Zero Punctuation: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

[Quellist]

I suspect Yahtzee might have a point with this review. With the first Witcher game i bought it, gawped at the graphics, spent a week upgrading my PC to play it well then after i got used to all the beautiful scenery i realized the game beneath it was just complex for the sake of being complex, it didn't last me much longer after that...

As a long time PC and console gamer i like an RPG that's involved but The Witcher imo was just taking the piss. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the sequel is just as bad.

 

[RA92]

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.

And the fact is, the rest his complaints are mostly unfounded. Cutscenes are skippable, with a right click mouse icon always flashing when a cutscene starts. Yeah, they didn't provide whole levels for tutorial, but there were always tool tips coming up and telling you the controls in the first minutes of the Prologue before any fights. In fact, the first swarm fight is in the middle of a battle where most of your opponents are already engaged and kind of ignores you - so it's not that tough. And every other information was provided in details in the Journal (which, once again, a tool tip tells you). Yeah, there are tons of items and crafting to manage, but to upgrade something all you have to do is drag the item and drop it on your weapon/armor to upgrade it. I don't see how it can be more intuitive.

And of course you're going to get killed if all you're doing in the middle of a swarm is hit and block while you're being outflanked. You're supposed to roll around, cast spells, block, parry, use bombs and traps and the whole shenanigan if you're playing on Normal or Hard. What, you expect people to teach you strategies as well?

At the same time, I don't mind Yahtzee taking shots at PC gamers. He does that with console gamers as well - remember how he dedicated an entire episode to bashing Nintendo fans sending him hate mails for trashing SMB?

 

[Aureliano]

Nice to hear another person in the world who was as bored by the Witchers as I was. Thanks Yahtzee! And in spite of what some others have said, I'm not sure the problem is the difficulty of the game so much as it being goddamn smug.

Also, I did not need to see Gary get up from a post-coital nap with a hot redhead within the first minute or so of starting the game. I'm sorry, guys over 55, you're almost without exception neither virile nor sexy nor threatening anymore. Please stop trying to live out your sad power fantasies/mid-life crises in the RPGs I would otherwise play.

 

[bombadilillo]

The thing with those games is that they don't have much of a story. Ones that do can teach you the mechanics in game and still be incredibly enjoyable.

Example, look at Dead Space. You remember how the game taught you to run, or how to best kill a Necromorph? If they hadn't been in the game, and instead you could only work it out by reading the manual, it would have been a decidely poorer game.

And it's not hand holding at all! They're about teaching you the mechanics in game, leading to a richer experience with a better difficulty curve. By your ridiculous definition school lessons are hand holding.

I do remember deadspace, but there wasn't really any aspect of that game that desperately needed a tutorial, the cutting limbs off thing is something you find out in your first few encounters with or without the prompt.

As for hand holding... It comes down to relative difficulty, one persons lesson is another persons hand holding.
School lessons would be hand holding for a university educated adult... no?

A game isn't made poor by not telling you how it works, its just made less accessible to some (and less hand holding to others on the flip side). A game is good based on its mechanics and other content, not on how well you understand the controls, your experience will depend on your knowledge of the controls yes but not the objective "goodness" of the game. You could argue that a good game ought to be accessible and I agree, however being inaccessible doesnt make a good game bad.. it just makes it inaccessible.

I disagree. Years of gaming has taught me to aim for the head. If things werent going down I would concentrate on getting MORE headshots. Not magicly think to shoot the feet.

 

[Gametek]

I... don't understand... I mean, only this? The name of the spell are undecidable, the cutscene unskippable [actually they are, lol], the potion can't be drink in battle [screw you lore, screw you] and you die a lot because the game don't teach you anything. Only that? Ok, even elves. Oh, come on! I was expecting better winning from you! Something on the line of:
I spent the whole first cap to gathere potion, trap, and gearing up for the first boss. I died a lot from the very first little cancered -group- of monster. And what I discover when I meet the big tentacular boss that have to be attack in *complettly unseen point of the tentacle* to defeat it. Died a lot the same. And all my fucking preparation was for nothing! What was even the meaning of making me do that sidequest?


As a side note, what it mean it seem that quick save is same part of the PC gamer galateo?
It's the fucking first commandment! Even on wow, when I was still playing it, write .save on the chat to have a flash save status of my pg after an achievement/epic drop was an untold rule! To ensure the not lose of the piece due to any event! [back on the sweet vanilla...]
You don't do it on your play through? Yahtzee, this make me lose fate on your gamer skill...

 

[Continuity]

I suspect Yahtzee might have a point with this review. With the first Witcher game i bought it, gawped at the graphics, spent a week upgrading my PC to play it well then after i got used to all the beautiful scenery i realized the game beneath it was just complex for the sake of being complex, it didn't last me much longer after that...

As a long time PC and console gamer i like an RPG that's involved but The Witcher imo was just taking the piss. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the sequel is just as bad.

Humour me, what exactly was complex? from my perspective it was a fairly medium weight hack n'slash / RPG. Sure you have potions and the alchemy to create them but thats hardly complex, and the combat could only be made more simple if the computer actually did it for you.

Where is the complexity? OK its a fairly long winded game and some bits bordered on tedium, but that, for me at least, in no way tarnished the great experience provided by the atmosphere, plot, and characters. The combat was a little lacklustre but then if you're playing RPG for the combat then you're simply playing the wrong genre.
Besides, being long winded and tedious never stopped WoW from being a big hit so I don't think we can fairly level that as a criticism of the witcher, at least not whilst letting WoW slip by unmentioned.

 

[bob1052]

Fun review.

TW2 reminding you of why you didn't play TW1 wouldn't of happened because the things that were wrong in TW2 (and there definitely were) are completely different than what was wrong in TW1, in fact the whole game of TW2 is completely different than TW1.

First complaint about the difficulty and lack of hand holding, much like the Escapist's formal review was just plain wrong. This time, however, Yahtzee went into more detail and managed to be even more wrong.

You start out with four options of obvious chronological order that you clearly want to choose "The morning before battle" rather than "The battle". If you do choose to go to Grade 1 before going to university you get treated to a long non combat intro.

When you get to that first fight Yahtzee talked about, where you get mobbed by a hundred soldiers, it turns out you have a hundred soldiers on your side too and that entire fight is spent running around slashing people in the back not getting mobbed. They won't turn to face you in that fight.

The whole problem about blocking also isn't true. When you hit block, even if the animation to raise your sword hasn't finished you will block any blow. If you have no vigor however, you won't block at all.

The problem with spell names is so exaggerated its painful. Sure remember Igni is Ignite might be tough if you had a hundred spells but with five is it really that difficult?

The silver sword vs steel sword thing is logic (in a magical world). The silver is superior on monsters due to magic reasons, and the steel sword is better elsewhere because silver is a relatively soft metal. If you were duel someone (in real life), them using a steel sword and you using silver, you would be at a disadvantage.

That green bar when you drink potions is a neat thing. Its your blood toxicity. Its how much you are poisoning and nearly killing yourself by drinking potions. The potions are literally deadly poisonous to humans and a Witcher's mutated body can only just sustain them. Chain chugging them mid combat isn't really a good idea. The games idea of drink anytime out of combat is a pretty good compromise considering it was literally hours of meditation after drinking before doing any activity.

The only battle that required a specific potion gives you a specific quest to go get that potion. In every other battle you would benefit from just drinking whatever potion goes well with your skill set. And considering the length of the potions effect you can easily keep 100% uptime with no problem.

Also Geralt dodges in the direction you are moving. If you hold D he will roll to the right, etc. And you can skip cut scenes by clicking.

I understand that ZP is nothing more than rhetoric and exaggeration but exaggerating nothing into a massive something really does seem more over the top than usual.

 

[conzan]

ok ok ok I don't get him any more "games are too easy and they hold your hand too much that's bad" ok I get that fair enough
"this game doesn't help you enough I want to know what to do" ok, I would get that to if you hadn't bitched about in every single bloody review before hand. where is the line with you too easy is bad ok, fine to hard is bad, ok fine BUT YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH that's not possible.
I understand he is a critic so this is what he does but come on you can't have both in a game

also you can skip that cut-scene....

the sword thing is dumb though.

 

[Continuity]

I disagree. Years of gaming has taught me to aim for the head. If things werent going down I would concentrate on getting MORE headshots. Not magicly think to shoot the feet.

Oh come on, there is nothing magical about trying something different when what you're doing isnt working. Besides, those things were all arms and legs, you'd have to try pretty hard to not chop limbs off occasionally and you'd then have to be pretty obtuse to not notice that they go down much faster that way... a matter or maybe 10 minutes gameplay trial and error... not to mention all the cutting weapons being a massive clue.

NO matter how much you may like to think it people are not stupid, they will work stuff out pretty quick if they're invested in the subject.

Honestly, if we all had the attention span and problem solving ability implied by most of todays game tutorials then we'd all still be sitting in caves thinking it sure would be nice if there were some way to warm the place up.. but alas no tutorial to explain how to make fire.

NOw i'm not saying in any way that games shouldn't have tutorials or shouldn't indulge in a bit of hand holding, and come to think of it dead space is a perfect example of hand holding with telling you to cut the limbs off, I'm just saying we can cope if they don't, and occasionally it quite nice when they don't even if only for a change of pace.

 

[Gametek]

The thing with those games is that they don't have much of a story. Ones that do can teach you the mechanics in game and still be incredibly enjoyable.

Example, look at Dead Space. You remember how the game taught you to run, or how to best kill a Necromorph? If they hadn't been in the game, and instead you could only work it out by reading the manual, it would have been a decidely poorer game.

And it's not hand holding at all! They're about teaching you the mechanics in game, leading to a richer experience with a better difficulty curve. By your ridiculous definition school lessons are hand holding.

I do remember deadspace, but there wasn't really any aspect of that game that desperately needed a tutorial, the cutting limbs off thing is something you find out in your first few encounters with or without the prompt.

As for hand holding... It comes down to relative difficulty, one persons lesson is another persons hand holding.
School lessons would be hand holding for a university educated adult... no?

A game isn't made poor by not telling you how it works, its just made less accessible to some (and less hand holding to others on the flip side). A game is good based on its mechanics and other content, not on how well you understand the controls, your experience will depend on your knowledge of the controls yes but not the objective "goodness" of the game. You could argue that a good game ought to be accessible and I agree, however being inaccessible doesnt make a good game bad.. it just makes it inaccessible.

I disagree. Years of gaming has taught me to aim for the head. If things werent going down I would concentrate on getting MORE headshots. Not magicly think to shoot the feet.

As one that played DS, I disagree. The magical aiming to the feet should be obvious to any that survived the 5th necro after getting the PC. as an example, after an headshot you simply cripple their head, but they keep moving in to you. As you shoot him, more part detach, but in any case, this first necro taught you the aiming at the head is unusefull. At this point, the strategy turn to spraing, until you hit the leg of a necro and see them moving forward on their belly.

No need of a tutorial. At all. And as bot I and Yahtzee keep repeating, the fact that a necro poput of a vent lose is scariness soon, and make the game really prevedible. It's because of that, that my favorit DS2 weapon is the detonator.

As for the point made by continuity, I agree, an inaccessible good game is only that: an inaccessible game. Simplicity don't make a game good. Pointing at DS, simplicity don't make it a good game. The story do. The ambientacion. Absolutely not the fact that you can complete most of the game running. [Well, I don't remember the name of this mode, but the last difficulty setting that give you only 3 save point is played more or less like this.]
If it wasn't so, I would not have liked DS...

 

[conzan]

So the whole review can be summed up by "it has a shitty UI and is really hard." Thanks, I already knew that, it's why I didn't play the first one. I will never understand why PC gaming elitists think that making a game more accessible is dumbing it down, it's that same "it controls like shit because it's part of the challenge" argument I never understood.

But then again I never got the "it's too easy" argument either. Call me a pansy if you want, but I'd rather play an easy game and have fun than play a hard as fuck game and spend half the day cussing and buying new controllers to replace the broken ones that have been thrown across the room. Which is half the reason I laugh my ass off whenever some brainless fuckwit says something like that gaming was better back in the NES days (golden age of gaming my hairy ass)

i know what you mean but take a non-pc game that did it right demon souls
not a hard game to play (so no bad controls) but still a challenge because it was based on timing and skill and some people like hard games because its a challenge which is more fun then blowing through a game without thinking in my opinion
but no, bad controls don't make a hard game it makes a bad game

 

[Gvaz]

I'm not going to explain why because this is a dead horse, but I find it amusing how bad you are at this game and how much of this review was just plain wrong and stems from a lack of reading and understanding.

 

[Gametek]

So the whole review can be summed up by "it has a shitty UI and is really hard." Thanks, I already knew that, it's why I didn't play the first one. I will never understand why PC gaming elitists think that making a game more accessible is dumbing it down, it's that same "it controls like shit because it's part of the challenge" argument I never understood.

But then again I never got the "it's too easy" argument either. Call me a pansy if you want, but I'd rather play an easy game and have fun than play a hard as fuck game and spend half the day cussing and buying new controllers to replace the broken ones that have been thrown across the room. Which is half the reason I laugh my ass off whenever some brainless fuckwit says something like that gaming was better back in the NES days (golden age of gaming my hairy ass)

You never played through the nes era. Obviusly. TW hard... my gosh. I could lend you a pair of hard game. To name one, I once lost 200 life to a single middle boss. At the very half of a game. In a game that have only a limmited number of life. Witcher hard. Ha.

As for the to easy, well, someone into a game want to have a challenge. You know, it like sexual preference. Women, men, both.

 

[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.

And the fact is, the rest his complaints are mostly unfounded. Cutscenes are skippable, with a right click mouse icon always flashing when a cutscene starts. Yeah, they didn't provide whole levels for tutorial, but there were always tool tips coming up and telling you the controls in the first minutes of the Prologue before any fights. In fact, the first swarm fight is in the middle of a battle where most of your opponents are already engaged and kind of ignores you - so it's not that tough. And every other information was provided in details in the Journal (which, once again, a tool tip tells you). Yeah, there are tons of items and crafting to manage, but to upgrade something all you have to do is drag the item and drop it on your weapon/armor to upgrade it. I don't see how it can be more intuitive.

And of course you're going to get killed if all you're doing in the middle of a swarm is hit and block while you're being outflanked. You're supposed to roll around, cast spells, block, parry, use bombs and traps and the whole shenanigan if you're playing on Normal or Hard. What, you expect people to teach you strategies as well?

At the same time, I don't mind Yahtzee taking shots at PC gamers. He does that with console gamers as well - remember how he dedicated an entire episode to bashing Nintendo fans sending him hate mails for trashing SMB?

Wow, I didn't even Know about the Journal bit. So the put the Manual IN THE GAME, and people still don't read it?

I will have to deflect a point from you though. I agree with the original Escapist review (by Russ pitts) that it was a completely stupid move on CDProjekt's part to allow players to play the Tutorial "out of order". As far as I can tell, you can't skip any section all together, and people are GOING to always click the 2nd or 3rd one. You know the one that says "Dragon"?

So it's a choice that adds nothing, but confuses people. Unnecessary.

I think the best (and easiest) way CDProjekt can remedy this big problem post-release is to maybe launch a bunch of Spoiler-less videos narrating to you how certain mechanics of the game works? Like ME2 had? Then just patch those into the game as an Menu option maybe?

 

[MatsVS]

How is the Witcher 2 something more?

I lol'd at that. It is another fantasy RPG with complex mechanics and an intricate control scheme. Not really breaking boundries here...

You mean a fantasy RPG with complex mechanics and an intricate control scheme that is also a AAA-title, has an in-depth sense of morality, a genuinely interesting set of characters, and does not fall back on clichéd fantasy tropes / deus ex machinas to advance the plot? Please point out even one other relevant title?

 

[Quellist]

I suspect Yahtzee might have a point with this review. With the first Witcher game i bought it, gawped at the graphics, spent a week upgrading my PC to play it well then after i got used to all the beautiful scenery i realized the game beneath it was just complex for the sake of being complex, it didn't last me much longer after that...

As a long time PC and console gamer i like an RPG that's involved but The Witcher imo was just taking the piss. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the sequel is just as bad.

Humour me, what exactly was complex? from my perspective it was a fairly medium weight hack n'slash / RPG. Sure you have potions and the alchemy to create them but thats hardly complex, and the combat could only be made more simple if the computer actually did it for you.

Where is the complexity? OK its a fairly long winded game and some bits bordered on tedium, but that, for me at least, in no way tarnished the great experience provided by the atmosphere, plot, and characters. The combat was a little lacklustre but then if you're playing RPG for the combat then you're simply playing the wrong genre.
Besides, being long winded and tedious never stopped WoW from being a big hit so I don't think we can fairly level that as a criticism of the witcher, at least not whilst letting WoW slip by unmentioned.

Longwinded, tedious and lackluster, you use those words and seriously have to question my problems with the game?

Combat was atrocious; 2 swords and 3 combat styles per sword each that have to be individually xp'd and to top it all off combat involved little more than clicking the mouse at the right time. The problem here is its not RPG combat and its not action combat but some bastard hybrid of the worst parts of both.

Beyond that nothing was utterly terrible, it just wasnt good enough, none of it fired me up enough to put aside the games flaws and enjoy it. I'm not saying i cant enjoy flawed games but this game just had too many.

Oh and i'm not a WoW player.