Review: The Witcher
Publisher: CD Projekt Developer: Atari Platforms: PCPosted on March 10th, 2008 at 10:21pm by Glamdring
Genre: Fantasy RPG
Specs (Min): 2.4GHz P4 or equivalent. More for Vista. Shader level 2 graphics card with 128MB RAM, ATI 9800 or better. DX 9.0c
Played on: C2D6600, 4GB RAM, 8800GTX at 1920x1200
Ensure Patch 1.2 is downloaded, the game should do this automatically.
The Tale of the Clever Granny
Once upon a time Granny was called by her daughter. Son’s thirteenth birthday was approaching and he’d like a computer game, would Gran like to buy him one?
‘Computer game,’ mused Granny, ‘they can corrupt boys and keep them locked in their bedrooms instead of doing more useful things. And they’re all full of blood and gore and inappropriate content. He’ll grow up to be a serial killer, mark my words.’
‘I’m sure you can find something that won’t be that bad,’ her daughter pleaded.
‘Right, if you insist that’s what he wants,’ replied Granny, ‘I’ll have a look.’
It so happened that this granny was not one of your old, white-haired little old ladies. She was fifty and was an IT person in a medium-size company. So, not being into gaming as such, she bought and read a couple of games magazines and decided that, given the boy’s approaching age he needed to be kidded a bit. Let him think he’s getting what he wants and he’ll be happy and it won’t corrupt him.
Not trusting to the magazine’s reviews she bought ‘The Witcher’ for herself and set about playing it. She found this:
It’s a fantasy game, has magic in it, a non-human hero called Geralt with a hideous but doubtless heroically obtained scar. Elves and dwarves too, and humans with funny accents. No, really: the accents are comical. There’s a bit of swearing but less than in the average school playground. And for the hormone-driven putative teen there are a few hot chick characters running around – and even a little subtly shown ‘action’.
Geralt is a Witcher, a semi-magical, sword-wielding mercenary-cum-hero and maybe, just maybe, the last of his kind.
The game is quest-based. Geralt, pale and daunting, trudges around the countryside on lanes, from hamlet to hamlet, talking with the people he meets. They send him on quests to find things, to kill monsters, to make potions. As he does so he gains skill points in combat, alchemy and intelligence which are periodically awarded. The Inventory is pleasingly large so not only can the character carry a lot of gear he can also store things at the Inn for use later, thus freeing Inventory space.
Some of the quests are set during the night. The hero can ‘meditate’ to quicken the passage of time so he can flick from morning to midnight in moments.
Fulfilling quests opens others. Sometimes it’s necessary to load an old save point and begin from that point again; things which seemed trivial prove not to be.
