Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review
Introduction
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is an RPG developed by CD Projekt RED. It carries on from the story of The Witcher, a highly successful RPG. The game was so successful that in 2008 an enhanced edition was released, updating numerous things in the game and overhauling all visuals. The Witcher 2 has been highly anticipated within the gaming community.
Plot
The plot begins with Geralt the Witcher or Rivia aiding the king of Timeria. The king is assassinated at the end of the introduction and your character is labeled as the king slayer. After your escape is aided by special forces commander Vernon Roche, and lover Triss Merrigold, you set out on your adventure to find the king-slayer, another Witcher. Numerous side quests can be encountered on the way. The game has a non-linear plot. This means the players actions will affect the game at later stages, some in small ways and others in large ways. It would take multiple play-throughs to see all the endings of the game. My only issue with the plot in this game is that the final chapter is not very long and I wanted it to be longer.
8/10
Game-play
Game-play is entertaining and active in this game. The difficulty of the game is hard, especially on harder difficulty settings, greatly testing the skills of some veteran RPG players. The player has 4 main upgrade paths to choose from as they progress through levels on the game. The player can mix and match skills from any 4 if they wish or go down 1 route to become adept in that skill path. The skill paths are Witcher Training, Swordsmanship, Alchemy and Magic. I really like how I can choose 1 path or a mixture of them, it definitely helps enhance the re-playability of the game. Fighting takes place in real-time and the player has light/strong attacks to choose from but can also form combination attacks. Enemy AI seems to be quite intelligent in this game, they usually flank the player or attempt to surround them. The player will face monsters as well as humans in this game and each require a different type of sword. As well as sword-fighting, the player is also able to use hand-to-hand combat if they have no weapons. Alchemy can be used to greatly enhance combat ability. By using meditation, players can create potions from blueprints they buy from vendors or loot in game. At the players disposal is also magic. The player has access to five spells that they can cast in combat. Some grant damage reduction bonuses, others ignite enemies in flames. A lot of the game-play also revolves around dialogue rather than combat. The player must make decisions that will affect how he will take on a quest, and what side he will choose in certain battles. Using speech options can also enable the player to gain items and information without having to do other parts of a quest. My main ache with the game-play is that some of the enemies are ridiculously hard especially at the beginning of the game. I would like to of seen the easy and medium difficulties being a lot easier than they currently are.
7/10
Graphics
As an avid fan of graphics in games I can say the graphics of the Witcher 2 are amazing. The textures are high resolution and look great in game. The effects of sword-fighting and magic are also brilliant. The game also provides lots of options to customize graphics, which I really like as it allows me to get the best mix between visuals and performance. The game provides AA and also a relatively new graphical feature, ubersampling. Ubersampling renders the scene multiple times to provide superior graphics on textures, however it requires large amounts of graphical processing power and dual card systems are recommended for this option. On the subject of performance, the game runs fairly well on most systems, unless ubersampling is enabled, I experienced over a 45fps drop from activating the setting. Here's a video below to show how great the game looks.
10/10
Miscellaneous
The game also features some other aspects that make it stand out from the crowd. The game has numerous sex scenes throughout the story, which I'm sure Soldey will enjoy. The player can also initiate a sex scene in some towns by paying for a prostitute. In addition to this, there are also gambling games for the player to take part in. One of them is required as part of a quest, but they can be activated in most major cities, or even vs some merchants.
My thoughts
I really enjoyed my play-through of the Witcher 2 over the last few days. My favourite aspect is the non-linear story. I love how there is many options for me to choose and I'll definitely be playing the game again to explore some more of them. I enjoyed how the game-play was played out except sometimes the game could get tedious when you are ambushed by lots of overpowered monsters that kill you in 3 hits and you have to reload a save from about 2 hours ago. The graphics in my opinion are the best I've seen in a game yet. The game only uses DX9 but the game still looks great with it, and in my opinion even tops the graphics of Crysis.
Overall
Overall I think The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is an excellent RPG with plenty of re-playability. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants a game that they can sit and play and get many hours of enjoyment from and then go back and do it all again differently.
8/10
