1507 réponses à ce sujet

[In Exile]

The thing that I think is brilliant about the Witcher is what it strives to do with regard to the choices in the game. The essence of it is that the game does not really have a villain. The main antagonist is just a well-intentioned extremist; in fact, the idea behind the relationship of the main character and antagonist in principle is excellent.

The different factions in the game all have noble goals and ideals, but quickly get subverted by the dirty reality of having to achieve them, and in the end wind up corrupted by the very ideals they hoped to preserve.

The game itself has a great number of flaws. Even the EE is buggy as hell for me, the quicksave feature just makes another saveslot which is terrible, the dialogue can be absolutely atrocious at times, etc. etc.

What the Witcher does well is the concept. I really did not see the game as mature until I reached about the third chapter.

The themes are wonderful: particulary what it means to be human. That's paralleled by Geralt's own conflict to define his identity. You have monsters that are more human than the humans at times, and so-called humans that descent into barbarism. You have a race of elves that believes themselves so superior and justified in their struggle they are willing to exhaust their entire race in a violent struggle, and that's so hypocritical they cannot see just how much they are like the thing they hate.

People, I think, see the beauty in the concept without paying attenton to the product. As a game, the Witcher is just not as good as Dragon Age. That's what Bioware has that Obsidian and CD Projekt lack. Their concepts are great, the ideas behind the writing excellent, but the game itself, the design, it isn't there. In the end, the Witcher played like an extend NWN II Mod. Heavily modded via the combat system, mind you, but that was the game, for better or worse.

[DragonRageGT]

slimgrin wrote...

Drizzt ORierdan wrote...

Well, the Witcher is not for everybody, thats for sure, and thats not a crime. Im a firm believer that gamers should stick to what they like. Were not in the Chantry here, seeking to convert the heathen...

But going back to Amstrad's posts, it never ceases to amaze me the fact of how different people are affected so differently by the same work of art, movie, book or in this case, "artsy" videogame. The same scene that Amstrad describes as something that put him off so much, was the scene that won me over and made me fell in love with the character.

SPOILERS AHEAD
Geralt is facing a hostile crowd, and he gives a speech about the human condition (the most emotive speech I heard in an RPG) and the girl hes defending just looks at him all thankful and gleamy eyes... I remember I had teary eyes myself at that point... Then he dismisses the crowd WITHOUT resorting to use his sword. The scene is so powerful that Im sure many gamers should've felt smthg similar, as this video of the "legendary Toegoff" proves

http://www.youtube.c.../33/eS22Md49fNI
DONT CLICK UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET REALLY SPOILED

^ I just watched this. If anyone wants a good laugh, watch the next video in the series ( #35)
Listening to him talk during the fight with the beast of Vizima is hilarious because its the toughest in the game, In fact, I think that boss fight is basically broken. Personally, I was swearing like a sailor during this fight.

I think the difficulty in DA was done better. I found it to be a much harder game. Even on average settings it was challenging, for me anyway.

Edit: Cant believe he has the whole game on there. TW is a monster sized game. 

hmm.. the Hellhound is not that hard. Sometimes it requires a few reloads but in Hard I can manage it pretty decently. Of course, you must take into consideration that it is a Monster and Geralt does not have his Silver Sword for monsters at that time. But the Steel Sword with oil plus some mutagens can end that fight really quick. Blizzard with Rubedo properties are very good at that point.

And if you get lucky to get a knockdown from Aard, it's a insta kill! =)

@Amstrad: Sorry mate, but 10 hours in over 50 hours game hardly qualifies you as a reviewer. My review of Dragon Age for Gamespot was done when I had over 300 hrs into the game. Like someone pointed out, I must have some 1800 hrs by now! But at least some 500 hours into The Witcher with many runs and tried all the EE + patch 1.5 single adventures too.

The Official Campaign of The Witcher is simply awesome.But of course, there will be people that will never like it. I just think it's wrong to be a wannabe reviewer at your "experience" level with the game. It's like watching just the first DVD out of the 6 DVD of the LotR Extended Edition Trilogy and saying that the new scenes sucks or that the movie is nor worthy watching.

Edit: Oh, and by the way, I know very well the fallacies and their classification. I don't need someone to keep crying "it's ad hominen, it's ad hominen" instead of pointing out what is wrong with the rebutal. Specialy since it was not you who diod it but a third person. Honestly, I'm glad that most serious reviewers out there can at least finish the games their reviewing a number of times.

And nothing beats Gamespot USERS' reviews. (their site review sucks anyway even when it's positive. It's just what we call "jabaculê" (short  jabá") in my country. Just Google it if you want to know what it means.

Modifié par RageGT, 14 août 2010 - 03:27 .

[AlanC9]

RageGT wrote...
@Amstrad: Sorry mate, but 10 hours in over 50 hours game hardly qualifies you as a reviewer.

What, you think he might start liking it more in another 10 hours or so? I knew I wasn't going to like Morrowind much three hours into it. By the time I finished the main quest I hadn't seen anything to change my mind. I can't recall any game that I changed my mind about after more than about a fifth of the way through.

Modifié par AlanC9, 14 août 2010 - 04:08 .

[AlanC9]

And dude, seriously.....

RageGT wrote...
And nothing beats Gamespot USERS' reviews. (their site review sucks anyway even when it's positive. It's just what we call "jabaculê" (short  jabá") in my country. Just Google it if you want to know what it means.

So to know what you mean we have to Google something from your language? So we have to work to figure out what you mean?

[In Exile]

slimgrin wrote...

-Technical issues, which include occasional slowdown during fights, and some crashing.

My version also has issues with the save space. I quicksave often, properly save rarely. Little did I realize that each quicksave generated a due save slot, and that it led to 10 minute (!!!) waiting times for the load menu to start at the begining of the game. To resolve that I had to cut down my number of saves to 5-6.

-Reused character models. Everyone thats played the game knows what I'm talking about.

Hey, just because the brickmaker has hundreds of twins that are everything from farmers to drunkards....

Harkened back to the days of NWN and KoTOR.

-Combat is partially flawed ( dodging maneuvers are mostly ineffective). Here, DA wins out entirely, provided you like tactical combat.

... You could dodge? I thought that was all automatic.

I did like the combo system, but the combat was way too easy, even on hard. It was a little more strategic re: your potions, but TW2 needs to ramp up difficulty, IMO.

-The ending. I'm one of the few who didn't like how the ending was handled. To avoid spoilers, I won't go into it.

Was it the actual run to the final boss, or was it the fact they used a sequel hook with Geralt as he was leaving?

Remember, this was basically an Indie game, and CD Projekt's first. Considering this, it is massively ambitious, and I think they got the 'big' things right: story, character progression, character choice, dialog ( again, I'm in the minority here. I thought dialog was excellent ), atmosphere, I could go on and on.

Excellent as in excellent in VO, or written? I think their dialogue was well written for the most part, but absolutely gap worthy in certain respects, especially the romance. Absolutely cringe worthy.

I think for the first time in a long time, Bioware has a serious competitor.  

Potentially. Bioware will have ME3 and DA2 roughly as entries with TW2 for game of the year, no? I think Bioware has too much intertia in the industry to be overthrown, but CD Projekt can definetly make noise if they release an excellent AAA PC title. They need to get the design down, though. Obsidian had a shot at being an RPG producer, but they never got a handle on the software development side. I hope CD Projekt does not go down that path.

[In Exile]

AlanC9 wrote...

So to know what you mean we have to Google something from your language? So we have to work to figure out what you mean?

He's accusing them of taking kickbacks for favourable coverage. I think that's the intent of the word. Or at least as a friend of mine uses it.

[Few87]

The witcher was a good idea but done very badly, awful dialogue, a very broken and disjointed progresion through the game world and a really good example of how not to make combat. The witcher 2 will be more of the same and dragon effect 2 casual combat extreme will be even worse. simples

[DragonRageGT]

AlanC9 wrote...

RageGT wrote...
@Amstrad: Sorry mate, but 10 hours in over 50 hours game hardly qualifies you as a reviewer.

What, you think he might start liking it more in another 10 hours or so? I knew I wasn't going to like Morrowind much three hours into it. By the time I finished the main quest I hadn't seen anything to change my mind. I can't recall any game that I changed my mind about after more than about a fifth of the way through.

Did you pretend to write a serious review about Morrowind in your blog and posted the link around? With 3 hours of experiecen with the game? It's not about liking or not, if you missed it... it is about posing as a reviewer. Many negative reviews of many crapola games still demanded the full experience with the game BEFORE something serious could be writen about them.

First impressions, initial impressions, are often vague and superficial and very misleading, lacking serious knowledge of the subject.

AlanC9 wrote...

And dude, seriously.....

So to know what you mean we have to Google something from your language? So we have to work to figure out what you mean?

You don't HAVE to do anything. Do it if you want to. Like I don't have to but if I'm interested I will search for the meaning of words that are/were not familiar to me, like vitriol.

Hey, I guess I could start crying "fallacy! fallacy!" but it really sux, you know.

In Exile wrote...

... You could dodge? I thought that was all automatic.

I did like the combo system, but the combat was way too easy, even on hard. It was a little more strategic re: your potions, but TW2 needs to ramp up difficulty, IMO.

There is the auto dodge/parry based on your skill level but you can also control it in combat by double tapping a direction key. In isometric camera, double clicking on a spot in the ground does it. That video I link (Busted) has a few player controlled dodge manouvers. The back jump pirouette is cool! The side jump whirling is too!

Few87 wrote...

The witcher was a good idea but done very badly, awful dialogue, a very broken and disjointed progresion through the game world and a really good example of how not to make combat. The witcher 2 will be more of the same and dragon effect 2 casual combat extreme will be even worse. simples

You sound like you never got the Enhanced Edition. It was also included in the free patch 1.4, you know. There is nothing broken on it.

And about the crashing you guys mentioned, I very rarely had a in game crash with The Witcher and loading times are extremely fast. Watch my 2 videos of TW, in case some visual evidence is needed.

I agree that the Quick Save not overwritting a specific QS slot is bad, but only because the files are huge for a save file (17-18mb each) and without lots of HD space, one could be in trouble if letting them fill the drive. But they doesn't interfere with my loading time. Lots of RAM in a decent rig helps, I guess. It does crash a lot for me when exiting the game back to desktop and it's documented to be a common issue with no consequence.

[In Exile]

RageGT wrote...
And about the crashing you guys mentioned, I very rarely had a in game crash with The Witcher and loading times are extremely fast. Watch my 2 videos of TW, in case some visual evidence is needed.

I never had an issue with loading times. It just crashed occasionally when I was entering/exiting areas.

I agree that the Quick Save not overwritting a specific QS slot is bad, but only because the files are huge for a save file (17-18mb each) and without lots of HD space, one could be in trouble if letting them fill the drive. But they doesn't interfere with my loading time. Lots of RAM in a decent rig helps, I guess. It does crash a lot for me when exiting the game back to desktop and it's documented to be a common issue with no consequence.

I have 2 gb of ram, so that might be an issue. Need to look to upgrade one of these days. Never ran into a proble running say DA on max specs, though.

Modifié par In Exile, 14 août 2010 - 05:44 .

[In Exile]

slimgrin wrote...

@ In Exile

2 gb of ram seems low to me. 4 at least, or 6-8 is better. RAM makes a huge difference.

Oh, I agree. I need to upgrade. I've just been lazy about it. At the same time, I haven`t had an issue re: other games, at max settings no less. 

[AlanC9]

RageGT wrote...
Did you pretend to write a serious review about Morrowind in your blog and posted the link around? With 3 hours of experiecen with the game? It's not about liking or not, if you missed it... it is about posing as a reviewer. Many negative reviews of many crapola games still demanded the full experience with the game BEFORE something serious could be writen about them.

First impressions, initial impressions, are often vague and superficial and very misleading, lacking serious knowledge of the subject.

You could write most of a review after 1/5 of the game. By that far you know how the game plays. There are details of how the plot will play out so you can't review that, but the game play is pretty much evident by that point. If anything you'll tend to see the combat more positively than a final evaluation might have it, since many games have combat systems that break down in the late game. Like DA, which falls apart completely if you've been pumping DEX.

You don't HAVE to do anything. Do it if you want to. Like I don't have to but if I'm interested I will search for the meaning of words that are/were not familiar to me, like vitriol.

Hey, I guess I could start crying "fallacy! fallacy!" but it really sux, you know.

If you want to use an inefficient communication technique, feel free. I'm just not quite clear why you want to make it harder for us to understand what you're saying; how does using a word you know we won't know and then telling us to look the word up for ourselves help you get your point across? Then again, I've noticed a lot of posters here don't particularly care if anyone understands or follows their posts.

[Kalfear]

im running 2 gigs ram and didnt have any real trouble!
Most of my crashs I tend to think were steam related more then game (I might be wrong on this but what ever)
Speaking of Steam, when I close Steam off I have 3 catagories shown, (current, past 2 weeks, total) not just two but guess im misusing Steam as well (LOL, the stories just get worse and worse at this point. Some people need to know when to just stay quiet already).

For me, the biggest flaws of the TW are:
-Technical issues, which include occasional slowdown during fights, and some crashing.
-Reused character models. Everyone thats played the game knows what I'm talking about.
-Combat is partially flawed ( dodging maneuvers are mostly ineffective). Here, DA wins out entirely, provided you like tactical combat.
-The ending. I'm one of the few who didn't like how the ending was handled. To avoid spoilers, I won't go into it.

1) Agree about technical issues, that was annoying, double so at chapter 5 when fighting elves in front of hospital

2) Yeah, didnt bother me at first but as game went on I did get tired of seeing same model used over and over. LOL, not all inn keepers look the same!!!!

3) I didnt mind combat, it was different then DAO but both equally delivered IMO. DAO was more tactical and great for groups (I loved the tactics screen for group members and the pre orders). Witcher was solo combat but still interesting. LOL, I kinda felt I was a jedi to be honest when playing the Witcher. many of his powers and styles reminded me of what Jedi would fight like.

4) What did you dislike about ending? I loved the ending personally. Twist with time jumping blew me away, your choices coming back to help or hurt you were great as well.

The one thing I disliked about ending was in final conversation with Dandelion I choose rest and relax (thinking of Triss) and Triss never gets mentioned in closure. Other then that, im surprised to hear you say you disliked ending Slim. But I respect your opinion as you played the game hehe

My personal issues with the witcher were:

1) Geralts voice actor in english. You get use to it but at first he really does sound like a constipated Batman.
2) Crashs early on and later on (middle seemed mostly crash free)
3) for most of game you struggleing to afford books and then at a certain point in chapter 4, money stops being a issue but you have nothing to buy
4) Inventory, much prefered DAO or ME1 system to Witcher inventory system
5) Limited weapon and armor selections (customization of character)
6) Terrible singing voice on dandelion (hes got nothing on Lelianna)
7) couldnt get access to inn inventory after chapter 5 untill dand in final act, that was annoying as I wanted to make some potions and such but couldnt get to my collection of herbs and bases

all in all , pretty minor things, nothing to get to stressed over or boycott the game over.
 

Modifié par Kalfear, 14 août 2010 - 07:51 .

[DragonRageGT]

Fandango9641 wrote...

I disagree with this ridiculous notion that one needs to complete a game in order to offer their thoughts on it and think that one or two here have a little too much invested in defending The Witcher against all charges. Give the guy a break, accept that there are people out there who feel The Witcher is not a game without reproach, and agree to disagree.

Amstrad, my story is similar to yours in that I was late to The Witcher party and only experienced the game after playing Biowares recent offerings and hearing about it on the boards. Like you, I think my expectations were a little too high going in, so it took me a while to appreciate the things The Witcher does wonderfully well and not just the things it does horribly (and there are plenty). To confirm The Witcher is a slow burn, but if I were to offer any advice, it would be to persevere with it (if only on casual) in the hope you can get as much out of it as I did.

Offer your thoughts all you want whenever you want but don't call yourself a reviewer and think your blog is going to be a wonderful display of anything but your own personal opinion. But for an opinion builder, that's a pretty shallow approach.

I hope you didn't write your book reviews when asked to as assignements with that same "not ridiculous notion". I mean, assuming you're graduated and did have to write some.

Modifié par RageGT, 14 août 2010 - 08:33 .

[AmstradHero]

RageGT wrote...
Offer your thoughts all you want whenever you want but don't call yourself a reviewer and think your blog is going to be a wonderful display of anything but your own personal opinion.

The problem with your argument is that I never clarimed that I was writing a review. I would not claim to make a full review of the game until I'd played it through in full, and perhaps some more besides. I don't do reviews, and the only thing I've given a "full" review to is a DAO mod. If people want game reviews, they can go to a game review website. The only reason I "review" games is to analyse particular points of game design - which is exactly what I was doing in this case.

[Nerevar-as]

slimgrin wrote...

Kalfear, you calling Geralt's English voice over a constipated Batman made my day. Let that be a warning to all who play TW: enable Polish VO's.

And as to the ending, like I said, on paper it sounds good; in game it didn't work. But it's just my impression. I'm giving the game another run. Maybe I'll appreciate the ending more the second time around. It's quite the elaborate story, after all, and I dragged my first playthrough out over months - perhaps a mistake.

Constipated Batman is not that bad. In Spanish he sounded gay. Voice was way too soft. Got Polish as soon as I could. Only missed Shani´s voice.

[DragonRageGT]

AmstradHero wrote...

The problem with your argument is that I never clarimed that I was writing a review. I would not claim to make a full review of the game until I'd played it through in full, and perhaps some more besides. I don't do reviews, and the only thing I've given a "full" review to is a DAO mod. If people want game reviews, they can go to a game review website. The only reason I "review" games is to analyse particular points of game design - which is exactly what I was doing in this case.

Well, let's see: (without quoting just one sentence or paragraph like ppl did some posts ago with my posts and took that part totally out of the context tp try and refute them):

AmstradHero wrote...

I've seen numerous threads discussing the virtues of The Witcher, but I'd not tried the game until recently. I bought it on special from Steam, and all I can say is that I'm glad that I paid less than $10 for it, because I'd be extremely unhappy otherwise.

I could elaborate on the (numerous) reasons why I'm not fond of the game here in a massive wall-of-text, or I could just direct you to posts with my initial impressions and then a lengthy discourse on some of the game's failings.

The Witcher is not even remotely in the same league as Dragon Age, and Dragon Age 2 would have to be quite hideous in order to descend to the low bar set by the game. Elements I'd like to see from the game are few and far between.

Perhaps the only thing I'd be interested in is delayed consequences, but only if you're not bludgeoned with them like in The Witcher.

Ok, instead of elaborating your reasons, you link two your blogs reviews, shallow as they may be, hosted by blogspot.com. I don't know about you but I have many friends who do have blogs at blogspot.com and all of them are Journalists, writters by profession and on the vast range of subjects they deal with, usually they deal with what they know, by experience, by study, by research, by whatever means they can access to learn about what they are talking about.

A few of them also write about games as they have weeekly columns in some major newspapers here. But I never read anything from them that resembled a "initial impression". Usually we find previews. Articles based on what's announced for a game yet to be released. And then a "lenghty discourse" without playing the game? Or only with a few hours?

And yes, they are "reviews" since they do not match the other description of your blog.

"About This Blog:
I'm AmstradHero, and this is my blog about gaming and my creations. Many posts will cover mods I have done or am currently working on, but there will be much more. Game design discussions, modding tutorials and advice, or general opinions and reviews will all be found here.

I hope you grow it to be a very populated blog but also that you can write your reviews with less levity.

[DragonRageGT]

Nerevar-as wrote...

slimgrin wrote...

Kalfear, you calling Geralt's English voice over a constipated Batman made my day. Let that be a warning to all who play TW: enable Polish VO's.

And as to the ending, like I said, on paper it sounds good; in game it didn't work. But it's just my impression. I'm giving the game another run. Maybe I'll appreciate the ending more the second time around. It's quite the elaborate story, after all, and I dragged my first playthrough out over months - perhaps a mistake.

Constipated Batman is not that bad. In Spanish he sounded gay. Voice was way too soft. Got Polish as soon as I could. Only missed Shani´s voice.

Hmmn.. I don't know. I tried the Polish voice set and I didn't think it was any better than the English one. Actually, it sounded so "studio recorded"  that it took some of the natural feeling I was used to. (the reverb/compression in some dialogues were so loud to my ears that I really found it artificial. Well, I do have a musician ear and hear things differently maybe?)  Perhaps I played too much with the English set, perhaps it's because English is already a foreign language to me but at least I can read, write and speak it, or so I like to think.

Oh, and Dandelion plus Siegfried singing were very "natural" in the English for me. I haven't heard that in Polish, but yeah, bad singing sometimes just reflect what most people can do. And not everybody who can play can also sing.

[AlanC9]

RageGT wrote...
Ok, instead of elaborating your reasons, you link two your blogs reviews, shallow as they may be, hosted by blogspot.com. I don't know about you but I have many friends who do have blogs at blogspot.com and all of them are Journalists, writters by profession and on the vast range of subjects they deal with, usually they deal with what they know, by experience, by study, by research, by whatever means they can access to learn about what they are talking about.

Huh? Last time I checked any idiot can have something at blogspot. Nobody ever said you had to be a journalist to post there. Where'd you get that idea?

And yes, they are "reviews" since they do not match the other description of your blog.

This makes no sense at all. He never said he was writing reviews, either here or on his blog. The fact that you need to call them reviews says something about you, but not him.

[DragonRageGT]

AlanC9 wrote...

RageGT wrote...
Ok, instead of elaborating your reasons, you link two your blogs reviews, shallow as they may be, hosted by blogspot.com. I don't know about you but I have many friends who do have blogs at blogspot.com and all of them are Journalists, writters by profession and on the vast range of subjects they deal with, usually they deal with what they know, by experience, by study, by research, by whatever means they can access to learn about what they are talking about.

Huh? Last time I checked any idiot can have something at blogspot. Nobody ever said you had to be a journalist to post there. Where'd you get that idea?

And yes, they are "reviews" since they do not match the other description of your blog.

This makes no sense at all. He never said he was writing reviews, either here or on his blog. The fact that you need to call them reviews says something about you, but not him.

And the fact that you cannot read one line of what I write and understand it, says something about you. Indeed, any idiot can have something at blogspot. Nobody, including me, ever said that you had to be a journalist to post there. Where the heck did you read me saying that?

[Cyberfrog81]

Someone other than RageGT wrote...

Listening to him talk during the fight with the beast of Vizima is hilarious because its the toughest in the game, In fact, I think that boss fight is basically broken. Personally, I was swearing like a sailor during this fight.

Well, it is broken, but IMHO not because it is too hard. It is broken because Aard + 1 strong style hit (i.e. the actual finishing move) is all you need to defeat The Beast, a BOSS. I'm not joking.

I certainly struggled with that boss for a while, don't get me wrong. The above "tactic" aside, I agree the difficulty is not very balanced. DAO I always found harder in the beginning, then towards the end you can have such a strong party that you hardly have to try. Hopefully both TW2 and DA2 will be balanced well.


EDIT: Misquoted, as well as reading fail. Apologies to RageGT.

Modifié par Cyberfrog81, 15 août 2010 - 12:48 .