The Witcher

Publisher: Atari

Something I’ve been lamenting lately has been a general lack of new CRPGs on the PC. Now, before you say anything, I know full well that there are plenty of decent RPGs or Hybrids to be played on multiple platforms. Mass Effect on the Xbox 360 or BioShock on 360 and PC, for example. Now, to me, that’s all well and good but there comes a time when a geek like me needs something new, but also old, in the same experience. A time for classic role-playing games.

Which is why I’ve been following The Witcher quite closely for the past few months. Well, actually I’ve been following it pretty much since I finished Oblivion and have been hoping that it would be the game to tide me over and satisfy my PC RPG needs until Fallout 3 comes out next year.

In premiseThe Witcher has a lot going for it. Set in a medieval fantasy world, it’s an open-ended epic story about a single man and how he approaches the business of…um, witchering. Witchers are actually just the usual monster killers and hero-types, so why they’re called Witchers and not just monster hunters I don’t know.


That’s just in premise though and, while we could judge a game just on the premise and initial appeal, we like to take things a little bit more seriously than that if we can. Which is why I forced myself to endure 45 minute install times, 20 minutes of patch downloading on a semi-broken Internet connection and some of the most infuriating packaging I’ve come across in a long while.

I don’t do that for everyone mind – only for you, loyal readers will I put up with such annoyances. Only for you do I go through these great woes. So let’s make it more than a wasted effort and get on with the rest of the review then, shall we?

The Be-Witcher

The game doesn’t open too fluidly and even after the mammoth install time I still had to watch a lengthy cutscene which seemed to have no immediate relevance to anything at all. In fact, not only did the cutscene have no relevance at all – it tells the story of one of the main character's most famous jobs – but no sooner has it finished than we are introduced to the main character, who is now suffering from amnesia.

Sigh.


Turns out that said character, a Witcher by the name of Geralt, has been presumed dead for a fair while when he is found in the woods by some fellow Witchers who take him back to the groups stronghold. Here we are introduced to the various different mechanics of the game in an extended tutorial sequence which lets players get to grips with the game at the same time as learning a little about the in-game lore.

The Witchers, once a powerful and feared group of heroes for hire, are now reduced to a small number of very old and very young men and a single sorceress who all eek out a meagre existence in a ruined castle after the Witchers were hunted down and almost wiped out. Why? Because the Witchers are a little less than human, using an advanced understanding of science and alchemy to create various mutagens and the like.

Geralt doesn’t get chance to catch up on all the gossip though because before he even has chance to start seducing the resident sorceress (that comes later) the castle is attacked and the Witchers are once again on the defensive.

Cast a spell on you

As soon as players get control of Geralt they are plunged into the action, which immediately sets the tone for the rest of the game. While there are opportunities in some quests to solve things through dialogue, the vast majority of the game is focused on the combat. That’s to be expected though, Geralt is a monster hunter after all, not a monster annoyer.

The game can be controlled from two different viewpoints and in two different ways, both of which you can (and should) switch between at any point. The first method of control is the isometric and mouse method, which puts the camera up high and gives you the most fluid control via the mouse. Click to go here, click to use that – run of the mill RPG control.

The second method is the over-the-shoulder camera, which does exactly what it says on the tin. This method lends itself more to keyboard players and you’ll be moving around mainly with WASD. In both viewpoints you can use either method, so if you want to use the mouse in the OST viewpoint then you can and vice versa.

Just as we said in the introduction though, though the twin control methods are good in premise, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they work in practice. That’s pretty much the case here, with neither method feeling that it works all that well and it being plainly obvious that the game wasn’t designed to be played exclusively through either method. The result is that you have to switch between the two constantly, using isometric views for large battles and outside areas and the OST view for tête-à-têtes battles and indoor areas.


Now, as I said before, The Witcher is a very combat-orientated RPG and the way the combat is handled in the game is actually quite interesting though a little difficult to explain.

Geralt is a skilled fighter and can use a selection of different styles of attack, which must carefully be matched to the enemy. Strong enemies will ignore light attacks and fast enemies will avoid slower, more powerful ones, so learning how to use the three styles is pivotal.

What makes the combat most interesting though is how not-boring it is which, I agree, is an odd thing to say. To attack someone in The Witcher all you have to do is click on them. One click is equal to one attack. You can’t just click away though because timing your clicks wrong will end your current attack and start another – repetitive clicking won’t attack at all. To stop combat being dull, Geralt can perform combos by attacking just as the first attack finishes and the cursor bursts into flames – a window of a second or two.

Now, that sounds boring because it means you’d just end up seeing the same moves over and over, timing your clicks just right every time. To combat this though (sorry) you can use your XP to buy new attacks. These new attacks can either be new moves, such as making your first attack a more powerful slash, or can be extra attacks in the chain, allowing you to combo for longer. This, combined with the focus on combat and the pace of the game, means that the attacks you use will often change.


Geralt can use spells too, but to be honest there isn’t anything new in the spells and the selection isn’t that impressive compared to other RPGs.

One of the other most-discussed features in The Witcher is the sex, which features prominently throughout the game and harks back to games like The Bards Tale. Ah, the memories. The way it works is this; various women throughout the game have certain, um…well, let’s call them ‘win scenarios’. For some women, such as Triss the Witcher sorceress, it can be as simple as being nice to her for a bit, while others may require you to complete a quest or to pay them in advance. There are whores aplenty in this game.

Either way, once you’ve ‘won’ then you’ll be treated to short cutscene. The cutscene itself is usually pretty tame – a shot of some bare feet and the clothes on the floor – and won’t get you hot unless you really like that kind of thing. Afterwards you’re given a tarot card with a picture of the encounter on it – which tends to be a bit saucier but still never gets really full-on.

Basically; boobs but no bush is what I’m getting at here, which is worth bearing in mind if this is on your kids' Christmas list. Anyway, there’s more steamy polygon-on-polygon action on the next page, so let’s move on.

Hot Polygon Action

The graphics in The Witcher are, if I’m going to be really blunt, a little bit schizophrenic in my opinion. In the screenshots, which are naturally all taken on highest detail, they look pretty good but in-game it’s a slightly different matter.

The main problem is clipping and moving around. Using an isometric view and using WASD to move around is a little bit odd because Geralt will often start moving before his running animation starts. If he’s carrying multiple weapons then you’ll spot them clipping through each other regularly and, let me tell you, it ruins the immersion an awful lot when you see an axe continuously bounce straight through the blade of your sword.

We also had a few problems with framerate, despite running Vista with 2GB RAM and a GeForce 8800 Ultra which was freshly swapped into the system in preparation for Crysis. The framerate problems were odd in that they only happened occasionally. We’d be running along fluid as the wind, then the framerate would drop to a slideshow. I’d stop, restart and return to the same spot to find the problem vanished.

Crashes also plagued the adventure and the game would often freeze or return to desktop inexplicably, both running natively and with the latest 1.1 patch. Either way, we’ve broken down the graphics for you below so that you can gauge how the game may look on your system. The Witcher uses the Aurora Engine from BioWare.

Texture Detail

There are three settings for the texture detail slider – high, medium and low. We’ve got screenshots of them all, so check them out below and read our thoughts.


We chose this screenshot because the armour of the guard in the picture perfectly illustrates the effects of this setting. See how his leather jerkin gets more blurry the lower the setting goes? We’d really suggest putting this setting as high as possible because the quality of the textures is one of the things which will be most noticeable.

However, there are some other settings which you may want to give preference too…

View Distance

View distance has three settings to choose from – far, medium and near. Far is better and will let you see more of the details on the horizon, but we’ve got shots of all three.


The view distance is one of the most important settings in the game, especially if you play with the OST camera most of the time. With the view distance set to high you’ll be able to see the clouds and distant details, but if you drop the setting even to medium then you’ll have to cope with a grey fog of war which makes it feel like you’re exploring a word covered in nanite goo.

In other words, view distance is the setting you should probably insist on having set to full, even if you have to compromise texture quality as a result. Anyway, moving on let's look at the other settings.

Hot Polygon Action II: Vertex Vixens

We’re not done yet! There are some other graphical settings to bear in mind which, in our experience, make a dramatic difference to how the game looks and feels.

One thing I noticed which is worth pointing out though is the different graphical styles used in the game at various points. The start of the game has a rather stunning opening sequence which is shown with CG graphics that are suitably enthralling and beautiful, betraying a vaguely water coloured quality.

Soon enough though we’re shoved into some in-game cutscenes which use the game's engine to render. If you’ve set the settings then these cutscenes can use effects like depth of field (the only place we could definitely spot DOF in use though), but bizarrely these cutscenes will refuse to use anti-aliasing and can look a little jagged as a result.

After this cutscene is done you’ll be dropped into the game proper, the appearance of which will be decided by the graphical settings you’ve decided on and will use AA if you tell the game to do so. Speaking of which…

Anti-aliasing

Anti-aliasing is the process by which edges of objects are smoothed out to appear less jagged and sharp. Normally in a game we want sharp, crisp edges, but not where aliasing is concerned. AA comes in three flavours; none, 2x and 4x and the larger the multiplier the better the effect.


The AA setting may not look like it makes a big difference in these pictures, but in game where the edges are constantly moving it’s a different story. The game can get by with low or no AA and still look pretty good, especially if you’ve got the other settings pushed high. However, as always we suggest putting it as high as you can whilst still keeping a decent framerate.

Grass Detail

An awful lot of The Witcher is spent running from one peasant village to another, hacking away at monsters and seducing (wooing, even) damsels. As such, you can expect to see an awful lot of grass. There are four settings to choose from – high, medium, low and off. We’ve only shown high, medium and off here because we reckon that if you’re going to have to go to the low setting then you may as well turn grass off and push up something more important.


With the grass set to high the world looks suitably populated by flora (not the butter, though that would be awesome) and the farmers fields are filled with crops which makes me homesick.

Flick it down to medium and the game still looks good, but the ground is a little less welcoming. For the record, this is more true on the low setting and you’ll start suspecting that the farmers are having a bad year. With the setting turned to off all the grass sprites and crops disappear and you’ll have to cope with flat textures and untiled ground.

Now, the grass setting isn’t all that important and you could definitely scale it down if you wanted. We definitely think the view distance is the most important setting, but as always it’s mostly a matter of personal preference. Much like the conclusion, which we come to next…

Under your spell

So, let’s recap. So far I’ve told you The Witcher is a graphically inconsistent game with a few annoying bugs, but an interesting combat model and the possibility of nipples. Is there anything more to be told?

Actually, yes.

One of the most important things about the game is the pacing, which is both slow and fast in just the right areas. Combat? Fast pacing, with plenty to do and lots to keep you occupied as you hack and slash. Story? Slow pacing, especially in terms of quest resolution.

What I mean by that is that you’ll rarely find out the consequences of your action straight away and it can be hours later before the results become apparent. For example, you may be in one quest (and this is hypothetical so that we can remain spoiler free) where you are given a choice. A murderer is on trial, but you know his ‘murder’ was a sympathetic one.

The choice is simple, come forward and help him or let him die and leave his family without a head. There’s no obvious right or wrong, no matter what Hollywood would have us believe and, just like in real life you may never fully see the consequences.


For example, if you let the man die then his family would be left destitute and his son, bitter with rage, may track you down much later in the game and attack you. This is exactly the type of timing you can expect to see in the game and the type of reaction too. With no clear right or wrong, you may do the thing you think is best only to have it bite you in the bum about four hours later. You may try to be evil, only to be seen as a hero by the time the game is over for you.

Obviously this gives the game a massive amount of re-playability, with players having to fully explore their motives as they make these choices. It’s a difficult thing to fully convey in a review as the consequences necessarily feel immediately connected to the described actions, but in-game events unfold both beautifully and slowly. The delay really is an elegant and important piece of the game design in The Witcher.

Conclusions

Has The Witcher successfully cast a charm spell on our hearts then or did it mess up with one of the ingredients and accidentally turn our souls to stone? It’s time to decide.

Drawing my conclusion on The Witcher has been difficult and was actually rather painful for me to come to and not because of my ongoing problem with RSI either. You see, I want to give The Witcher a high score so very badly and I’d love any excuse to tell you all to go out and buy it, but there are just too many problems in the way.


This is a bit of a personal conflict, because I’m a massive RPG fan and The Witcher is exactly the type of game I love. There’s an adult theme, a complicated but scalable set of mechanics to master and an epic and inventively delivered narrative – just what gamers like I lust for. There are problems too though. Poor lip syncing, graphics which border on schizophrenic and frequent crashes and viewpoint problems – these are noticeable enough to dissuade the majority from playing the game.

The Witcher isn’t a bad game though, just an unpolished one which could have done with a little bit more thought and design work. The bugs and crashes will hopefully be eliminated in the future, but for the moment they are a semi-serious problem for the game.

Basically it all comes down to the gamer. If you’re a hardcore RPG gamer like myself then you’ll be able to tolerate or cope with the problems and have yourself a merry old time. If you’re just a RPG fledgling though or aren’t sure the basic delayed-consequence system interests you though then you may do better to avoid The Witcher for a bit. It all depends on whether or not you’re really willing to sit down for a 40-hour game only to play it all over again to get different consequences – discuss the matter in the forums.