Yahtzee has so many creative one-liners that he could start a t-shirt company with his quotes on them.

the Silver sword can pull double duty killing humans, but because silver is a relatively soft metal, it has issues cutting through even the lightest of armors.

I'm guessing that is not the flesh that's the problem, but the armour and enemies blocking with their swords would aboslutely destroy a silver blade. It may be an alloy, but it would be a weaker one than whatever your enemies are using, wouldn't it?

David Del Pozo Filíu Exactly what I was going to write.

Still would be way too heavy and soft to be a viable weapon, a more sensible way to do it would be to inlay silver ornamentation on the blade.

Look up ancient weapons. They used Bronze for a long time, but it would warp easily from use, and swords couldn't actually be made very large as they would bend badly from even minor use. There's a good reason these weapons were phased out by sturdier metals. Silver is in the same camp.

+GamerGuy03 I heard that he didn't commit shoeicide on purpose, but accidentally took some cocaine that had been laced with an unknown poison. When it comes to hard drugs, it's best to tread lightly, or just step off. You can try to sneaker round, but eventually you'll get tripped up. There are some wounds that just can't be heeled.

You must heel to the hatred of puns that society harbors.

+Calvin Clark Shoe's :D

+GamerGuy03 cool story bro?

Shoe. Leave. Get out of here. This comment section is abSOLEutely clogged with puns.

***** Except that Geralt of Rivia had his strength and constitution boosted because of alchemy (as well as being chemically castrated), he didn't take them because he was naturally physically frail. Also, Elric becomes a sorcerer and has a sword that munches on soul in payment for its benefits, Geralt knows a few nifty magical tricks and has to carry a silver sword in order to kill monsters, none of which are guaranteed "nukes" in any situation. Lastly, Geralt's use of alchemy is both inherently dangerous (because they are poisons for the most part) and has to be carefully thought out; Elric has to make pacts with demons and godlings in order to survive a lot of his scrapes. For the most part, I'd say Geralt's pretty balanced for a "Polish rip off."

***** Wow. What a disgusting statement.

***** Considering I'm Canadian that doesn't make sense. Also, what do black people have to do with it? It's funny really, everyone can see that your perception of the world is warped and you are crazy. Haha, have a nice day.

***** Sad to see that you had to +1 your own comment. Also, /b/ has been dead since 2007, you can stop trying to be edgy by using a racial slur. Try to be more inventive if you want to get better at trolling.

***** Really? That is the best you can do? This is your A-game? Fail/10 bait, Try again when you don't rate your own posts and you have something coherent to say.

Maybe it was later added in the "enchanced edition" and not included in the first version.

yeah thats probably it

Nope, I have the regular ol' edition, and right clicking works for me. Perhaps he just overlooked it. Although that boss was tedious for me, I had to look online for how to beat it.

***** The boss was kind of tedious because you had to repeat the same exact steps multiple times. It wasn't really that hard though I was kind of upset when I died because I failed at one part at the QTE (when he smashes you into the pillar). I mean c'mon, just gimme lots of damage and try again... but nope, have to do the entire fight over.

Dionysus24779 No

but they told me witcher is good... thank goodness yahtzee exists.

Nieildilson Souza I think it's an amazing game. I love Yahtzee's videos for the comedy, but if you want to take his opinion as law that's your business I guess.

Neenjah Rammus no i don't, all i see is yahtzee breaking down the whole hype of any game it may has. surely his opinion is because he said once that he sucks at gaming (ie: casual), but compared to what i heard from other people's hype and what yahtzee is saying i'd give credit on yahtzee, and when playing the game i've came across things he mentioned (like the cambot)

Nieildilson Souza No game is perfect, obviously. My favorite game series is the Souls series and even that has flaws. I personally quite enjoyed the Witcher 2 despite its flaws. Though as I noted in my original comment, many of the gripes Yahtzee had with the game were resolved for the PC Enhanced Edition. Also as he said in the video he never made it past the Kraken, which even if you go around doing every side quest before it, that's only a couple hours into the game. I do generally respect his opinion, and he and TB are just about the only critics I bother listening to, but my opinion on this game differs from his. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And what's a cambot?

Neenjah Rammus what prototype 1 vídeo... anyways i'm not a fan into totalbiscuit, sure both a brits, but yahtzee is more human hating than tb. still the game is not perfect but then who is? (crysis 1 vídeo ref), dark souls was not a problem for me once i figured out that managing the stamina bar made the game incredibly easy by hit and running every time with every boss... regardless of wichever ring i had by the way.

Tristan Begin Are you seriously saying the programming is bad in TW2? The Engine is amazing, it gives you great graphics while also being well optimized and was able to run 60FPS at max settings(without supersampling, because that's basically like running the whole game in 4k) even on mid to high tier machines in 2012. I didn't see any gamebreaking glitches that could be blamed on the programming either. It really is a well made engine. As for parrying, it's basically a crutch. It works but it drains your vigour(and you can't block if you don't have any vigour bars, something most people didn't notice) and you'll still take some damage. If you learn to position better you won't have to block as much. The combat isn't like dark souls because it doesn't expect you to dodge and block every attack, it expects you to abuse the slight range advantage you have and always keep yourself from being surrounded(you have tools to deal with that, use them) while keeping the enemy where you want him.

Frikgeek First off the programming isn't just debugging and making the graphics run smooth. I was mainly referring to the invisible walls and lack of auto save when I said that, though i suppose that's just as much the designers fault. As for the combat, my point is the game does a god-awful job of teaching the player. The tutorial in 2 makes it seem as if parrying is the name of the game, and then it ends up being basically useless if there's more than one guy. It also doesn't do a good job of teaching the tools you have, mainly because the menus are so incredibly confusing. There's something in game design called information overload, where a game presents too much information to you too quickly. It's a sin in a lot of JRPG's, and it's very present in this. The game tries to introduce *everything* to you in a *optional* ten-minute tutorial. And then expects you to utilize all the tools in the overly cluttered menus in order for you to succeed (at least on normal difficulty, however another issue is that switching to easy basically makes the game so easy a monkey could beat it by banging the controller on a wall). And again, none of this is helped by the over-cluttered menus. THere's like 20 tabs of items, and you get SO many items SO quickly it's impossible to keep track of them all. A lot of people call this "Hardcore" but I call it idiotic design.

Tristan Begin Well, alright, although I still don't see any real faults with the programming. If a designer makes a bad level that a programmer has to limit with inviswalls then it's not the programmer's fault, it's the designer's. Besides, JRPG gameplay is pretty much based on figuring out how to work with the owerwhelming amount of data you're being confronted with, and that's part of the fun. Fusing your Persona just right wouldn't be as much fun in SMT/Persona games if the game didn't have a huge amount of options or if it tried to hold your hand through the process. I personally think it's not something we should exclude from Western ARPGS. As for bad menus, alright, you might have a point there. I've never had a problem with them personally but a large enough amount of people complained about them, so obviously there's something wrong there.

Frikgeek The thing about bad menus is, once you're used to them, you don't recognize that they're bad anymore. The mark of a good menu is when the player can look at it and instantly be able to intuit what all the options mean, and how he/she can get to the option they are looking for. The reason I've never been able to get into JRPG's is because of that information overload. I don't see what's fun about having to figure out what a bunch of options and things mean when those things usually aren't even needed until later in the game. Every one I tried, they would present this crapload of information on how to fight, and then for the first like 10 hours I could win just by using the same attack over and over. Then, by the time it got difficult, I couldn't remember all those things it taught me. That's called bad game design. What JRPGs should do is present those things *as they become needed*, so the player doesn't feel overwhelmed. For example, since I could win just by bashing that same attack, it should have only shown me that attack for now. And also it should become difficult much quicker and present new things every few fights until eventually you have all the options at your disposal and are able to use them all to your advantage, and that's when you get that fun of so many options to strategize with that you were talking about.

Frikgeek People want it to be a hack and slash - "just mash the attack button" game. Sorry - you actually have to concentrate playing the witcher. Which is one of the reasons I love it.

ares106 i am an exclusive pc gamer and i couldn't care less

ares106 I am an hybrid hardcore pc/console gamer and I havent played this game yet but will after completing Witcher 1 since I wanted the backstory for Witcher 3.

Twas shite mon frere

eww, dirty peasant

@@Bunster i really hope you're being ironic, Yahtzee himself noted how much he hates the whole "pc master race" thing despite coining the phrase even thought it was a joke to begin with.

@@legendmanor123456 I am

@@legendmanor123456 So Yahtzee's opinion is the law now?

Matthew Young Big souls fan myself, and enjoying witcher 3. Witcher 2's combat still felt clunky and unpleasant to actually play.

***** I feel the other way around, I like dark souls, but it feels clunky. In witcher 2 you have more ways to deal with enemies.

catazxy i felt like souls combat was tighter and more responsive, but to attacks felt repetitive and dull. in witcher 2, i always felt a slight delay in everything i did, but i could never hope to skillfully kill a dozen enemies without taking a single hit in souls like ive been able to do in witcher 2 and 3. Indeed, you get a much bigger toolset for taking on enemies in witcher games, since there's no class selection, just choosing specialization (swords, signs, or uhm...serums? there we go.)

Matthew Young I liked this game, but the combat sucked. I kept thinking why they didn't try to copy some of the console games, that have MASTERED melee combat systems. Like Souls series as you mentioned. But it's no wonder people keep praising Skyrim and Witcher 2, it's obvious they haven't played better games with actually good melee system.

because copying another game's combat system would have been cheap and unoriginal. IMHO, Souls' combat was repetitive and lacked visual flair, it was forward horizontal cuts all day, every day; the Witcher at least puts on a good visual show while you hack body parts off of your foes, Geralt shows off some sweet looking and satisfying swordplay techniques. but eh, to each their own. Agreed that Skyrim's combat is garbage, but I really enjoy the Witcher for the spectacle of taking on a swarm of enemies coming from all sides.

mature content... MY ASS!!!!

GeakGuySheldon Rape, political corruption, murder, coercion, satanic/black witchcraft, blatant racism and the ability to choose who lives and dies aren't mature enough for you? Hmm, looks like someone didn't play the game

GeakGuySheldon If Witcher 2 Ain't mature enough for you i think you are looking for PornHub mate.

***** well, he probably got the version with the playboy posters... anyways! I haven't played witcher 1 so I stopped playing witcher 2, but it is already great in my eyes, but the enemies are asshats unless i stab one then run to a doorway or something where they can't hit/bothered to go after me.

i kinda got the hang of the dodge spam, amd should be fine now!

I only disagree with Yahtzee on the Witcher games, other than that, I agree with the rest, hahahaha But if he did play the rest of the Witcher 1, he would have a totally different opinion.

***** I disagree with him on just about everything apart from Thief and Deus Ex! Oh and Portal, and Ride to hell retribution... :p

baxopoka98 Don't forget shadow of the colossus, hahahaha :P And spec ops the Line.

***** ...And Ass Creed 2, oh and painkiller... okay so I guess I agree with him on a few things!

baxopoka98 hahahaha

In this case, I think it may have been deliberate.

CaveManCobb Gerald? Did I do that right? :S

CaveManCobb By not giving a shit about a shitty game with a shitty characterless protagonist.

***** Sure, guy. Have fun with your shitty taste in games.

CaveManCobb I'm just gonna go play some Deus Ex then.

But why silver?

​@@heraldofoblivion499monsters are allergic to silver, apparently

@Steven Victor Neiman I agree that mechanically Witcher 2 is a bad game. But I still think it's worth experiencing for the writing, which is far better than Witcher 3 imo. (And it's not the same as a book or movie because choice is a key part of it.)

Well yeah, but this was before the consoles were shit. PS3 and 360 were good machines.

coughcough red ring of death coughcough

+Laugh136 cough cough literally anything else that could happen to a pc cough cough

drunkenstalin c18 Well, now we're just getting into anything that could go wrong with anything. I just immediately thought of the 360s red ring of death as one of the most notorious "something going wrong"s. Maybe I'm wrong, but whatever.

+Laugh136 i've owned 2 xbox's 360's and only experienced the red ring of death from the first xbox, once after owning it for 5 years

ivanesca It also means you will love Dark Souls, just like Yahtzee

But the first two games have almost 0 replay value, tedious combat and menus, bad hitboxes and (in my case) unresponsibe controls. But overall have great stories. But i would only play The Witcher 3.

I dunno about the 0 replay value thing, it's fun to see different outcomes from different choices

Major gaming franchises then, that makes it a bit less vague I suppose

The combat is fucking atrocious though, even compared to AC. You never know where GeralT is going to pirouette-flyjump next, never when I died during combat it felt like it was my fault, and then when i did manage the same group-encounter doing fuck-all differently and easily won it, it didn't feel like I was in control and won it through skill. It just felt arbitrarily random all the time. I do agree the story and world are well made. The combat and the randomness of encounters, making me quicksave all the time to avoid walking the same forest path for a thousand times got me annoyed though.

Personally, i prefer easy and simple combat systems like the Batman and AC series, that works well and you fail 'cause of your fault, rather than this kind of combat. But the best combat, IMO, is for the Souls series. Those games are excellent.

***** ohh cheers mate

The story gets better multiple hours in? Buddy, "it gets better later" is never a good excuse. I'm sure fucking dogs gets better once your desensitized to the terribleness of it but I don't plan to start either

"2. You can't always block because you're in the end of a running animation, and rolling is slow in real life as well." that was pretty stupid to point out... you have fire spells but can't roll properly because that's not how it's done in real life? Oooook.

ngomusicgroup It's for balancing, I bet. Rolling is already pretty broken.

" is explained in the books and/or the first game." I played the first game through to completion, which, by the way, was an unbelievable slog. I still had no goddamn idea what was going on. Also, since when is that a qualifier? How does 'all this basic stuff that we could easily establish now was explained elsewhere' make the game itself any less crap? Half an hour into the Witcher 2 I was already introduced to about five new characters with no backstories, had a dozen completely foreign terms dropped on me and was kicked into a battlefield with absolutely no context. Take a note, developers: if I have to go into the in-game glossary to understand what the hell is going on, you fail at storytelling. "You can't always block because you're in the end of a running animation," Tell that to the Arkham games. "rolling is slow in real life as well." Yes, God forbid we abandon our commitment to realism in combat where the main character is a sterile monster hunter with predator eyes, wielding a silver sword against every victorian and celtic monster that crawled out of JRR Tolkein's bunghole. "The sword for monsters is made out of silver" Take a note: most 'silver' swords in fantasy aren't made from silver: they are steel with silver plating. Don't see why there isn't that excuse here. "The interface is not complicated" I disagree. "the Witcher games are probably some of the worst games if you care little for what's going on in the world you're in" I'm in university for political philosophy. I interned for six months in this year's mayoral election in my city. This didn't help me breach the unscalable wall of boredom that the narrative throws up.

***** *... if I have to go into the in-game glossary to understand what the hell is going on, you fail at storytelling.* see *The Witcher games are probably some of the worst games if you care little for what's going on in the world you're in* Either you play the first game, you watch the movie that explains everything or you read the glossary. *I played the first game through to completion, which, by the way, was an unbelievable slog.* I played it to completion and disagree. I think that's a problem on your end. *Tell that to the Arkham games.* If you played the game you know that it doesn't happen often, and when it does it's barely a hassle. Enemies give you lot of time to block and you can always use Aard instead. If anything's a problem with TW2's combat it's rolling being overpowered. *Take a note: most 'silver' swords in fantasy aren't made from silver: they are steel with silver plating.* This is mentioned in the books as well. Geralt's "silver sword" is a rod with silver on the outside. Hitting something harder than silver with it would still make it incredibly dull. *I'm in university for political philosophy. I interned for six months in this year's mayoral election in my city.* k

so iv'e played the witcher games, and read all the books and when it comes to story telling it helps a fucking lot to have read some of the books, ecspecially if your going to play the third game. but i find it strange that people complain about the de tutorial when i hear so many people complaining about games holding their hand. why is that? Darks souls, Demon souls and Witcher 2 is one of the hardest games iv'e played when it comes to the "moderne" game genre.

***** Seems they did most everything just right to me.

***** That.. that's just a pile of nonsense :)

***** WHO?? :P I like Dark Souls AND The Witcher, I just can't understand how someone who played through and loved both Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 can be turned off by the Witcher's difficulty.

dIRECT0R It's not difficulty in combat, it's the difficulty and lunacy that is the UI and controls of the game. When the game becomes more work with an overly complex menu system that doesn't even bother to explain itself and mechanics that one would literally need to study to even understand, then what enjoyment does one get when compared to merely playing very difficult games that had very good controls and smooth gameplay.

dragonheart967 Dark Souls is massive amounts of work. Repetitive work.

The game itself is one of the best RPGs I've personally played.It doesn't treat you like a child.I guess to fully appreciate the game you need to be familiar with the universe,it assumes you've played the 1st one or have read the books,to someone who's interested in the universe it's bloody fan-fucking-tastic. Also it's one of the most beautiful games out there. And speaking of replayability,the choice you make near the end of act 1 CHANGES THE WHOLE REST OF THE GAME,it sure as hell deserves to be replayed a 2nd time,even more if you want to make different choices.

I guess to me it just got a little grindy after a while. I didn't do a lot of lore hunting or play the first one so I never really caught on to what was going on other than, "He kills kings, kill him." As for the not holding my hand part, that's one of the bits I thoroughly enjoyed, it was nice to have a bit of a challenge since the first Dark Souls. In terms of graphics, yeah the cgi cutscenes are incredible, but other than that, I'm not super impressed. It's by no means a bad game, I just don't understand the hype.

Devin Stair I will admit that the game isn't perfect,the combat could have been better and some animations aren't exactly great.But I guess from the fact that I've read almost all the books and delved deep into the lore,it just has a special place in my heart because it's this game's fault I got addicted to The Witcher,bought it on sale for 3 euros,best purchase ever.

I can completely respect that. I dove into the lore of the Dark Souls series. and because of that I fell in love with the games. I am interested to see what the Witcher 3 will be like, though.

Devin Stair It's heavily book inspired,the first 2 games are not really based on the books but it looks like the 3rd one borrows heavily.Since Ciri (the white haired girl) is arguably main character in the books.

I'm reading your comment to say this review is pretty accurate... which is hilarious because I kinda felt like he was pretty spot-on as well.

You were unworthy.

The first time I played this game was when it was free for Xbox Live Gold Members. I got bored halfway through the tutorial and played it, oh I don't know, 1 month later.

Didact13 For me it was wanting to play the story through and not enjoying the combat in 1 enough to get past the first village. That and the fetch quests.

Didact13 "elitism and jackassery" - I'm afraid you're talking about wrong fanbase here. Sounds more like Biodrones

Not enjoying things because of the fanbase is stupid, the fanbase does not represent the game itself.

Indeed they are. It's always the same refrain; "There's nothing wrong with the game, you just suck at it" and blah blah blah. It's quite amusing because this game treats the player like a complete moron by having terrible combat, obtuse sidequests and a completely convoluted storyline yet all the fanboys keep defending it as if they actually enjoy this kind of crap. Quite sad really.

Man, I don't youtube comment much, especially for a comment from 3 years ago, but: The Witcher series has it's faults - especially before 3. TW 2 was only OK from a gameplay perspective, and 1 was a goddamn slog - it had a great story, especially at the end. It doesn't really fit in with the rest of the series, and it was difficult to play through if you're used to modern gameplay design.... or good gameplay design for that matter.... but it had a really good story that helped introduce the world of Geralt and so on to the audience to set the stage for 2 and 3. Point being, 1, 2, and 3 all have pretty fantastic stories that get a lot more nuance than pretty much any other game I've played through, with the addition of presenting an interesting take on what would otherwise be a pretty bog standard fantasy setting. The main problem with all 3 games is that they have major lulls in the story, and only 3 really has actively fun combat (2 was better after the enhanced edition and 1 was just something I put up with). I myself only wadded through all 3 once I heard the hype train that 3 had earned, and even given all of the asterisks and qualifications I gave above, it was goddamn worth it - 1 has probably the best ending of the series, 2 has a lot of intrigue and nuance, not to mention it has probably the best example of responsive story telling of any game (literally 2 very different stories depending on choices you make in chapter 1 - a point which this review didn't even reach - each path still presenting a full games worth of content) I think the hate comes because it takes some dedication to see the bright points of the first two entries of The Witcher series, Yahtzee doesn't really put in that effort, and then above and beyond that barely acknowledges it. The complaint: "Hey, these games might be good, but I can't be bothered" is fine, but he doesn't make that - he pretty explicitly writes the games off as bad because he couldn't be bothered to get past the first chapter or learn the game's mechanics. Given The Witcher's notoriety as "really really good" - it seems really weird to write the whole thing off as not worth playing at all in the first 1/4 of the game based on what boils down to (as I heard the review) "a steep learning curve". This goes double since he's explicitly made the effort to see garbage games like the Black Ops series, Call of Juarez, and so on through to the end or basically the end, and considering that he's put in the effort to get through other high-difficulty-curve games like Dark Souls (not that I actively invite the assumption that if you like Dark Souls, you should like The Witcher, just that if you can get through one, you should be able to get through the other if it's your literal job). Honestly I think the hate is deserved - this is a pretty lazy review that misses a huge chunk of the game, but only barely acknowledges it and does a huge disservice to the series and anyone who might have the time or wherewithal to deal with the tsundere nature of the games, but aren't sold on it being worth the time quite just yet. Saying this as someone whose free time is very limited these days: It is 100% worth it, just only as long as you can make it to the payoff of each game, which.... well, really isn't a given, but is at least worth knowing and acknowledging.

Did u end up liking it?

BonyBack Bailey Combat's great though.

PC gamers truly have no shame in lying.

ahatt96 Your a dipshit.

Blocky Orbits Oh look a PC thief.

Yes, I am.

Blocky Orbits As I said before no shame, but now there is no shame in theft.

I did too. Although I regret it as much as I regret killing Pagan Min.

+Vernon682 you killed pagan min? m8 ur stoopid.

GloryHole Based I know. I should have just enjoyed the crab Rangoon...

+Vernon682 i haven't killed her bc i liked her way more than the 2 main women, and laughed hard when Lambert took this romantic option from me

You must've orgasmed during the third one

git gud scrub

It's really simple bro. Use the trap sign, hit him 3 or 4 times, rinse repeat. Easiest fight in the game probably.

i loved and hated that fight. i like that they made letho as strong as he was because he a witcher and you don't ever want to fight a witcher cuz they're fucking insane in combat. that aside a spent so goddamn long on that fight and eventually had to turn it to easy cuz i guess i'm just not very good. it seems theres a very specific strategy to that fight; beat the shit out of him with everything you have before he uses quen (blocking spell). don't listen to elitists, that fight was fuckin hard

MrEffusus There is a strategy. I outlined it above. Nothing elitist about it.

eh traps didnt really work for me when i tried them (and i tried a lot of shit xD) but most people found letho to be pretty hard to fight and it comes off a little elitist coming in and saying "nah it was the easiest fight ever whats wrong with you?" ya get what im saying? not trying to be dickish or anything, thats just the tone that comes from those sort of comments

at least they aren't filled with overly criticizing with insensible thought processes.

For whatever reason this series is considered the goldened standard of hardcore gaming, and it isn't. It tries very hard to be, but fails at most attempts. Best example amongst many. Like Yahtzee says it has odd names for the spells for fuck all reasons, but it has huge tells that advertise which spells to use. This means the trick is simply being able to remember the name of the spells. Not use them in a precise or skillfull manner, but they're borderline quicktime events but with an annoying interface. Also agree with him with the combat where it pits you against swarms of enemies, but doesn't have a smooth combat system to measure up to the experience.

It always bothers me when i see comments like this one because it so obviously gives me the impression that the person making the comment is not familiar with mister Croshaw whatsoever. Do you read his blog, Thomas? Have you watched any of his videos outside of Zero Punctuation? Do you read his Extra Punctuation column, where it is readily apparent that the man has a knowledge and passion for the gaming industry that is nigh unsurpassed in modern journalism? His dislike of the Witcher 2 does not belie a casual mindset, the exact opposite, in fact. Yahtzee is aware that this game is simply not good enough to receive the praise that it does. It is mediocre, and we shouldn't be happy with it, we should desire more.

Sunderfury Two things, gaming is largely subjective, if people derive a lot of enjoyment from playing a game then to them it is a good game and Witcher 2 for a lot of people is among the best RPG's they have played. Saying the Witcher is mediocre only suggest to me that you have a (in my opinion) poor taste in games. Secondly, no, unlike you I'm not a yahtzee fanboy, I like his video reviews but have little interest in reading his blog. This does not change the fact that in this review he sounds like, to me, a more casual gamer than I thought he was.

Sol x Luna For me it's the atmosphere and characters that make it an excellent RPG. The combat reblance mod (made by one of the devs on the game) made the combat a lot better in my opinion.

Thomas Rudder If people derive a lot of enjoyment from the Witcher 2 then they simply do not know any better. I'm perfectly aware that all art is subjective but even within that golden rule there are objective standards, ie, you may enjoy Manos the Hands of Fate as much as you want but there is no way in high heaven or hell that it will ever be categorised as a good movie. You say that it is the atmosphere and characters that make the Witcher good for you, yet not only is Geralt one of the worst RPG protagonists i have ever seen, he is in the midst of a world that couldn't handle its adult themes more childishly if it consciously tried. Compared to something like Planescape: Torment it is so weak on both atmosphere and characters that you shouldn't even accept it coming out fifteen years later and being called "excellent" by anyone. I'm going to bypass your little attempt at ad hominem for the sake of conversation and say that if you are only familiar with Zero Punctuation then you are not only mostly missing the point of ZP (hint, it is not simply exaggerated comedy as most people unfamiliar with Benjamin Croshaw would claim), you are also not going to be even remotely a good judge of character for him. You have merely repeated that you are not familiar with his other content, so i'm going to repeat that, being unfamiliar with his other content, your perception of his critique as casual is misinformed.

Yahtzee's made lots of games. His last two are called Poacher and The Consuming Shadow. I've played both of them and they're actually pretty fantastic little freeware titles; Yahtzee's not just blowing hot air, he actually knows a lot about effective game design.

genuinesaucy did you ever actually suvive long enough to get to the bloody ritual in consuming shadow? cause i sure didn't.

You mean those

Well some of them were part of the main quest, so yes. It also didn't help one of those stupid twists was the explanation for the main villain's motivation, and it was something that didn't make any sense if you didn't read the books these game's were based on, and they weren't even translated into English until after the game was made. I also lost interest the reasons Yahtzee listed. The main plot was boring, the main villains were straight forward bad guys in a game that brags about moral ambiguity, and the subplot with the humans vs non-humans had very little to do with the main story besides the ending to the point where I felt it seemed more like padding, and the fanservice present made the game seem all the more immature.

dragonstormx Nobody in this game is a straight forward bad guy. While I admit that it is quite complex and only unfolds once you put time into it, you have absolutely no clue what you are saying.

I read the summery of the story and about the characters. The leader of Salamandra IS a straightfoward bad guy with no redeeming qualities, but the game decides to just throw in and say he was working for the Grand Master of the Flaming Rose, which pretty well destroys the sense of ambiguity for them since it turns all out this was preparation for an Ice Age that the player would only know if it was coming if they read the books this game was based on, and they weren't even translated into English until after the game was made. I also got put off by the stuff with the witch and the lynch mob. Nearly all the evidence you have points that she's innocent, so the game tags on this idea that she was part of an evil cult, but still doesn't say if she' guilty, and you ONLY LEARN THAT if you chose to kill her. That is one of the dumbest twists I've ever seen, this stupid plot can't think of way to make things look ambiguous unless you choose to side with a lynch mob and that jerkass priest that no matter what you do snaps back to being a jerk to you even you even give the possibility of siding with the witch. That is not creating an ambiguous situation, it's tagging on twists because you feel like it,

+Joseph Munn Generally speaking yea. Personally I thought it was a bit of a bad sign that they had to add a perk labeled "Geralt no longer takes 200% damage from behind". Especially when prologue included as many 1v5 sections as it did.

dend1 Train crashed. Game was a mediocre as fuq and the graphics were frankly laughable.

TheRealJawnz Gr8 b8 m8 I r8 8/8

Luukeksi FrozenHillbillyEurotrash This meme is dank.

Reaperrz I think I'll be playing it anyways, but at least it will be with a positive bias thanks to the newest one.

''I haven't fucking clue who's Aedirn and Temeria'' My sides have left the atmosphere.

Armisael Nebuchadnezzar II There's this thing kids these days hate doing called "Reading". It's sad, really.

GO READ THE WITCHER BOOKS THEY'RE GOOD there.

MajkaSrajka Filthy casuals can't do both

Michael Goldstein Sorry, but that comment is perilously close to being just as stupid as the OP. You're just going to the opposite, yet equally ignorant, side of the spectrum.

Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect were epic. The sequels were horrible. I totally get your point. I recently played ME3 all the way to the end. I had never done that before because the game is complete trash. While ending was still playing, I had to alt-tab out and close the program and uninstall. Since then I haven't played a single video game. I hate Mass Effect 3.

This is why we need games like The Witcher 2. The Witcher 2 isn't just a game that's "mature" because it's all dark because bad things happen and tits, there's the bigotry, the actually important politics, brutal murders and acts that characters can go through. It's a game unafraid to kick you in the teeth and tell you not everything is going to turn out alright. Even if you think you made the right decision there may still be consequences. It's probably the first RPG I've ever played where I felt like a character close to Geralt could very well die and they can and do. What was the last RPG where you didn't have that feeling in the back of your mind that everything is probably going to work out in the end because it's a fantasy story? It's a game that's rough around many of its edges even in the Enhanced Edition, but this isn't a Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines here where it was an amazing RPG more than it was a shooter/etc. that was crushed by bugs and didn't do very well even if it's idea of an RPG where every character feels more like a person than a questgiving NPC, something which influenced Fallout 3.

***** I don't get how you can say Dandelion, Geralt, Triss or anyone in that game is bland.

Kenan Lindsey Really? I thought that was just general character awkwardness due to animations that you would get in any RPG.

kifsator Kane and Lynch 2 was about 4 hours long. Not finishing a 20+hr western RPG because the original version (not enhanced) had a lot of issues with it when the escapist gives him at best one week to play, review, critique, record the review, write the script for the review, edit the video, work with the animator, and whatever else I may be missing is understandable. Not only that, the ability a game has to hook you in the first hour of gameplay is extremely important to critique. That's why he loved the new XCom, it gave you reasons to stick through it. The Witcher 1&2 did not give him those reasons.

mad?

And if i actually played every fable game... can i then still hate it or should i bow down and just act like i do so that you wont seem like a jerk?

if you played every game you can hate it, that's your opinion. but you cant just go into it mid series and expect to understand everything and automatically hate it because you don't understand anything. its like hating a song just because you only heard the last 20 seconds and nothing else.

in order for a game to be good it has to stand alone at least a little, the only real thing you could get away with is story. Even then, not telling new players vital story elements is still cheating a bit. Gameplay should still be good, which witcher 2 is ok i guess. You shouldn't have to start with block A, The Dark Knight is 100% understandable and bad ass by itself, just because it's better for a fan if they watched the first one doesn't mean if you didn't they should punish you. supertboi123

Thorin Malmgren but this is more of a "hardcore game" as Yahtzee pointed out in the review. its specifically made for fans of the first. i don't think the developers were interested in attracting a new fanbase with this sequel at all, frankly. and most people who tried this game probably did because they heard the first game was good. so why not get the first? and places like steam offer package deals for super cheap sometimes (one of my buddies got both games for 5 bucks which is what got me interested in the series)

supertboi123 As somebody who started on the 2nd game recently, I quite enjoyed it and was able to follow the plot and gameplay fine

0SRaptor I bitch about whatever I want. That game was a BIG disappointment for me. Everybody does that if they really liked something and the sequel is so boring you hate yourself for buying it. I'm sure you're a fan of movies? Did you bitch about Matrix 2? I hope you did, because if not you're not human.

Vethalon Did you play "Bioshock Infinite"? Maybe if you didn't see that problem in W2, you might understand what I'm talking about. The combat was my personal turn off. I kinda liked the W1 combat once I got into it, it's all about timing and preparation, might not be the most exciting or skillfull thing ever, but it's decent enough to get me through the game. I felt like the combat was even dumbed down from that. But let's get to the Bioshock part: Again, only 4 hours in, maybe you don't even remember, but at least at the beginning the enemies come in waves. They should've made a big "ROUND 1 COMPLETE" appear on the screen after the first few wave and so on. The missions where really stupid. I remember it being worst when I had to destroy some kind of siege weapon? I never had the feeling that I was playing a game, I always felt like I'm just spamming buttons that flood the screen with all kinds of colours. That's another thing, I don't like how the game looked. I'm not the biggest guy on graphics, but a game looking like a kid's show is a big turn off. The story seemed to be a lot weaker too, but I don't know since I haven't finished it, maybe it gets better later on.

0SRaptor A mod? Now you're talking ;). One of my all time favorite games was a piece of crap without a community patch. Maybe I'll even give it another try since I really liked the witcher 1. If you don't watch movies, maybe you've bitched about awful game sequels? Dragonage 2 (although I didn't like the first one that much, but a lot of people got angry because of that), Sim City (the new one), Diablo 3 (worst thing ever compared to the great D2 right from the start, normal act 1), Silent Hill 4, Bioshock 2 (although I liked that one, a lot of people hate it), Spell Force 2 (?), the 2nd Deus Ex, Age of Empires 3, Unreal Tournament 2003, you can't tell me you were never disappointed by something in your life and let other people know it? Maybe your son?

TheKlaun9 Well, I have the same point of view as you, I played W2 expecting a real sequel to W1, turns out it was such a dissapointment I can't even remember what was the point of it all, I can perfectly remember every act of W1 and I can't remember a single shit about W2..aside from the underground fountain-pool sex scene which was dumb as shit imo.

Diego Kiefer Thank you. I'm not alone in this world!

+Jack Wilson He did. It's why the _human_ he stabbed with it looked at the sword like it had just phased through his body instead of piercing his flesh