The Witcher Review

The Escapist Magazine has published what they call an “overwhelmingly negative” review of The Witcher.

The marketing for The Witcher proclaims the game to be the pinnacle of storytelling in roleplaying games. Gone is the cliched struggled between good and evil, and moral ambiguity rules the day. It also promises a charismatic, unique protagonist and complex tactical, yet intuitive, combat. So what went wrong?
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Still, given that the game wrests control from the player to present long and awkward conversations between the characters at inappropriate moments – “Hey hero, let’s stop and talk about my past as we rush to stop the sorcerer from stealing the Witchers’ secrets!” – I can’t help but be a little glad that there’s less dialog than originally intended. I feel that the game should make we want to read the books, not reproduce them for me, word for word.

The voice acting is bad, too. A lot of the actors, Geralt included, opted to take a very minimal approach to their line readings. Along with the cut-scenes, it makes Geralt seem stiff and wooden, more at home in a Thunderbirds episode than the vibrant and unique story-world the designers are trying to present.