Zero Punctuation: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

[drisky]

Yeah controls and difficult learning curve was already a point in the escapist review. So is there anything new to say? Well, don't bother, this game wasn't on my to buy list anyway.

I wasn't expecting it to be much different, people aren't being quite as whiny as they were to Greg Tito though, In which they were basically calling for him to be fired. Still pretty whiny though. "How dare you call lack of tutorials and poor interface as negative qualities" blah blah blah.

 

[TheComfyChair]

I got the feeling yahtzee wouldn't like it it is a bit hard for his usual tastes. Plus he was running on uber low and that 'delay' and clunky combat was likely lag On a decent machine (not that expensive either if you have a desktop) there's no such issues

However the points about the stupid slow drinking animation was spot on ^^ But overall i can't believe yahtzee, a seasoned gamer, found anything unintuitive (hover over an item, it lights up the slot to equip it to for example) >< If yahtzee can't handle not being hand held all the time, what hope do we have for everyone else?

Maybe you do need to play some real games again Yahtzee, all this mainstream gunk is destroying your gaming ability

 

[Alleged_Alec]

Lawl. That cutscene is not unskippable. Its actually quite easy to skip.

Yeah... Wouldn't this just reinforce the point that this game tells you jack all?

No..no it doesn't. I have yet to see a single game that tells you "Press buttan x to skip cutscene". There is a limited amount of buttons you'd expect to skip a cutscene, namely space, esc, enter and the mouse buttons. Thats about 5 buttons to go through. Apparantly thats too much for the console crowd to handle though.

Actually, most games I've played do. Also: I can't think of a single game which uses the mouse buttons to skip them.

 

[Ricardo Marques]

Well.. personally i LOVE this game. A great RPG in my opinion, with a inventory and shopping interface that i hate! It also has some quest tracking problems and no direction on the mini-map(that a auto-save function that seems to forget we drink potions before the fight)..
And still i really am enjoying this game!
Luckily CD Projekt RED is great with is audience, and its patching stuff in record time.

As for the whole PC gaming discussion... The game was designed to be played with a game-pad because it is going to be ported to the 360. But hey...

It is definitely NOT a game for everyone. It takes a certain kind of RPG taste to enjoy this game, i have that taste and i love the game. But yeah, it is complicated to get into if your not a particular kind of geek.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

I would highly advise anyone put down by these faults to play the game using cheats or a trainer program to look through the bad combat and get to the best part of the game which is the story and how it is impacted by your decisions.
You can also try using an Xbox 360 controller with the PC to get over the control problems.
For performance problems I can tell you that I am playing this game on a custom built desktop PC that cost less than an Xbox 360 because I bought a used processor(Intel E2160 1.8 Ghz), used graphics card(Ati 4670 512 MB) and a used 80 GB harddisk only the casing, power supply and RAM is new. I also bought a used mouse(Microsoft Intellimouse 3), a used DELL keyboard and a used 15 inch LCD monitor.So contrary to popular belief among console gamers, you don't need a super expensive monster PC to play games on a PC. But playing on a laptop(like Yatzee) is completely stupid as most of them don't come with a dedicated Graphics card, only a select few laptops that cost more than $ 1000 come with a proper dedicated graphics card(which is why Brink did not run on Yatzee's laptop as it is GPU intensive game,like most PC FPS games, while The Witcher 2 is a processor intensive game).
I waited two or three years to actually get a PC capable of playing the Witcher 1 after I bought it and it was worth it despite the even more terrible combat in that game.
That said, I still agree with the review and all faults mentioned here are completely true.

 

[Wolfram23]

Wow yahtzee... you know, that boss fight is actually roughly 1/3rd of the way through the game right? I mean it's not actually that long, much shorter than, say, Fallout or Dragon Age 2.

Also you can indeed skip cutscenes... so yeah...

Other than that, I will agree that the very start is tough because it doesn't tell you jack shit, really, and the prologue could use a bit of a revamp... but honestly by the end of the prologue you should be pretty familiar with attack-dodge-attack

 

[theriddlen]

Well, even though i love Witcher 2 and had an amazing fun finishing it (and it's not really long, it took me only few evenings), this ZP was totally awesome!

 

[sta697]

Worst ZP in a while. Can essentially be summed up as "I think PC gamers suck and I don't posses basic cognitive functions or an atention span longer than 5 seconds". I know ZP isn't supposed to be taken seriously, but this one just rubbed me the wrong way...

i agree he didnt give it a chance its just too slopy.after the godlike review of la noire i was expecting something better than not even knowing that the cutscene in the first boss is skipable

 

[cavalerie]

Way not to have an original thought in all that wall of text.
Do you think Yahtzee will be aware you're kissing his ass ?

As for this review, I'm sorry but I can't take the opinion of someone without attention span or basic mental functions seriously.
Also you're blatantly lying (or just too stupid to notice THE FUCKING SCREEN) because you CAN skip cutscenes (via the right click) and if you doubleclick an armor/weapon upgrade you attach it to the armor/weapon you're using.
On the bright side we can still call him Retaro McSpankyPants (or whatever he told us to call him in the Witcher review).

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Y'know, I'd say he made that sound worse than Dragon age 2.

...

Fanatic fan squad, sic 'im!

Fanatic fan squad? Fan is short for fanatic, so its Fanatic Fanatic Squad?

I want a new name please. Don't worry you can still attack. But you will fail.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I have always been interested in this game, but been hesitant about buying it on the PC, for 2 reasons's actually, the first is what you might expect, I'm more of an Xbox guy, but I also don't have a PC able to run this game on high setting's.

I'm glad to have heard it will be ported to console's soon though.

this one just rubbed me the wrong way...

I think it was supposed to, to be honest. It is a review after all, and he is advising anyone other than PC elitist's to stay away from this game because it's very complicated.

 

[solidstatemind]

I'm surprised nobody has commented: Witcher 2 is coming to Xbox 360 [http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2011/1690.html] at least, so place the PC snobbery aside.

My major complaint with the game was the total lack of direction-- I dunno, maybe the manual covers a lot of that, but since I got the Steam edition, the manual wasn't readily available. That, plus the difficulty curve seems absurdly uneven, particularly for a game where you can't set the difficult (I don't think).

Funny ZP tho. Best one in a while, IMHO. Particularly loved the finishing line.

 

[gellert1984]

Yahtzee's consistancy sucks. He bitches about games that hold your hand, then bitches about games that don't, complains about games that are so oversimplified a monkey could play them but if you need more buttons than are available on a joypad he throws his toys out the pram...

Nope. The problem with this game is not its difficulty, but the fact that it does nothing to explain its mechanics. You're fighting soldiers in a hut brunt by a dragon before you even realize how to properly block. And even when you do get the gaming mechanics right, there's annoyances like a targetting system that doesn't always work, Geralt's dodge and stab fighting style being incongruous with crampes spaces, and a camera that doesn't follow the action. All that leads to cheap deaths.

Games manual says no.

Seriously, this is exactly what I mean, I remember a time when a lovingly crafted game manual was almost as much fun as the game itself. A good game manual had a back page consisting entirely of keybinds.

But instead its 'Why hasnt a QTE style pop-up breached the immersion and told me what to do? This game sucks!'

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

I have no reason to fanboy rage on you Yahtzee. So I won't.

But the fact that you portrayed the PLAYERS of this game as your primary problem with it......is just fucking non-sensical.
You have every obligation to hate this game and make jokes about it (that being your job and all). But make jokes about what's wrong with the game, NOT what's wrong with the vocal minority of it's fanbase....

The only complaint you've raised against the game is "The tutorial's bad." That's it. That's ALL you said about the game.

A bit disappointing, I will say.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Actually, I can't remember who (Yahtzee himself or someone else), but I think it's suppose to be taken as a critique, and not a review.

That's the thing.

Yahtzee himself has said that these are not reviews, but critiques.

The only problem is that every time he says that, he is trying to make a point about something specific...

If you look at the OP it says:

''This week Yahtzee reviews...''

I think he needs to decide for himself what he want's to do and then stick to it instead of shifting between the 2 definitions whenever it pleases him.
It does actually make a significant difference.

But then what would people have to complain about, if he did that, everyone would just kiss his arse week in, week out.

 

[synobal]

I'm surprised nobody has commented: Witcher 2 is coming to Xbox 360 [http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2011/1690.html] at least, so place the PC snobbery aside.

My major complaint with the game was the total lack of direction-- I dunno, maybe the manual covers a lot of that, but since I got the Steam edition, the manual wasn't readily available. That, plus the difficulty curve seems absurdly uneven, particularly for a game where you can't set the difficult (I don't think).

Funny ZP tho. Best one in a while, IMHO. Particularly loved the finishing line.

Manual wasn't readily available? Every page in the steam store has a link to see the game manual and if you right click a game in your library there is typically an option to view the manual. That said I do feel your pain of having bought it on steam, I don't imagine you signed up for 9 gig patches when you bought it. I hope that's fixed soon.

Oh and you can set the difficulty at any time and it even asks you at the beginning explaining the differences between each of the settings.