The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Reviews

We continue our slow trickle of The Witcher 2 reviews, as PC Gamer turns it attentions to CD Projekt’s cRPG. Like preceding reviews, it is positive on the game, giving it a score of 89/100, and would’ve been even more positive if not for a sudden collapse at the end of the game.

Which, tragically, is where things went wrong. Just an hour before the credits rolled, I had The Witcher 2 pencilled in for 92%. Great game. Some annoyances, but drowned out by the good stuff. Chapter 1 was glorious, beautiful, involving and heartfelt. Chapter 2 was even better: epic, dramatic, amazing. When I hit Chapter 3, it felt like the game-changing mid-point, where the gloves would come off and the second half of the story absolutely explode into life in a flurry of fire and steel.

It wasn’t. Chapter 3 turned out to be the end, as if The Witcher 2 suddenly looked at its watch, and went ‘˜Whoa, is that the time?’. Things are resolved. mostly. but in the most cack-handed ways. Plot threads are unceremoniously dumped, characters sidelined and forgotten, a couple of final quests rushed through as quickly as possible, and then the word ‘˜Epilogue’ appears like a slap in the face. Huge, world-changing events happen, but get no time to breathe or explore the consequences that were the whole damn point of making those big choices in the first place. It’s as if there’s a whole concluding chapter simply missing. Ending the story like this isn’t just disappointing. It’s a betrayal.

For such a story-based game, this is a killer the only reason you’re not looking at a 90+ game. But make no mistake: everything leading up to that point remains amazing, and this is still one of the best RPGs in years. It’s not the deepest, the longest or the toughest, but nothing touches it for great moments, genuinely meaningful choices, or the passion that makes it easy to ignore the many rough edges at least after a little levelling up and tooth-grinding.

NowGamer too has reviewed the title, giving it the lowest score yet, an 8.4/10.

Bludgeon your way through hordes of enemies while upturning every crate and cupboard along the way and you’ll amass a stockpile of crafting components. These can be carted off to the local smithy and fashioned into serrated swords with fancy names and hooded jackets that shrug off the effects of giant spider venom.

The best of these garments will see you through the dramatic boss battles and, although they are few in number, they make for an impressive trio of set-pieces. Downing each boss requires you to ace a QTE test, and if you happen to left click when you should’ve right clicked, then you’ll have to start from the beginning.

However, for those who’d rather use a keyboard for word processing, CD Projekt has included a pad-based control scheme that makes full use of the Xbox 360 controller. The game even changes the onscreen button prompts to recognisable letters that are painted in familiar colours.

As a follow-up to a hardcore classic, The Witcher 2 retains the distinctive charm of the original while trimming back the excess. Its combat system isn’t as complicated and its world isn’t as open-ended.

This could read like a list of negatives on paper, but, in execution, these cuts have produced a fantasy adventure that feels focused and significantly more polished. And compared to its recent rivals, Assassins of Kings has handled the jump to greater accessibility with more finesse.

Speaking of review scores, a story has been making the rounds that BioWare employees have been giving The Witcher 2 low scores on MetaCritic. As far as I can see not a shred of evidence is available that these are BioWare employees, but we do indeed have a score invasion going on, with upset DAII fans bombarding Metacritic with 0 scores for The Witcher 2 and 10 scores for Dragon Age II right after the title’s release. Just a reminder not to pay attention to MetaCritic’s user scores, I guess.