The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

[MechDeus]

Since I never finished this game I did the update and set out to polish off the last chapter, but man something terrible happened to the game within the last couple patches. Within 15 minutes of playing I encountered three weird glitches. The first was where esc/start stopped responding entirely, cutting me off from the menus and forcing me to use task manager to shut it down. Then enemies started spawning on top of pillars and buildings, being completely inaccessible. Finally, while playing some dice the confirm/resign button icons didn't appear in one round and thus did not allow me to proceed, again necessitating a task manager shutdown.

I think it was also a bad idea to wait so long before coming back to it, any rhythm I had going in playstyle has reset and it's glaringly obvious again how sloppy the combat is. I almost want to reinstall the first game to at least appreciate the updates they did pull off. On the bright side the improved casting of signs is very noticeable and appreciated, using them no longer feels like turn-based combat.

Everything else is still pretty great and I'm still enjoying the fairly tough decisions they force on the player. I had forgotten how much I was riding the weight limit, I really need to find one of those new storage chests to offload my crafting materials into. Or I guess I should sell them, it's not like I ever actually use alchemy anyway.

I also no longer have the huge loading pauses every time I open a menu! That's pretty great!

[Frogacuda]

You stopped in the last chapter? That chapter is like 30 minutes long.

What I played of the post-patched version the combat seemed much improved. I didn't play long enough to really comment on bugginess. I'm waiting until I have more time and maybe a new video card.

[MechDeus]

Took me a couple hours since I was inspecting everywhere and doing all the side quests, but yeah, it was almost silly short compared to the others.

Crappy dragon boss fight aside, it was pretty good. A lot of the choices at the end seem like they're just prepping for the next game but it was nice having an RPG again that actually let you talk through almost all the end fights instead of just automatic boss slaughter.

[MechDeus]

This is $24 on Steam right now and lasts until tomorrow afternoon.

[bVork]

For the next ten hours, it's $20 on GamersGate: http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-W2AOKUS...igital-premium
And it's going to be $24 on GOG.com until January 2: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/the_witcher_2

[epmode]

CD Projekt Red have been talking about the new content they're going to be releasing with the 360 version of this game: http://addicted-gamers.com/2012/01/1...anced-edition/

And now they've announced that everyone who owns the PC version of the game before April 17th will get the same upgrades for free: http://www.gog.com/en/news/the_witch...tion_announced

- New major adventures set in new locations. These consist of an underground system of chambers beneath Loc Muine and a temperate coniferous forest in the Loc Muine mountains, and a secret cave passage. These new adventures will add several hours of story-based gameplay to the game.

- New major characters to the Witcher story. One of them is Brigida Papebrock Dame. This noble woman comes from the Temerian family Papebrock and is a 30 year old lady-in-waiting of the Temerian court. The other characters are secret--for now!

- All new animations and cut scenes, including a new, three and a half minute pre-rendered cinematic depicting the assassination of King Demavend of Aedirn. BAFTA Award winner and Academy Award nominee Tomasz Baginski brings this key historical event to life, setting the stage for the story told in The Witcher 2.

GOG.com will also be adding the Witcher comic book to our list of goodies on the 17th as a free gift to everyone who owns the Witcher 2; further, there will be a new game map, game guide, manual, and soundtrack available in your free goodies on that day as well.

I love em.

[Frogacuda]

No surprises there, except that it's coming to PC first. Still, good deal.

[MechDeus]

Short interview that covers a bunch of topics:

No, Saints Row developer Volition - the next Xbox possibly preventing people from playing pre-owned games "can be a bad thing".

Those words belong to Adam Badowski, managing director of Polish Witcher 2 developer CD Projekt Red, who spoke to Eurogamer today.

"It can be a bad thing," Badowski said of the rumoured next Xbox technology.

He explained: "I assume you know we decided not to continue our beautiful journey with lawyers seeking pirates...

"We are losing money not because of pirates; we are losing money because people decided not to buy our game.

"We should invest more power to upgrade and polish our products and convince players to keep our products, to be with us, to understand our needs - because we are an independent developer, we have to prevent lay-offs, we need to grow up and have the power to create new games.

Always good to hear from a company that isn't retarded.

But on consoles, pre-owned sales out-evil piracy. "We are a little bit worried," Badowski admitted, "because this is a quite new market for us, and this is a second opening for the title. It's kind of an experiment for us."

On console, combating pre-owned/second-hand/used-game sales is the domain of online passes and monetised DLC. Adding free post-release content, as on The Witcher 2 on PC, is an ideal that would be laughed out of Microsoft HQ.

"There is a problem, because you know that Microsoft policy prevents us from giving people content for free," Badowski remarked.

"We promised to give our fans features like small DLC patches and extra content for free. It's our general policy. So we have a huge problem right here with that. We need to think about it."

I hate that aspect of MS' DLC approach so much.

"We are trying to change, a little bit, standards on every platform," Platkow-Gilewski pronounced, explaining how the standard edition of The Witcher 2 on Xbox 360 will come with much more than tends to be the industry standard: two DVDs and a printed guide, manual and a "nice big map". "It's already one of the richest SKUs you can find on the shelves, and it's still regular price," he said.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

I've only got a couple hours into this, but I really like it. Gog has the first one for $10. Worth buying and starting from there, or should I just keep going with this one. It seems I'm replaying the end of the first one already in the beginning of this one.

[epmode]

I think the first game's worth playing just for the story and setting stuff. And the best morality system ever*.


*no morality system, hooray!