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| From: Atari
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $14.90
You Save: $25.09 (63%)
New (36) Used (17) from $7.55
Rating:  89 reviews
Sales Rank: 2514
Platforms: Windows Xp, Windows Vista
Genre: role_playing_games
ESRB: Mature
Media: DVD-ROM
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: 27556
UPC: 742725275560
EAN: 0742725275560
ASIN: B000R2XJJK
Release Date: October 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 89
 The Dreadful Aurora Engine November 5, 2007
A. Lee (Houston, TX USA)
17 out of 25 found this review helpful
***Revised since the initial review with the patch 1.2***
I reserved this game after the promising previews released by many medium. Once the installation is completed, I was in for a shock.
The game is quite linear, and many times you are confined to one small section of the worldmap until you complete enough essential quests to advance to the next level. The game is divided into several chapters. Within limit, you can do side quests any order you choose to or completely ignore them. To emphasize the strong narrative drive and more character-driven game, certain sacrifice of freedom is understandable. Not all RPGs should be TES (The Elder Scrolls) series. What cause the serious flaw of the game is the engine that was used to create the game.
The immersion is constantly broken and hindered by horrific engine called 'Aurora Engine'. What could have been an impressive game is seriously marred by the dreadful 'Aurora Engine' by Bioware. Although the Polish game developers 'CD Projekt' modified 'Aurora Engine', they inherited all the shortcoming of the engine such as long loading time, framerate issue, bad camera angle, etc.
The biggest problem caused by this God-awful engine is the loading time. You thought the loading time in 'NWN 2' was bad. The excessive loading times last from 30 seconds to upward of 2 minutes. It's bad enought that you do need to see the loading screen between indoor and outdoor environment, but God. I've never experienced such a long loading time since 'Gothic 3'. It breaks the immersion since you spend more time staring at your loading screen than traversing a tiny section of the game map at a time. Games like 'Oblivion' and 'Two Worlds' put the entire 'absolutely gigantic in-game map' on a single loading within 10 seconds, why does 'The Withcher' requires longer than 2 minutes to load small section of in-game map? Although 'Gothic 3' has arguably the worst loading time in the history of CRPG, once loading is done you don't have loading areas ever until you are dead. As often as you need to move back and forth into diffrent loading areas in 'The Witcher', this is quite a back-breaker.
***Revision Begins***
With the patch 1.2, the loading time is significantly reduced, however, the initial loading takes still longer than 1 min close to 2 sometimes. Loading into smaller area takes about 10 seconds, but coming out still takes 20 to 30 seconds. The loading time is now definitely bearable, but still too long with all that required frequent loadings.
***Revision Ends***
Almost equally problemetic is the camera angle. None of the three-available camera is good enough. Furthermore, it is really difficult to adjust the camera position within the already-confined range of the camera. At least in 'NWN2', the gamer had the ability to adjust the angle of the camera.
Then comes the awful 'floating in the air' feel issue just as in 'NWN2'. This issue will take tolls even on the most powerful computer rigs currently available, and lowering your video options will hardly improve the matter. This is non-specs specific symptom caused by lack of optimization rather than serious stuttering framerate drop caused by lack of computer horsepower. Once loading is completed, the framerate itself is very steady and the game runs very smooth without hiccup or tearing.
Besides all the inherited evils from 'Aurora Engine', the combat mechanics is broken. I give credit to the developers for trying to innovate RPG combat mechanics by combining turn-base / menu-driven combat and hack-and-slash click-fest combat. Although it works in theory, the gamer will be too preoccuppied to connect the combo attack, they miss out on combat animation altogether. The problem here is without constantly connecting chains of combo attack, you will not be able to carry out any attack, so you have to pay attention to on-screen signals to time your mouse-clicking. At least in clickfest combat, you can fix your eyes on the animation and enjoy.
It's a shame, because this game has some impressive plotline and depth of characters and conversation that hasn't been seen since 'Planescape: Torment'. Past the aforementioned flaws, there are plenty of good gaming to be had, but what flaws the gamers are asked to overcome.
Maybe some prefers isometric, bird's eye view camera angle deep into the 21st century. Many people claims to be a hard-core RPG gamers, and are proud to enjoy the limited camera angle, uninvolving combat, and clumsy menu interfaces. They wear them as if it were the badge of honor. I still have the original copies of every single 'Ultima', 'Baldur's Gate', 'Fallout', 'Diablo' series along with 'Planescape: Torment'. I enjoyed them in the past, and I'll cherish the awesome memories of them in the back of my mind, but I've moved on. In the 20th century, they were more than acceptible because of the limitation of the technology. I am forever ruined by non-linear, open-ended, free-form RPG such as TES, Two Worlds, and Gothic series. Heck, even some 2D isometric CRPGs like 'Divine Divinity' and 'Sacred Gold' offer huge non-linear, open-ended, free-form game world that require no loading. As much as I enjoy many games made by 'Bioware' engines, I really hate the fact that their games always give me this confined, limited feel due to the modular nature of the game world. If I have to give up nonlinear gameplay, then I'll have the grandeur of Final Fantasy series anytime of the day. If I have to give up more up close and personal combat over 'point and click with mouse', then I might as well just give up RPG altogether and enjoy the ever-terrific 'Total War' series.
For those who can overcome the flaws of the game, character design is delicate and well-drawn, the environment is beautiful, dialogues are well-written, combat animation is exciting and various, and most of all, the story is distinctively different from the typical RPG elements. Choices are plentiful during the conversations. Many will affect the outcome in the future. The game is a spiritual succesor of the RPG classic 'Planescape: Torment'. If you ever played the game, you have some idea of what to expect. The overall production value is exceptionally outstanding, and the game is nicely polished. It is truly a shame because this game could have been one of the best RPG game without in-game technical flaws, and these are flaws patches cannot fix.
Exciting story that is painfully programmed January 2, 2008
R. Cole
16 out of 22 found this review helpful
The Witcher is an exciting RPG with an extremely interesting storyline. I mention this bit first because it is the game's biggest selling point... and because everything else in The Witcher is painfully flawed (even with the 1.2 patch installed). Let me put that out there again: EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE WITCHER IS PAINFULLY FLAWED. That's why this game is getting a 3 rating from me instead of a 5, and I'd go so far to say that, if I hadn't installed the patch, I'd have given the game a 1.5 at best.
The most frustrating thing I've found about The Witcher is that it is buggy. Prior to the patch, save games would often be destroyed for no apparent reason, so players would have to be extremely diligent in storing their data often and in multiple slots. Even after the patch, corruptions still occur - they just happen less frequently. As well, the game tends to crash during large fights (especially those preceded by cutscenes) - something that is EXTREMELY frustrating (and may have to do with the autosave feature).
But bugs are not the only failure in this game. The Witcher suffers from unoptimized code that runs poorly even on cutting-edge machines. The forced saving slows everything down, and load-times can be painfully slow. The graphics are decent, but not top-notch - they certainly aren't next-gen enough to be hogging the amount of resources that they do.
What is coded tends to be poorly thought-out and executed. Combat is sluggish and, even though there are two modes, both feel clumsy (especially when trying the "over the shoulder" mode). Inventory management is painful, and the tavern vaults quickly become storage nightmares because players can not control how the locker is organized. Stereotypical RPG barrels abound, filled with unrealistic amounts of treasure and other items you'd think people would miss if you just took them - too bad they don't! ::sigh::
The only saving grace of this game is the interesting story that develops around The Witcher as he adventures. Your character, a sort of supernatural Van Helsing that has seemingly returned from the dead, travels the world making one-liners and battling monsters while his memory slowly returns (yes, the influence of Planescape: Torment is obvious). Where has this dark hero been, and what impact will his previous and current actions have on the world? While most of the story is fixed, some choices DO have consequences, and alter the plotline to a degree. This adds a lot of enjoyment to the game, drawing the player in and making him/her care about what is going on.
Conclusion: When it works, The Witcher is an extremely enjoyable RPG. Bugs, unoptimized code, and poor design choices diminish a lot of the games enjoyment, however. 3 Stars.
 It was a dark and boring night... November 9, 2007
M. Benigni (United States)
15 out of 27 found this review helpful
I start this review with a confession: I haven't finished the game yet. In fact, I've only played through most of the quests outside Vizima; I'm not yet into the city proper. Alledgedly the game "picks up", but I'm seriously running out of patience after investing many hours, bored out of my skull. Here are a list of observations:
The graphics engine is really lovely (excepting a lot of random aliasing at night, which I try to tell myself are fireflies) and so are the sounds. The voice acting is above average, but the conversations are often structured poorly and are therefore not believable. People offer the same dialog choices over and over even though previous conversations should have made them obsolete, resulting in conversations that make no sense. (Especially annoying, the conversation trees frequently dump you out when you intend to continue speaking, so you have to click on a character again, to hear his/her oddly identical opening phrases once more.)
This game ships with a hefty manual, but it is amazing how little information is actually provided. Like most recent game manuals, it's just installation instructions, a pile of spoilers for those interested, and not much else. This comes to your attention as you level up and find yourself navigating the most senseless skill tree of all time. Pre-requisites are unclear, skill distinctions are unclear, so what the heck, why not just select them all at random? That will be really fun.
So character customization is out the window. 8 hours into the game, inventory has proven mostly useless, so trading is equally uninteresting. Gameplay is reduced to repetetive combat, and walking from place to place waiting for the odd conversations to spawn new quests and/ or cutscenes. Oh, had I forgotten to mention the walking? The outdoor environments are relatively large, and walking from point A to B happens essentially in realtime which, again, is insanely boring. Never have I seen a game so desperately in need of a fast travel solution. (Top it all off with long fences, your inability to jump over a fence, or even step off a ledge without a staircase, and the whole world becomes a big, dull maze.)
When you do finally get to where your going, the boredom theme reaches it's apex: eternal load screens. Everytime you enter or leave an indoor location, you'll see as many as four delays. The current screen will pause for a few seconds, followed by a saving screen, followed by a generic loading screen, followed by (I couldn't make this up) a location-specific loading screen. And *each* of these are longer than any loading screen I've seen in any video game ever. If you suffer through this only to find your destination less interesting than you hoped (quite likely) you'll have to turn around and wait for it all over again, just to go back outside. Enjoy.
Other niggles: if you expect the map to aid in your travels, note that there are no notations on it. You'll need to mouse over every location waiting for text to pop-up over its mysteriously identical dot markers. After you've waited a couple of seconds for it to - you guessed it - load.
I could go on and on with the little niggles, but in many ways the game is very polished. The real issues are pacing, and the nearly meaningless skill tree. As for pacing, how many hours are we expected to invest before a game begins to entertain, or even make a point? I started to think about this during one of the "minigames", essentially rolling dice with the locals. I guess this is somewhat appropriate for a simulation of a boring rainy night in a medievel 'burb, but you know, I've got a Playstation in the next room, and could probably find something more fun to do. Failing that, maybe I could get some chores done.
Unless something miraculous happens in the next 15 minutes of gameplay, I'm giving up on The Witcher. Even worse, this is the sort of game that makes me wonder whether I still like RPG's, after 20+ years of considering them "my genre".
 ENCRYTION CODE WON'T LET ME FINISH GAME December 14, 2007
PAA jr
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
First, great visuals, interesting story. But....two quest characters failed to spawn for me in chapter one. That means I can go no further. Researching the community pages for The Witcher reveals others also have this problem. It seems this problem is related to an encryption code error that prevents even some legitimate game disks from loading these quest characters early in the game as a piracy prevention scheme. So, I am stuck in chapter one.
This may only apply to the uncensored version of the game, the one I
bought.
EDIT UPDATE 12-27-07
I finally got the game to work. Here's what I did. I installed patch 1.2 (latest patch released just prior to Christmas), started the game all over again (took an hour or so to replay into chapter one) and I always start the game by reinserting the disk instead of leaving the disk in the drive between plays. Now the two main quest RPCs appear!!! Researching the community pages for this game indeed revealed that the game developers (CdProjekt) hired a European security company (TAGES) to install an anti-pirate scheme. It works by not allowing two key RPGs from respawning later in the game if you have started the game using a pirated copy. So, one can not finish the game with a pirated copy but a pirate will presumedly have played it enough to want to buy a legit copy.
Unfortunetely, many folks with legitimate copies also had this problem (me included). Writing to CdProjekt or Atari(US distributor), or TAGES (Security company) got me no usefull responses. Actually, no response from either CdProject (sent to two DEVs) or Atari (sent twice). The email response from TAGES was so poorly written in english, I could not decipher it's meaning.
So this remains a bitter sweet review. Even though they finally fixed the problem (I suspect the new patch), I have also learned that Cdproject and Atari have absolutely no usefull customer service to help someone when a problem occurs. Unlike Bethesda (Morrowind/Oblivion) and Ubisoft (Silent Hunter/Sturmovik IL2 series sims) who always answered me within one day with solutions or recommendations to my querries, Cdprojekt/Atari did not even respond that they will look into the matter. Hope this helps.
02/13/08 Final Update
I thought patch 1.2 fixed everything but I was wrong. When I started chapter 4 of the game, it started crashing constantly, every 5 minutes. I was just about to give up when I went back to the community pages and researched if anyone else was having similar issues. Sure enough a player named Mobidoy had the crashing problem and suggested modifying your vista machine. Go to the community pages and search Mobidoy to get the specifics (go to The Witcher Official site. Navigate to the forum pages. Select search. Type in "mobidoy". Scroll down to "Things to try to get the game running on vista".). You may not have to do them all but following Mobidoy's steps difinitely helped me. NO MORE CRASHES. The steps involve turning off user accounsts, increasing user Va, removing Enable Write Caching on the hard drive, disable visual theme and desktop composition. It seems like alot of mods but I did it in just a few minutes. I have not noticed any bad effects with my new vista machine or with any other software on the machine. My hat is off to Mobidoy for sharing the fixes. They really worked and probably helped my computer's overall performance.
 Ridonkidonk November 7, 2007
Jamey Leonard (Nice, France)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
I had never heard of the Witcher when my roomate brought home a copy of this game. Never read a book, etc etc.
I'm freaking hooked. This game is a great blend of "role playing" and real time action. A lot of games are getting closer to melding the strategic/action element, and this is probably the best one I've played so far.
I'm going to play this for at least a month. I was bummed about Hellgates online hiccups, but now I don't care. I can wait until they iron out their problems. Shoot, I can probably wait longer. This is an awesome, awesome game.
PS (I am interested in what the euro differences are. If anyone knows if they are significant, let me know. I'd go so far as to buy another version of the game - or even pay for a "de-censored" patch.)
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