The Witcher 3

[Dog Pants]

I'm not a massive fan of the Witcher games. I like the Eastern European take on low fantasy, but the actual game mechanics leave me cold. However, the new one sounds like it could be interesting. I doubt it'll be what I want it to be, but to my mind it sounds like the game centres around big set piece fights after a lot of research and prep. Which would be awesome, much better than grinding rats. Do your homework properly and you'll be okay, go in unprepared and you'll get splatted. Probably won't be that though, I expect it'll be like the previous games.

Anyone know anything about it to confirm or deny? All I ever see is cinematic trailers.

[Joose]

I've not paid a lot of attention to it myself, as like you the previous Witcher games did nothing for me. I've heard a lot of people on podcasts I listen to talking about it though, and from what they have all said it seems to be much as you describe: Go off, research and prepare so you can take down a great big beastie. I've heard some comparisons to the Monster Hunter series, but seeing as I know bugger all about those games I cant really say.

[Grimmie]

I've been keeping an eye on it, and it looks pretty good. Open-worldy RPG slay-em-up with a gritty story. I'll probably buy it once it goes on sale.

[Dog Pants]

Well it goes on sale soon, so I'll look forward to your reports. It just feels too good to be true if it's as I/Joose describes. I feel like it's going to pull some trick like you prepare for the monster fight by killing lots of smaller monsters, and just be another endless combat grind. Fingers crossed it'll be good.

[buzzmong]

I think I must have played different Witcher games, I didn't find much grinding for levels at all in the previous two, and quite enjoyed them overall. That said, I certainly haven't completed either. Got to the last chapter on 1, but the craptastic PC I was using dropped to an unplayable crawl. Got quite far in the second at least twice, but keep getting distracted part way through by other games and not going back.

I'll probably be buying this when it comes out, but probably won't play until a patch or two hits.

[Grimmie]

Ah, when I say goes on sale, I mean at a discount. I've got a big backlog of games to play. If it was multiplayer I'd probably pick it up immediately, but there's no rush to go and grab it at the full £40~

[Dog Pants]

When I say grind I don't mean in the MMO sense, I mean having to endure dull and pointless combat which seems to have been put into the game simply because games have to have combat. The other Witchers may or may not have had that - I wouldn't know, the combat was so tedious that I gave up after an hour and a half. Mass Effect 3 went the same way. I'd love to see how the series I ploughed hundreds of hours into pans out, but I got to a point where I just couldn't stomach another firefight over a waist high wall.

[Mr. Johnson]

I really like the witcher I, but the fantastic story didn't make up for the strange combat system and samey visuals. I did finish it because I wanted to see how it ended (and because I wanted to collect the sexist cards) and since the game was made by a beginning, small team of developers I forgave them because at the core there was a good game. It also spawned the now legendary

YOUR MOTHER SUCKS DWARF COCK.

so there is that.

CD projekt was listening though, so they addressed these concerns by means of an enormous free patch that was basically the witcher 1.5 and included among other things a complete graphic overhaul. I was also quite happy that they made I&II a real PC game that was meant to be played on a PC, no crappy console ports here.

The sequel made good on it's promise of improving gameplay and visuals by going for a completely new fighting system and visuals inspired by real medieval architecture, places and clothing. This made for a very appealing and refreshing game that stood out amongst the many kinda-medieval-looking-but-not-quite fantasy games of the past few decades. Anyone whose ever been to Prague of Bruges can confirm that it really looks The Witcher II. They also made a good effort of avoiding the sameface characters of the first game since now I could actually tell people apart by their clothing, hairstyles and faces. I quite liked how they did the narrative in this too: there's three big acts but depending on who you ally with at the end of the first act the second act is completely different, from what I remember there's an entire part of the map that you can't access and you get different quests. It felt like my choice actually affected the story and not just a stupid epilogue where they explain that the seemingly innocent slave I helped in a sidequest turns out to be a baby rapist or something. And even though they more or less nailed it this time around (granted, the combat system is still a bit weird) CD projekt still gave us a massive overhaul patch because, well... I don't really know why. Maybe it was expected of them?

However, despite really liking the first two games I'm going to hold off from buying this one because it's released at a bad time. My PC could barely handle The Witcher II when it was new so this game will probably destroy it and piss on the ashes. That, and I'm currently getting my fantasy fill with the rather good Dragon Age: Inquisition so I don't want to go on another magic&sword rampage just yet. Also, this is the first game in the series that is getting a multi-platform release which worries me a little bit, though not enough to deter me from buying it.