The Witcher Reviews

A few more enthusiastic reviews of CD Projekt’s The Witcher hit the web alongside our own earlier today. The first is at Games Radar with an overall score of 9/10:

…the world of The Witcher is primarily a man’s one, and whilst there are female characters with strong roles, they are primarily there to be conquered sex-wise or otherwise.

To be fair though, it’s something of a novelty to have room available in a list of negatives to be able to castigate a game’s misogynist overtones – because in every other department The Witcher is an intelligent, adult and thoroughly compelling adventure.

The second is at AtomicGamer with an overall score of 88%:

While just about every RPG out there has lots of dialog, The Witcher is unique in that the dialog becomes one of the more compelling reasons to play. Yes, the combat is good, and your character does gain new tactical options and cool abilities as he improves, although the lack of new gear will turn off those for fans of games like Diablo. The world design is realistic but interesting and the enemies you fight are generally worthy opponents, but it’s the story of Geralt and how he affects his world that will keep you playing. Some technical problems plague the experience, but overall I think you will have a hard time finding a better fleshed-out story in any game released in 2007. The Witcher is not for everyone, and even some hardcore RPG players might find this a disappointment, but it’s still an excellent fantasy game with enough merits for me to recommend it for any fan of the genre.

And the third is at DLA’s official website with no overall score:

Happily, the ambience of that art direction bleeds over into the rest of the game. The cutscenes, voice acting and dialog in the game are remarkably good. That does not mean there are not some things with a few rough spots here and there but overall – it’s damned decent writing by developers whose primary language is Polish, not English. Considering that these writers do not have a decade plus of direct Triple A experience at this, it flows much better than I expected it would. Good artists are hard to find; but good writers are much, much harder to find than that. For their first effort, the result is very laudable indeed.

Gameplay in The Witcher is engaging and, damn it, just fun. I have not had this much fun playing a CRPG since the original Knights of the Old Republic.