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The Witcher 2 : Assassins of Kings


DANGERMAN
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I barely remember the tutorial, but I don't think it really reflects the rest of the game. You'll have a good idea of what the game is like when you get to explore the first village and surrounding area.

I take it you aren't coming from the first Witcher game? Not to sound like a broken record but the first game is better, warts and all.

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  • 6 months later...

Hey, good news Witcher fan boys, I'm on board! This does get a lot better.

It looks pretty poopy on the 360 and it jerks around like a goodun but the game itself is pretty good. Ive just finished Chapter 1 and immediately got to spend a bit of time with a magic owl, happy days.

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  • 4 years later...

Inspired by the TV show (and driven by my loss of saves on Bards Tale IV) - thought I'd give this a run through again on my 360.

 

I don't recall enjoying it that much first time around TBH (think it's much more linear than other RPGs, with a lack of free roaming), but perhaps I'll be more engaged with the story this time.

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I think the linearity is one of its good points. All thee Witcher games are RPGs but all three of them also force you into a pre-made character. For me that always works better in a focused and (relatively) short story-driven game. Witcher 3 might do a lot of things better but the fact that you're basically playing an Elder Scrolls game that locks you into playing a warrior for every playthrough makes it less engaging on a gameplay level IMO. 

 

Speaking of, I wish the first one got a slight overhaul and re-release. There are some cool ideas in it and it's probably the closest to the TV show in terms of style but it's so clunky to play.

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Well, I only played for about 30 mins before work - the presentation is fab, opening cut scenes, and then I went into the tutorial - which ultimately confirmed that I was pretty awful doing the arena combat and it suggested I start on 'easy' - in my defence it been a while since I've used a 360 controller (use to a dual shock) and it did feel a bit 'unnatural'.

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On 15/01/2020 at 08:17, DANGERMAN said:

I was thinking the other day that the first two games are rare examples of games that could actually do with a remaster 

 

I'd tend to agree about the first game (albeit I only played it for a few hours on a rather flakey OnLive connection, but from what I recall it was more of an overhead/isometric presentation, akin to Diablo, than W2 or W3 were - hence maybe more a remake than remaster required).

 

W2 still looks pretty great on the 360, the only snags I'm finding are the constant loading segments/cut scenes (perhaps these lessen after the opening hour or so?), and rather twitchy movement (maybe just my pad, but the walk to run margin is quite fine, especially when trying to pick up objects).

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2 hours ago, shinymcshine said:

but from what I recall it was more of an overhead/isometric presentation, akin to Diablo, than W2 or W3 were - hence maybe more a remake than remaster required).

 

That was just a toggle. You could play it from an isometric perspective but you could also switch to an over-the-shoulder view like in W2 and W3.

 

I preferred the latter to be honest. The game was relatively pretty back when it came out and having access to a further and wider panorama made it more immersive.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Noting that I first played this 6 yrs ago, and for perhaps for 50+hrs or so, and this time around I'm 10 hrs in (using my same 360 profile so any achievements have carried forward, but I still get the occasional new one, noting that I don't chase achievements, so any I get are a 'surprise').

 

So today I got the most ironic achievement ever......

 

PERFECTIONIST

 

For killing 10 enemies without taking any damage.

 

Yep, it's taken me 60+ hrs of playing and hundreds of enemies killed to get it, so I'd hardly say that's reflective of my ineptitude in combat!

 

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Finished it - distinctly different from my first time, as then I'd gone with Roche and did lots of battlefield stuff, this time I went with Iorweth and Saskia.

 

Overall it tells a decent story, but the gameplay is frustrating as it throws in loads of cut scenes and dialogue parts which break up the flow (albeit repetitive combat, mashing attacks and signs isn't that much fun either). In some ways it feels an awful lot like Dragon Age 2 (which I enjoyed much more than those review scores suggested).

 

I know there's people who really love the Witcher games, but for me they're just a good solid 7/10.

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  • 3 years later...

I got to Vizima in W3 and decided to put a pin in it and try this one instead, actually. It's clearly quite dated now visually, with so much bloom and ambient occlusion that it feels like the player has glaucoma. I took it off the OLED and put it on the LED monitor and turned the gamma up, cause it's the kind of image that works better when it's on a washed out screen. More modern 'contrasty' screens don't really represent it very well. On the other hand, the asset work is seriously impressive and when the whole thing isn't being bloomed to oblivion it could pass for an early PS4 title.

 

Anyway it seems pretty cool but I wouldn't call any of it better than Witcher 3 so far, I would say tho it captures the RPG gameplay of being a witcher better than that game though. It's pretty interesting and is hyper focused on the preparation aspects of being a Witcher, given that I'm 10 hours into this now and I'm still preparing to fight this big squid thing. It's got some vibes that reminds me a bit of Gothic II, particularly in the design of this dank hamlet you spend time in which feels like a less hospitable Khorinis from that game. It's a bit more hand hold-ey than Gothic tho and the main story pushes you to the next waypoint, but it doesn't tell you how to kill the monsters you are supposed to be hunting. It leaves that up to you (to an extent) and just tells you to buy books to find out how to lure them out. Then it's on you to get the diagrams for traps, disable the enemies and hit them in their soft underbelly or whatever their weaknesses are, which you discover while fighting them. It's not that deep but it's a cool immersive way of making you feel you are actually hunting these things. It's like a much less tutorialised version of how you prepare to take care of White Orchard's griffon problem.

 

Controls like shite though. Tried controller first but you can really feel the WASD key bindings under the analog stick, so cut out the middleman and just went M&K instead cause not having a mouse seems like a liability. I'm playing on 'Dark' mode, cause I just really like the high difficulty settings on RPGs. There's one above it called 'Insane' which is aptly named as it is dark mode but with permadeath. In a game like this where Geralt can run down a corridor and get one shot by some fucker, no thanks

 

I would also probably say it reminds me a bit of Fable, except where the characters say fuck and cunt a lot more often

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I absolutely loved Witcher 2 at the time, it was so good. Its probably hard to appreciate given how much of a step up Witcher 3 was if you didn't play this first 

 

My memory is of playing it m&kb, so I think you're right about the controls 

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I'm on chapter 2, the game branches at this point apparently. You get to decide to side with a racist or a terrorist, tough choice. 

 

It's quite tough to keep a grasp on all the intrigue. What I find is it's hard to pick up on the world building a bit, but well that's what you get for playing the middle game instead of the first one I suppose. It's got a glossary of all the different kingdoms and all the different kingly advisors and court mages and such but what I learned as well is the video games are sequels to the books, and probably these guys are returning characters. Which is maybe a good incentive to check those out. One rando died in the battlefield before I even knew who he was and I picked up his sword, and then he gets his own big whole backstory just thrown into my journal. Welp.

 

I put a ton of points into alchemy and pretty much a lot of the difficult fights are currently handled by lobbing grapeshots at the problem, and occasionally a bit of Aard (force push). Pretty deep stuff. I got a perk which gives me a mutagen 2 percent of the time while making a potion, but that doesn't seem very good to me. The mutagen installing stuff in particular is strange and I dunno if I missed a beat as to how the game handles this aspect. It's not a big deal tho, I'm not trying to min max

 

Got to be honest, the game is cool but it's not blowing me away as such. I suppose Dangerman is right in that you've got to kind of forget about things like Game of Thrones and Witcher III while playing it, and how much this kind of dark fantasy world with different factions and history would have been much more impressive at the time. Compared to how much more standard that kind of thing feels now. And yet, I've played older RPGs that do dark fantasy better than this does even with a modern PoV, I feel like. Even just on a general game design level, I don't think it's that novel really. I'm engaged and will stick with it in any case.

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One of the great things about W2, which isn't obvious when you do a single run through, is how much variety your choices can have - I think I mentioned previously that I've played it twice and had significantly different experiences both times.

 

There's 16 different endings too apparently (W3 has 36 - albeit some are just individual character live/die events.)

 

https://www.ign.com/wikis/witcher-2/Endings

 

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Yeah, I've heard it changes around a lot. Though mostly in terms of the impact to chapter 2. I've my doubts that those 16 endings are in themselves all that different and interesting from one another

 

I forgot to mention that Geralt now has a nudie lady tattoo on his neck cause he got pissed and wanted to sail across the ocean on a raft made out of women's arses, and apparently you can bring that tattoo forward into W3. That's really funny lol

 

Spoiler

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