The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Previews

CD Projekt RED’s ambitious sequel to The Witcher is the subject of a few more hands-on previews, including this two-pager on Bit-gamer:

CD Projekt refocuses the quest again, giving Geralt choices with potentially long-term consequences something at which the first game excelled, often hiding the consequences from you until much later. Once the succubus is uncovered, how do you want to deal with it? Geralt calls in on his poet friend, Dandelion, and uses him as bait to lure the creature out of its lair. There’s then the choice of whether to let Dandelion deal with the beastie, or face it yourself then whether to kill it or reach another solution.

Decisions, decisions but it’s here that the screen starts to fade to black and CD Projekt’s Tomasz Gop leans in to tell us that’s the end of the demo. ‘˜Bugger,’ we say, thinking to ourselves that it’s refreshing and interesting to finally see an RPG that handles the topic of sex without just shoving organs in your face and telling you it’s ‘˜mature’ gaming. It’s so refreshing, in fact, that we genuinely wish the demo wasn’t over.

SegmentNext doles out some more:

Combat style and system has taken a different shape in the sequel. Players will be able to change Geralt’s style of fighting during combat and the feel will be much more fluid. The amount of damage Geralt sustains will depend on this statistics rather than depending on the player’s skills. Alchemy, like in the first one, is still an essential part of the combat system.

Geralt will have three main specializations which he can develop in: Sword Master, Alchemist and Sorcerer. The one chosen will decide about the bonus and extra abilities. Each ability will allow the unlocking of some new strike or signs, and passive abilities have been eliminated. In short the combat system will be more enjoyable, less frustrating and more fluid.

And then RipTen explains why the game is “like f**king a succubus”:

However, at the end of the day, I’d come to the conclusion that the combat system was a definite and necessary improvement over the first game and that I likely just needed more time to experiment with it. That being the case, perhaps I should just delete that last paragraph?. nah. Come take a ride on my meandering train of thought!! Choo Choo. But I digress yet again.

I made it to the catacombs and conducted an investigation upon a corpse CSI style. This is when I concluded that the freshest victim had not been killed by any sort of hideous beast, but instead by a beautiful, yet deadly succubus. I asked Tomasz if in fact my ex girlfriend had been put in this game, he replied he wasn’t sure, but most likely not. I mean, the poor bastard did have scratch marks on his back from one hell of a night. Not a bad way to go if you ask me.