Zero Punctuation: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

[Swifteye]

Wasnt this supposed to be his 200th episode or something? Ah well time makes fools of us all.

Good review. Honestly besides the pretty graphics it looked like every other fantasy RPG ive seen in the last 3 years.

You do know that he didn't make that much of a fuss when his 100th video came out right? Also are you counting the filler episodes like the recaps and the episode that got posted twice for winning the contest and that one time he was in Washington for some reason?

 

[Mxrz]

Loved it. Glad some people aren't afraid to cut through the PC fanboi bullshit with this game.

It's a flawed game, but still decent if you can get past its issues. Gotta love the people hyping it bitching about DA2 tho. And don't even try to compare the challenge in Demon's Souls to TW2's challenge of a clunky controls marinated in a horrible UI.

 

[Georgescu Catalin]

wow. Reading the manual for 5 minutes or asking for a little help would've solved 2 thirds of your problems.

In fact, this kind of lazy attitude is what makes the PC gamers feel elitist in the first place. It's not like the devs ask you to figure all the crap by yourself, there were many infos in-game and in the manual. Or you could just Google it for 5 minutes.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I was going to get the Witcher 2, but this video convinced me not to.

I guess I'll save my money for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 instead.

Well played, sir

 

[Booze Zombie]

"Sweet, a hot elf... she's evil."

Got to love it when games just go "yep, everyone's a fucking cock, deal with it".

Captcha: "Officer womons"
Oh, come on!

 

[Gametek]

snip/quote]

Capisco che il Internet sia freddo e lasci la gente da tutti i settori e le lingue interagire con a vicenda ed a causa delle imperfezioni delle comprensioni culturali che possono condurre ad alcuni singhiozzi grammaticali. Ammetto la I sopra reagito ed onesto chiedo scusa, giusto?

I also had to guess on the language there, sorry if I fail at recognizing linguistic origins.

Fuck, this is a trolling! Are you an Italian, and one that is actually mocking me, or you have simply put your text on google translate?

Babel fish actually...

I'll give you an advice: never us a translate program. They are good with single world, never with phrase.

 

[Delusibeta]

I'll just quote TotalBiscuit here, since he articulates my views far better than I would have.

Just in case anyone is silly enough to believe that Yahtzee is actually a reviewer and not an extremely amusing creator of gaming comedy cartoons, I present you with his Witcher 2 review, laden with more factual inaccuracies than your average fundamentalist christian science debate.

I considered it more a rant on Pc Elitists tbh (not saying you are)

If that's all the thing actually was I'd be have been flying a flag for the guy.

Source: 1 [http://www.tweetdeck.com/twitter/Totalbiscuit/~ZSHiT] 2 [http://twitter.com/#!/Riptide159/status/78538820148133888] 3 [http://twitter.com/#!/Totalbiscuit/status/78538897994424320]

 

[Conza]

Nope console games comes pre-factored at lowest grade quality.

Say, you know, in the interest of fairness, I think that comment is slightly too generalised.
Usually, graphics for consoles when compared to PCs, almost always will be aspiring to, or in rare cases, equal to PC, and I can't think of an example where consoles were better (say in 06/07 when the consoles were still new, some were probably equal on both).

But games specific for consoles obviously won't be set to the lowest, they'll be maximized to what the system can do, and other games wouldn't need to be turned right down, they'd be optimized, and likely since this is a dedicated device, run at higher settings that the equivilent PC could do.

I'm a Console and PC gamer, my console has cost under $1000 including games, peripherals, ect, and I love the thing, my PC cost - without games, eek, $2000+ and counting, since my now dated 285GTX will have to be replaced probably by a 6970... but I disgress; my point is, they do some things better than each other so there are pros and cons to both systems, and depending on which genres you prefer more, you may choose to have one over the other, I fortunately can afford both, some only one, some can afford both but still only choose ONE, which is just more efficient and logical, because we can't play a PC and a console at the same time, anyway, and there is genre overlap on both systems too as well.

But we're all gamers people! Stop slagging on the other guy because he didn't spend 2 grand on a giant glowy box that can do 1000s of GFLops and vice versa, just because you prefer different game styles and/or platforms, doesn't make YOU better than THE OTHER GUY, alright?

Just want to add, that the guy I quoted, wasn't the source of my explosive 'oi you lot, shut up' rant.

 

[bob1052]

The Witcher 2 wasn't that hard. Poorly written, unimmersive and outright lying about half it's features yes, but not that hard to figure out.

Considering in one of your recent posts you claimed Dragon Age 2 was making steps toward showing games as an art form I find the fact that you make any comment on writing quality incredibly funny.

 

[Weaver]

You could just read the manual and the game makes sense.

 

[coakroach]

Yahtzee sure loves talking about dicks

 

[jklinders]

How do you get fired from a Dick sucking factory?

By biting down to often during work hours.

I would've said "sucking at sucking" but this works too.

 

[Azmael Silverlance]

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

This week, Zero Punctuation reviews The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

Watch Video

Yahtzee how come you do not own a super-duper powerfull high end gaming rig to play your games on and write proper reviews. You can hardly expect the game to behave properly on lowest setting. Let alone look and feel right X_X

 

[mikev7.0]

I'm really not sure how seriously to take this review...Yahtzee's pretty insightful but can this game really be that tedious? I've always kind of wanted to try it.

Yahtzee's funny and insightful but if you caught him in an irony free mood (g'luck w'that) even he would tell you that if it's something you've been interested in for awhile take his opinion (which is mostly for entertainment) with a grain(bag) of salt.

It's like Thor. G.I. gave it a 4.75 and the Escapist reviewer (I think it was Mr. Tito) sounded just plain BORED, and THAT was after he just saw the movie with friends and was kinda' jazzed about playing. I bought it new OVER the much balyhooed L.A. Noire and I love it. I don't regret my purchase a bit. My friends think it's great too. I think hobby gamers have a different perspective than pro gamers which makes sense.

So if you want it I say go buy it, and then please tell us what YOU think!

OT: Very funny review as always but honestly you and the responses to you this week just made me very curious about this game.

 

[Gametek]

To the OT:What you don't understand usually does not concern you.All of us already knew what Yahtzee was going to say and while sort of disappointed (some of us) are going to argue the hell out of this topic trying to defend a game we loved.

Yes, and I find this way of behaving wrong. It's like choosing a side, and then close our eyes and start fighting someone else because he don't agree with me. It's stupid. I love TW since is first game, TW2 is the only game that I have ever brought a collector edition. I find the word of the witcher the most realistic one of all the game I've ever played. The negation of the good and the bad, Gerald is constantly against [real] moral choice that affect bot him and the world around him.

And yet, I know, and admit that TW had numerous flaw. Most of this flaw are highly excusable. Because as, I will never be tired to repeat, an RPG game is all about the story. It is about the Role Playing part, not the swinging a sword to a dragoon. Playing a RPG for any other reason that is not seeking a good story and great immersion, is stupid. If I want to play a game for the gameplay I would play WoW or any action/shooter game. But not even I can excuse a pair, like the absence of a little extra campaign made for the sake of a tutorial. Or that the bomb are actually useful only at the first act, after that they become to much weak. That the choice of the spell is a bit slow, as I have to slow down every time to choice a new spell. Two of the tree specialization of Geralt are build around this [well, theoretically and lore wise bomb should be more important than what they are for an alchemist]
Yet, all reviewer don't lament this. Bot yahtzee and the other one on this site couldn't get after the first act. Spitting out only fact that are visible from the first hour of game. Or, worst, saying thing that are not actually true because they could spent that little time to read what each button do.
This is not reviewing. It's not even constructive critics. And it annoy me how much any TW lament about it's not being enough easy, is not being made for the great mass, and etcetera, and etcetera.

I'm a fairly harsh critic, I can make any game you care to name sound poor by enumerating its weaknesses. The witcher wasn't a bad game, in fact I found it to be a very good one. And I personally dont really count longwinded as a flaw per se, it only becomes a flaw when you're not enjoying the game much, otherwise its a virtue IMO, especially in an RPG. Yes the combat was poor (not terrible though), yes it was little more than hack n'slash but so what? its an RPG, the main strengths of the RPG genre are not combat/action but plot, dialogue, immersion, characters etc... combat is just the chaff around the wheat, a perfunctory necessity.

As far as flawed games and rough diamonds go, the witcher doesn't even register on the scale, its flaws were relatively small and nothing was game breaking or particularly annoying. Compare it to a real diamond in the rough like Bloodlines the masquerade and then you'll see just how polished it is.

I can understand why many people didn't get on with the witcher, and its clearly not a game for everyone and it doesn't help itself by having the tutorial area (up to that demon dog thing) being the most tedious part of the game (which most people never get past by all accounts), I just think that its a much better game than many of those people give it credit for, like Yahtzee they dont give it enough of a chance to show them what it has to offer... and who looses out? they do.

On another note I firmly believe that not all games should cater to everyone, some games ought to have niche appeal or else all we're left with is bland bland bland. I support CD Projekt Red if only because they're one of the few AAA developers to buck the trend toward always catering to the lowest common denominator (no slur on those people intended, their only crime is being numerous)

Needless to say, I agree to most you have posted. As for the gameplay, I have to had that the only thing that make it hard is the reaction time. If Geralt would react faster, most of the encounter would be easier.

 

[infohippie]

Ha, a pretty funny review despite being him trashing a game I love. And he's not wrong about the difficulty. However, I seem to recall it was Yahtzee who complained that games no longer give you a nice thick manual - since The Witcher 2 does indeed include a comprehensive manual for once, I would have expected him to read it and therefore know how to do all the things he claimed he didn't know how to do.
That elf lady quest he mentions though - that was a pain in the ass until I figured out how to stop the monsters immediately face-raping me as soon as I went into the cave.

I was going to get the Witcher 2, but this video convinced me not to.

I guess I'll save my money for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 instead.

Hang on - are you serious? Yahtzee's reviews are great to watch and all... but you're actually letting them seriously influence your game-buying decisions?

 

[Kingjackl]

Hilarious review. I've seen a couple of trailers for this game and it looked dodgy as all hell.

Also, Im glad to see Im not the only person who suffers from the classic problem of having to play games on the lowest graphical setting just to get the damned thing to run. Beats all those other reviewers who just say 'yeah, i played this on my Quad Turbo PicX459 graphics card and it looked great!!'

 

[mikev7.0]

Nope console games comes pre-factored at lowest grade quality.

Say, you know, in the interest of fairness, I think that comment is slightly too generalised.
Usually, graphics for consoles when compared to PCs, almost always will be aspiring to, or in rare cases, equal to PC, and I can't think of an example where consoles were better (say in 06/07 when the consoles were still new, some were probably equal on both).

But games specific for consoles obviously won't be set to the lowest, they'll be maximized to what the system can do, and other games wouldn't need to be turned right down, they'd be optimized, and likely since this is a dedicated device, run at higher settings that the equivilent PC could do.

I'm a Console and PC gamer, my console has cost under $1000 including games, peripherals, ect, and I love the thing, my PC cost - without games, eek, $2000+ and counting, since my now dated 285GTX will have to be replaced probably by a 6970... but I disgress; my point is, they do some things better than each other so there are pros and cons to both systems, and depending on which genres you prefer more, you may choose to have one over the other, I fortunately can afford both, some only one, some can afford both but still only choose ONE, which is just more efficient and logical, because we can't play a PC and a console at the same time, anyway, and there is genre overlap on both systems too as well.

But we're all gamers people! Stop slagging on the other guy because he didn't spend 2 grand on a giant glowy box that can do 1000s of GFLops and vice versa, just because you prefer different game styles and/or platforms, doesn't make YOU better than THE OTHER GUY, alright?

Just want to add, that the guy I quoted, wasn't the source of my explosive 'oi you lot, shut up' rant.

Great point Conza! As someone who has no choice but to slum it up with an inferior home console I appreciate someone with a good gaming PC who will be honest about what that costs (hokay, I had nooooo idea it was over 2k but I knew it was a lot.) to maintain that hobby.

Just because that's out of my range doesn't mean I want simpler games or am lazy about how I play.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Is The Room somehow atranscendant example of neo-noir filmmaking because I watched the whole thing? No, it's still a turgid pile of rancid shit.

Off-topic: Wait, you know the appeal of The Room, right? You better not be talking smack about my (and a lot of people's) favourite worst movie. People still clamor for screenings of it. The Room is the Citizen Kane of bad movies. It's a masterpiece. Amazing on how many levels it fails. It is easily the funniest movie I've ever seen, and bothered recommending it to everyone I know.

Seeing the whole movie is worth it, because it's unintentionally hilarious in every single scene!
Everyone betray me, I'm fed up with this waaaaarld!

Oh yeah, I know the real appeal of The Room. I watched it, all the way through, and was laughing through my nose at pretty much every line when I wasn't turning the sound off and reading the subtitles because it was so embarrassing.

My point was that although I enjoyed it and had a good time while watching it, I'd never refer to it as good. I went into The Room knowing exactly what I was going to get, one of the worst films ever, and so was mentally prepared. If I had gone in as a critic, honestly trying to determine whether the film was good, I would have been able to turn it off about three minutes in and give my review, and that review would have been just as accurate for those three minutes as it would have been for the entire movie.

Just because I did sit through it didn't make it good. I've often heard Crysis being referred to as little more than a bragging rights tool for PC owners 'my PC plays Crysis better than yours does,' which makes me wonder, even if the game is a little fun, is the appeal in it more like The Room's appeal, you play it for the same reason you watch, simply to say that you have? And it's the same, I would imagine, with Witcher 2. Is it that people genuinely like it (I suppose some would) or are they doing it for bragging rights to say 'I played and finished the Witcher. I may not have enjoyed a second of it but I was able to complete it, so nyah,' to other, lesser, gamers?

Just because you can and have played/watched/read through something, it doesn't mean that thing is good, it just means you found an enjoyment from it that wasn't due to its quality. The Room is not good by any means, but it can be enjoyed. My Immortal is not good, but it can be enjoyed, presumably The Witcher is not good, but it can be enjoyed

DISCLAIMER - I say again that I haven't played the Witcher and don't intend to, I acknowledge that some people genuinely will enjoy it, just as some will genuinely enjoy The Room and My Immortal without even a hint of irony, this is just to defend my position that you do not need to play/watch/read the whole way through something to determine its quality.

 

[Gametek]

The Witcher 2 wasn't that hard. Poorly written, unimmersive and outright lying about half it's features yes, but not that hard to figure out.

Interesting. Let's talk about it. I want to hurt myself. Compare it to Dragon age 2. Mostly because I want to hear what make TW2 so poorly made and, as said by you, it seem, Dragon Age 2 the messia of the videogame.

Considering in one of your recent posts you claimed Dragon Age 2 was making steps toward showing games as an art form I find the fact that you make any comment on writing quality incredibly funny.

PS: please, explaine your opinion a little more, writing down why you think something.