Having just finished a shooter, I figured I should get back to another RPG next, and one I’ve been looking forward to is The Witcher.
It’s based on the NWN2 engine, but it doesn’t really feel like it in actual play. That’s probably partly due to not being based on D&D, and partly from the more active camera control and combat. Instead of just clicking on the target and letting the melee play itself out, you can time your clicks to coincide with when the cursor changes, which lets you chain attacks together, doing increasing amounts of damage and interrupting the enemy’s attacks more. There are also three different combat stances you can switch between, each of which is appropriate for different types of enemies (large and lumbering, small and quick, and groups of weaker ones).
The title character isn’t really related to witches; in this universe (based on a series of Polish fantasy books), the main character, Geralt, is a person who joined a group that calls themselves witchers, who undergo a risky set of trials and mutation process to gain superhuman abilities, and train to fight monsters that threaten the land. The witchers are currently in decline though, having been vilified and attacked by other groups afraid of their powers and appearance.
The game opens with their stronghold being attacked by bandits and some other mysterious strangers, and it serves as a tutorial as you go through various tasks to defend it. In the end I wound up fighting them off, though they managed to steal some of the witchers’ secrets anyway, and saved a sorceress named Triss by mixing up a healing potion for her. Triss was rather…appreciative of that, leading to the collection of the first sex card.
Yes, the one thing The Witcher is most infamous for is the sexual content, of course. The aforementioned literary universe The Witcher is based on is a rather brutal and lusty one, and some of that is captured in the game. Apparently, women will be throwing themselves at Geralt along the way (if you say the right things), and you get a little picture card to remember them by. The card content has been censored for the North American release, but if you’re curious you can always check out the original cards here. There’s also apparently some toning down of the dialogue and monster graphics in some places, but I don’t know the details there.
Anyways, getting back to the game itself, it’s only been mostly swordfighting so far, but I’m just barely out of the tutorial so I certainly still have more to discover. There’s only a few ‘spells’ you can learn, and I only have one of them so far, but there’s supposed to be a heavy emphasis on the alchemy system, and a reliance far more on potions than magic. Looking at the talent trees, it looks like there’s also a fighting technique that performs better the drunker you are…
It’s already crashed on me a couple times so far, though. I wonder if it’s related to Xfire again, since I was having problems with it interfering with WoW. I’ve disabled the in-game panel support anyway, so we’ll see if that helps.