS GAME

    Last year i bought a legel copy from the hut of the original witcher.
    Around 8 months later atari said i had downloaded it and tried to blackmail me for £550.
    This problem was only fixed when another member of eurogamer helped pay my solictor fees to get Atari of my back.

    STAY AWAY FROM THIS GAME

  • PlugMonkey #16 3 years ago

    Ugh. That sounds horrible! I don't want my gameplay restricted by choices where the outcome isn't apparent until hours later and I'm forced to do lengthy replays to get the full experience I paid for. Bad!

    I can't work out if you're taking the piss, or if you've missed the point to such a grand extent it is now a tiny speck on the horizon somewhere over your right shoulder.

  • saku_luk #17 3 years ago

    LOL, Atari is only a publisher beyond Poland, this is not their game....actually, why CD PROJEKT didn't publish their own game i dunno, I think they could easly pull this off.

    Anyway, you can always buy this directly from CD PROJEKT from Poland, I think every single copy of the game comes with the DVD that has all the languages this game was released in?

    And lol again at atari.....They should just disappear after that FLOP Alone in the dark >.>

  • UncleLou #18 3 years ago

    Ugh. That sounds horrible! I don't want my gameplay restricted by choices where the outcome isn't apparent until hours later and I'm forced to do lengthy replays to get the full experience I paid for. Bad!

    You can't be serious. Get out of my RPGs, on the double.

    It doesn't "restrict your gameplay", it's a million times better than Bioware's "Mother Teresa/school bully" dialogue choices design.

    Fallout 3 should be right up your street. The devs already said that they'll make it blatantly obvious what the consequences will be of everything you do, with blinking neon signs. Boring.
    Edited by 1 at 17/09/08 @ 15:11

  • MORZTAN #19 3 years ago

    20 minutes... Out Front... Pufferfish...

  • sirtacos #20 3 years ago


    DO NOT BUY THIS GAME

    Last year i bought a legel copy from the hut of the original witcher.
    Around 8 months later atari said i had downloaded it and tried to blackmail me for £550.
    This problem was only fixed when another member of eurogamer helped pay my solictor fees to get Atari of my back.

    STAY AWAY FROM THIS GAME

    Lol.

    I think I just might give my money to Atari after all.

  • jack_klugman #21 3 years ago

    I can't work out if you're taking the piss, or if you've missed the point

    The latter and its entirely possible!

    It doesn't "restrict your gameplay"

    Surely any decision which funnels you down a particular narrative/gameplay branch is preventing you from accessing the alternative?

    This is a personal preference thing - apologies for presenting my view as "this is absolute" - but I don't have time to invest many hours in a game which demands a replay to allow me to see all possible outcomes and experience all the variables available. I don't consider choice in RPGs a means of defining my character - it feels more like restricting my options.

    it's a million times better than Bioware's "Mother Teresa/school bully" dialogue choices design.

    Digital morality is an immediate fail.

  • jack_klugman #22 3 years ago

    Fallout 3 should be right up your street.

    If it had a less insipid art direction then a shooty Oblivion would be right up my street!

  • GordonCaladan #23 3 years ago

    So, better than The Witcher, then?

    ...

    Thanks for the review, I'm relieved to see my preorder of the Extended Edition box won't turn out to be a waste of money.
    Edited by 1 at 17/09/08 @ 15:22

  • UncleLou #24 3 years ago

    Well, your expectations of what an RPG should deliver are obviosuly on such a polar opposite to mine that I don't think we will find common ground. :)

    I don't see how you're missing something, though. You're making a decision, and live with the consequences. If there's no choice at all, you're missing much more - a vital gameplay element (having a choice), and the alternative, branching path. Because there only is one anyhow.

    In other words: you're seeing exactly as much of the game if you play it once as you'd see if there was no branching storyline at all. What you're complaining about is additional content you wouldn't see in either case.

  • loopholezero #25 3 years ago

    @jack_klugman: i was afraid of making bad choices and having to reload after 6hr of play because the result wouldn't be what i wanted. but that was before i played the game. i think it's 'cause of the way cdprojekt presented this in the trailers.

    anyway, it's not like that. just make the choice that you'd make anyway, without worrying about a possible unwanted outcome. you'll be fine in the end. the story is well written so you won't regret the decision that you made. you'll be curious about the other path(s), but you'll kinda know what would happen if you'd go that way, so it's not like you'll be missing out on half the story if you don't replay it.

    just get the game already. it's the best rpg in a long time. only downside is that after playing this, bioware's stuff will seem bland and childish.

  • Ravenger #26 3 years ago

    The important thing is that there are no bad choices in the Witcher. No choice is good and no choice is evil. All the choices have good and bad consequences, but not all the consequences are readily apparent when you make the choice. You have to live with the long term consequences of your actions, which makes the game much more immersive. if you're curious about what the alternative paths are like you can always read up on them once you've completed the game, like I did.

  • mingster #27 3 years ago

    Lou is right if you didn't have a choice there would be only one ending.
    And if you do have a choice your decision to only play through once means you'd only see one ending.
    Why would you care if it was a 'good' ending or a 'bad' one depending on what morale choices you made.
    You'd only experience one ending so the choice you made would in your case be correct anyway based towards your personal preference.
    I can't see how having a choice is a bad thing.

  • jack_klugman #28 3 years ago

    i was afraid of making bad choices and having to reload after 6hr of play because the result wouldn't be what i wanted. but that was before i played the game.

    I am passing judgement without playing the game. I'm certainly not opposed to giving it a try now its available on Steam.

    just get the game already. it's the best rpg in a long time.

    Okay!

  • figgis #29 3 years ago

    Elvish Dubstep?

    /orders.

  • mooseblade #30 3 years ago

    thanks that review was very helpful, i feel i understand your point of view.

  • Beats12 #31 3 years ago

    I take it with such a big and game-altering download, downloading the patch will result in a loss of saved games from the original version. Not that I wouldn't mind playing it all again...

  • Lobotomist #32 3 years ago

    I dont know what is wrong with Eurogamer reviewers?

    I have been long time die hard RPG, fan. I played it all from first home computers to pen&paper to modern PC games.

    There was no PC RPG i didnt play , and I can say that WITCHER ranks among best PC RPGS EVER MADE

    List would probably go like this

    1.Fallout+Fallout2
    2.Baldurs gate series
    3. Planescape Torment
    4.The Witcher


    If you think yourself a RPG player - and dont buy this game , you will be missing one of the best RPGs made in last 10 years.

    Simple as that

  • Zaltan #33 3 years ago

    I'll finally have some money next week thanks to student loans so I might get this.

  • PlugMonkey #34 3 years ago

    Lou is right if you didn't have a choice there would be only one ending.
    And if you do have a choice your decision to only play through once means you'd only see one ending.

    That's an excellent way of thinking about it.

  • peak_performance #35 3 years ago

    Until the scam business was in the news I was dead certain I would buy this to support what CDProjekt is doing, a remarkable work over that also is available to everyone who already has supported them the first time. It's not something you see often in this business.

    Now... well. Fuck.

    I'll probably spend the money on Slitherlink and Prof. Layton instead. Not to mention Multiwinia.

    Fuck.

  • qoobah #36 3 years ago

    @lobotomist

    I really don't get why everyone who played it makes it to be the new alpha and omega of CRPG gaming. I found it to be good, but that's it, it wasn't awsome. Sure it had a novel idea with the not-so-unambiguous morality and choices outcomes but overall I found it to be rather bland with MMO style quests, dialogues copied straight from the Sapkowski novels, anti-immersive combat etc. All in all I played it once and felt no incentive to try it again. I had loads more fun with Mass Effect rather than this, despite it's obvious mr. Good Cop/school bully morality and other flaws. I guess the witcher is just not eveyones cup of tea but I feel it should be mine as I really liked most of the books (bar the abbhorent two last saga titles) but it clearly isn't. I'd heavily disagree that it's one of cRPG benchmarks. It's only a highlight and I'd argue just because there is lately nothing else in cRPG department to enjoy.

  • Miniu #37 3 years ago

    peak_performance what scam?

  • darc #38 3 years ago

    @qoobah, I will swing the needle even further in the opposite direction. I HATED the Witcher. And I tried to like it for many, many, many hours. Every one of those hours felt like a week to me.

    It's weird because I know a lot of people loved this game. I can see that lobotomist has good taste, for instance. But the pacing was just so God-awful IMO. The load times were just one part of the problem. Everything from the long uneventful walks between distant points of interest (with knee-high fences I couldn't climb over grr) to the rambling and vaguely broken dialog trees, to the poorly developed "love" interests (ooh edgy sex content!) and the boring pub games... the game was just an absolute labor to sit through. There were a few moments I guess, but they were so infrequent I could only acknowledge them grudgingly.

    Now I catch myself wondering if I should reinstall to checkout the improvements. But really, if it's the same game with a few rough edges polished off, it will still probably seem like a thankless timesink to me.

  • UncleLou #39 3 years ago

    I don't say you're wrong it's obviously a well justified opinion, just pointing out that the original game has an average user rating of 8.8 (of 130 votes), so it's safe to say you're in a bit of a minority. :)

    I loved it - loved the combat, which really comes into its own at later stages, when you string combos together, switch the fighting style in between and use magic and potions. I also loved the whole world - the differences are sometimes subtle, but - much like Gothic - all in all I found it a so much more convincing old European world, rather than the kitschy World Disney fantasy worlds that are so typical for D&D.

    Finally, I loved the plot. The political intrigue, and the many memorable scenes (the party, for example) that were pretty much a first for a game. It's also a bit unfair (as you sometimes hear) to say that people only rate The Witcher because there was nothing else out - I found it infinitely superior to any of Bioware's or even Obidian's efforts of recent years. Mass Effect is a bit of an exception, but I saw that more as an action than a classic role-playing game.
    Edited by 1 at 17/09/08 @ 18:44

  • Katsumoto #40 3 years ago

    I just couldn't play it after a few hours due to the utterly utterly dreadful dialogue and voice acting. If this has improved that then i'm as excited as a very excited person with a special reason to be excited. A shame the review indicates the dialogue is now only "passable" rather than "oh god" but passable is a great improvement on oh god, so will be getting this patch over the weekend.

  • UncleLou #41 3 years ago

    I never quite understood the complaints about the voice-acting - a few exceptions (like the sorceress that is your ally, forgot the name) aside, I found the voice-acting fine. As for the dialogues - they had a few quirks, but once again, I found them much more to the point and well-written than most other stuff out there, absolute gems in that regard like Planescape: Torment or Vampire aside. I thought the whole game sounded a lot more natural than the often artificial fake medieval style, or the long-winded (without being well written) speeches in other games.

    I'll freely admit though, as a non-native speaker, it might be harder to judge the quality of voice-acting.

  • darc #42 3 years ago

    Yes, I know I'm in a small minority here (me and Yahtzee, basically, we both hate everything. Except No More Heroes, for some reason he liked that tripe... but I digress.)

    It's funny that you specifically mention the party - because that's exactly where I stopped playing. It seemed to sum up everything I hated about the Witcher to that point: long-winded, pretensious, even more of a system hog than the game had been up to that point, fetch-quests for people 5 feet away from the objects of their desire, and more of that exciting-if-you're-15, not-as-edgy-as-it-aims-to-be sexual content. (One character offers, pretty much out of the blue, "I also give orgasms." Ugh.)

    Maybe part of the problem is that my computer was not as blisteringly fast as I'd have needed it to be in order to properly enjoy the game. In general, and in that scene in particular, the game just felt... clunky. And my system was no slouch! But this is an argument in favor of a reinstall as I have just upgraded significantly.

    Speaking of clunky, this website is pretty insane with the gobs of Flash running. Just typing this reminds me a bit of the Witcher. ;)

    I'm with you re: Gothic, though, that's a fun place.
    Edited by 2 at 17/09/08 @ 19:31

  • UncleLou #43 3 years ago

    Wait, I didn't mean the mini-party though at whatsherface's place, but the big reception upstairs at the pub thingy - or do you mean that as well?

    You als knocked yourself out by saying "pretentious". ;)

  • darc #44 3 years ago

    "Wait, I didn't mean the mini-party though at whatsherface's place, but the big reception upstairs at the pub thingy - or do you mean that as well?"

    Yah, I think we mean the same scene. Big party with some princess or whatever, and a guard in plate mail who needs a drink or something? It's been a couple of months.

    "You als knocked yourself out by saying "pretentious". ;) "

    Not sure I follow...

  • qoobah #45 3 years ago

    @UncleLou

    Yeah I know me and darc are not exactly in the majority here, it got even higher user scores on metacritics (somewhere above 9 iirc) I just fail to see why that's the case. The combat, along with the quests felt clunky and anti immersive for me, and I don't just mean the mechanics which are another issue. A witcher as depicted in Sapkowski's books is an elite monster slayer, he has to prepare thoroughly for every contracted fight, and focus on it if he is to survive an encounter with a striga or basilisk, much as you have seen in the intro. Running around, slaying hudreds of millions of constant respawns of drowners, ghould, graveirs etc. in MMO style "get me X heads of Y and you'll get Z amount of gold" wasn't my idea of how a witcher works.

    Admittedly, the world was quite well depicted, and sometimes beautifully executed, capturing the mood and was a much needed fresh breeze in high fantasy D&D style dominated genre, I agree. However, seeing I'm Polish, I already knew the books and the setting, so it really wasn't much of a surprise to me.

    And this bring me to what made me indifferent towards the game, and what made you love it - the plot. A lot of it's twists, hell, even whole dialogue lines, were taken directly from the books. To some they made nice cameos and refrences, but it made me know in a lot of instances what will the character say next, and what will the next plot twist be. The party and politics is a prime example - there is a whole, big scene in the second saga book, that depicts such a party and machinations behind it, albeit on larger scale. But it made the party just a reference for me, not a clever novelty and fun plot point as it was for many.

    Add to that the fact the the writers inspired the main plot twist (time teleportationlol, a child with strange abilities being the focal point for the plot) DIRECTLY from the part of the books I disliked the most (I valued the Witcher saga for being a down-to-earth gritty and complex fantasy, not some mystical bollocks) and there you have it - I really, really can't see how The Witcher can be put up there together with Fallouts, Baldur Gates and PT:T, even on par with the flawed gem that Mass Effect was. And it makes me uncomfortable, seeing as I should rather cheer for my country's only high profile production, which after all isn't that bad as I make it to be. I stand by my assesment though - it's a good game, it's not perfect, and it really, really is very far from becoming a benchmark the way Fallouts and Planescape are.

    Wow, that was long... I'll stop now, it's snowing outside I've got too much time on my hands :|
    Edited by 1 at 17/09/08 @ 19:50

  • yagisencho #46 3 years ago

    Already pre-ordered on Steam last week. I was just waiting for the uber-patch before committing to it. RPG goodness awaits!

  • Bitkari #47 3 years ago

    I'm trying to buy this on Steam - but it seems to have vanished!

    There's a page offering a pre-order discount, but the game isn't available.

    How very strange! Maybe they don't want my money?

    Edited by 2 at 17/09/08 @ 22:05

  • UncleLou #48 3 years ago

    Fair comments, qoobah - I haven't read the books, so this can obviosuly give you a different perspective.

  • Katsumoto #49 3 years ago

    "I never quite understood the complaints about the voice-acting - a few exceptions (like the sorceress that is your ally, forgot the name) aside, I found the voice-acting fine. As for the dialogues - they had a few quirks, but once again, I found them much more to the point and well-written than most other stuff out there, absolute gems in that regard like Planescape: Torment or Vampire aside. I thought the whole game sounded a lot more natural than the often artificial fake medieval style, or the long-winded (without being well written) speeches in other games.

    I'll freely admit though, as a non-native speaker, it might be harder to judge the quality of voice-acting. "

    Considering we normally agree on games to such a large extent, to be honest, I have to put it down to the native language thing, because to me it was utterly dreadful. Like, making Deus Ex sound oscar-worthy dreadful. Heh. And I know it wasn't just me. And the fact they went and remade it with this complaint in mind says something I think. I am looking forward to seeing how they've improved it though.

    The delivery was just totally off. But I could just TELL there an awesome game in there waiting for me. I am really excited about this patch.
    Edited by 3 at 17/09/08 @ 22:23

  • UncleLou #50 3 years ago

    Hm. :)

    Out of interest, what do you think of the voice-acting in these Dragon Age clips?

  • Katsumoto #51 3 years ago

    Okay it's being shite and not loading. Lol @ my internet etc. But what I will say is this: Baldur's Gate/Neverwinter Nights etc. meh me out with their voice acting. Mass Effect on the other hand I think the is pinnacle of voice acting in computer games and what all other games should aspire to. So, who knows with Bioware! I'll let you know on x-fire or summat once I can get those videos to work ;)

  • WJF #52 3 years ago

    "I already sued Sierra because I played Larry 1 when I was 10 and it ruined my childhood!!!"

    Quite right! That game was insultingly bad!

  • smelly #53 3 years ago

    "I mean, I don't mind killing hundreds of people in a game, but having sex with more than one woman? "

    I cant figure out if yer being serious or not! :-)

    Whatever you do if you are messing around.. DONT do it around Gradius.. he has a problem telling fiction apart from reality

  • smber2c #54 3 years ago

    The Fallout 3 interview when the developer said the results of choices would be completely obvious b/c he didn't want to mislead his players.....urg!! It had me so angry. He just doesn't get it at all.

    If the choices are that obvious then they will undoubtedly be the aformentioned Mother Theresa/School Bully options. I've never played Witcher, but this style of writing/gameplay is one of the most appealing notions. Often when we do one person right we mess another over. Or by commiting one action that seemed localized we really tipped off an avalanche.

    The uncertainty of it all is what makes it so entertaining. With my financial investments, I want clear direction. When driving to a new resturant, I want things to be just where I was told. If I buy a new TV, computer, car, or home - I want a full understanding of exactly what I'm getting. But with movies, novels, and games (esp. RPG's) please mix it up a bit. Give me a week in jail for spanking a young apple theif who I later found to be the king's nephew. Make my choosing to sleep in a mutant run inn, result in 14 toes when I wake up b/c of the radiation that inn keeper was giving off. Have me scan into then hack an Enclave computer to access a new weapon or information to find a few hours later that the system created a clone of my character then to come kill me and retrieve the weapon..if he can!

    That's actually fun. Those "oh crap! I did that. I caused that." moments. And intentionally eliminating that, and thinking that it's a good thing is very saddening.

  • Katsumoto #55 3 years ago

    "Hm. :)

    Out of interest, what do you think of the voice-acting in these Dragon Age clips? "

    Okay, seen them now. :)

    Pretty poor. Disappointing after Mass Effect. Still miles better than Vanilla Witcher ;) Really looking forward to this patch, but there's a shit load of other stuff coming out as well now. Why must everything come in one big rush. Need to finish Clear Sky, play some WAR, Warhead, plus this. Plus Spore, but i've already got bored of that. But that's a topic for another thread!

  • PlugMonkey #56 3 years ago

    Mass Effect on the other hand I think the is pinnacle of voice acting in computer games and what all other games should aspire to.

    And the character creation was excellent as well. Setting a backstory is a great idea. I didn't just get to decide what they looked like, I got to decide who they were. More of this kind of thing.

    +1 to the Steam mystery. Was it on there before? It's not there now. I could get it on Metaboli, but only if I signed up for the Ultimate collection, and frankly The Witcher is the only game on the Ultimate list I'm particularly bothered about.

  • Coren #57 3 years ago

    I have the Enhanced Edition on pre-order and I'm glad to hear it was probably a good investment. I never played the original version, so I hope I'll be able to enjoy it as it was meant to be enjoyed from my first play.

    I'd like to second BuckoA51's question, though: does it still come with TAGES? Because I've had very bad experiences with this copy protection system in the past. (I also believe TAGES is the reason why I can't play my copy of Beyond Good and Evil on my new Vista 64 PC, which is a damn shame as that game was good...)
    Edited by 1 at 18/09/08 @ 10:55

  • Maximilian #58 3 years ago

    This seems like a breath of fresh air. A definite purchase for me.

  • PlugMonkey #59 3 years ago

    Re Steam - Are there any Atari games on there anymore? I can't see Neverwinter Nights or ArmA or Rollercoaster Tycoon either, and they don't have a publisher catalog on the home page.

  • Turambar #60 3 years ago

    Atari games on Steam are available to North America only.

  • Lobotomist #61 3 years ago

    You forget that Witcher was made by a Polish company , it was their very first game. They didnt have the budget of Bioware Mass Effect , nor some of most experienced writers , nor the pull of such great and usually world famous voice actors.

    What CD project did is nothing short of amazing. And I am sad we (and eurogamer) are not giving them more props, cause they are our home boys!

    But back to the game

    I actually never noticed voice acting was non adequate in any way. Perhaps only native english speaker can sense the subtle accent variations. But even than its NITPICKING. Because most of the characters speak 100% appropriate to the characters they represent.

    And yes the game has its ups and downs. Often it flows wrong - and becomes tedious. And even at this moments its above the average RPG.


    But you fail to detect the beauty, and that is the reason why Witcher is among best RPG's

    STORY

    Story that realy takes shape according to your decisions. The world that is so different and mature than rest of vanilla fantasy.

    It is the bad boy of RPG , the anti hero.

    Only two more RPGs stand close in that aspect - Fallout and Torment

  • PlugMonkey #62 3 years ago

    Turambar - I could have sworn I'd seen NWN on there, but now that I think about it that was probably Metaboli. Another mystery solved! By science!

  • thisisatempaccount #63 3 years ago

    I'm the Witcher!
    Let me put you in the picture...

  • Katsumoto #64 3 years ago

    @ lou and co.

    A professional writer, Alec Meer, has similar feelings to me and expresses them better on RPS:

    "I found the shonky writing/dialogue/translation/whatever you want to blame incredibly distracting, and simply couldn’t sink into the game because of it - a problem for a game in which your connection to the character/world is incredibly important. It made it harder to fully appreciate the mechanics of the game, which clearly a lot of people did find hugely exciting."

    This is why i'm hoping this new patch will solve it - I could tell there was something awesome there but the atrocious, atrocious diagloue/facial animations etc simply meant I couldn't get anywhere. Can't wait to see the improvements.

  • Lobotomist #65 3 years ago

    I dont know

    Maybe it is some kind of Commonwealth-USA racism against foreign language translated to English.

    I am not native english speaker and dialogues and voice acting sounds just fine to me.


    Perhaps we "international english" speakers just do not posses the high taste buds for perfect lingual enjoyment ?

    Or is it the fact that instead fake medieval style , Witcher uses very modern street lingo ...

  • Katsumoto #66 3 years ago

    I had nothing against the vocabulary in and of itself, just the way it was delivered and structured was completely off. I liked the fact it was trying to use more adult language etc than the cheesy quasi-medieval stuff you normally get. It had good intentions. It just didn't come across at all well. If this patch has fixed that, it should be incredible.

  • UncleLou #67 3 years ago

    Pah, professional writer or not, I am a professional reader. I am the snobbiest literature snob I know. ;-) I am pretty allergic to bad writing usually, which is one of the reasons why I can hardly read any fantasy and scifi stuff.

    Which is why I seriosuly don't get it - I don't get how anyone can praise, say, Kotor's dialogues (or even Mass Effect's - the voice-acting was good, but the writing wasn't) with a straight face and be so put off by The Witcher that he can't play it.

    edit:

    Btw., I linked to the Dragon Age clips because they are a prime example of terrible voice-acting and appaling fantasy-kitsch writing for me. I am glad we at least agree insofar. As much as I appreciate the RPS guys, slagging off The Witcher's writing in the same sentence as saying that Dragon Age shows promise after these clips lets me snobbishly assume the person in question needs to hone their literature reception taste buds... ;-)
    Edited by 2 at 18/09/08 @ 23:38

  • Katsumoto #68 3 years ago

    Well yeah, but as I say, I am talking purely in terms of voice acting and delivery here, which Mass Effect gets perfect. I'm sure what The Witcher was trying to convey was brilliant, it was just done utterly abysmally. This patch is out today is it not? Time to see if they've fixed it!

    "Babe" btw, mentioned in the review, is a great example of the shoddy translation. It's an utterly inappropriate word when it's delivered, and it's said completely off-key, like it was added in later. Sounds like they've at least fixed that!

    p.s. I mentioned the fact Meer is a professional writer to indicate he could say what I wanted to say better, not that his opinion was any more valid ;)!

    http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=HS1hLGyJvZ4 - utterly stilted see. Doesn't flow at all.
    Edited by 2 at 19/09/08 @ 09:42

  • Bursk #69 3 years ago

    What's all this about a lawsuit?

  • VMerken #70 3 years ago

    First of all: as good as MGS4, yay! Am downloading patches and extras right now.

    Kieron: Also the game's creators have a tendency to not understand that while setting a game in a sexist world (as in, characters really are terrible bastards) is fine and actually worthy of praise, adding sexist mechanics (as in, whenever you sleep with a character you get a collectable card of them posing for you) undercuts any serious intentions you may have had.

    Not again. Could this utterly faulty argument finally get the shotgun burial it deserves, please?

    The Witcher is a game where choices are made. And believe it or not, it is possible to CHOOSE not to partake in any frivolous run-ins with the ladies (not a single one of them) and thus not to obtain any cards. As such, it is possible to CHOOSE to ignore the "sexist mechanic", even though it exists. Also, if I recall correctly, you don't miss out on anything but the cards so gameplay wise, there's no loss at all.

    Therefore: the game allows you to play it in its praise-worthy sexist world with all the "serious intentions" you may have and the above review argument simply isn't true. Unless the Enhanced Edition does have forced frolickings, in that case I'll retract my statement, no problem.
    Edited by 1 at 22/09/08 @ 21:44

  • michaelius #71 3 years ago

    This game makes Mass Effect story look like sci-fi for elementary school kids novel.

    And if you will try to play it like traditional more saint than Mother Teresa you are setting yourself for serious frustration becouse it's hard as hell to even decide which side is actually good. Are the non-human groups freedom fighters or terrorists ? Are the Knights of the rose true paladins of virtue or nazi like opressors of inferior races? Or maybe you will play trying to not help anyone setting yourself for failure when the moment commes you can't stay neutral ?

    I'd say 9/10 for others and 10/10 for people who know the setting.

  • uk_john #72 3 years ago

    Can we forget about Atari and remember this is a fantastic first game from a Polish developer who gets about half the profits, and spends some of it giving a free download to bring The Witcher purchasers up to the Enhanced Edition! (Other companies do the opposite- selling you $5 horse armor or $15, 6 hour gameplay 'episodic' games. So think of it as giving CD Projeckt your money rather than Atari.

    Secondly, all this talk about the voice work in The Witcher in a world of PC gaming voice-work that is abysmal, and stories that are so incredibly shallow compared to the deep story-telling of The Witcher is just amazing to me!

    I think there is some racism going on because perfect English voiced with the most stupid shallow words and characters seem to be accepted, yet deep, interesting, mature story-telling with just the odd wrong word or sentence gets hammered!

    Give me deep RPG's like this with broken English everyday over the shallow story/character/conversation, linear and dumb games that come out week after week!
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/08 @ 23:50

  • brendor #73 3 years ago

    I am seriously gay