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| Geralt and other Witchers doing what they do best: slaying monsters |
| Quick Info | |
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| Reviewed by: | Mark Goninon |
| Developer: | CD Projekt Red |
| Publisher: | Atari |
| Release Date: | 9 Nov 2007 (30 Sep 2008 Enhanced) |
| Time played: | 5 hours (INCOMPLETE) |
In 2007 the gaming landscape was quite different to what it is now. The seventh generation of consoles were in full swing with the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii dominating the market. Assassin's Creed was just released and First Person Shooters like BioShock, Call of Duty 4 and Crysis were all the rage. In terms of single player CRPGs, BioWare's PC port for Jade Empire had just released and there was an expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights 2 but otherwise, it was looking pretty scarce: MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and its many competitors still had a growing subscriber count.
There was to be another CRPG released in 2007 and that was The Witcher, a game developed by Polish studio CD Projekt Red and based on a fantasy novel by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowksi. The Witcher was the first game to be developed by CD Projekt Red as they were only involved in the publishing of games during the 1990s. Development of the game was a gamble but it paid off in the end as two sequels followed, culminating in the very successful Witcher 3 in 2015. The Witcher was also a critical success with a Metascore of 81.
I played The Witcher quite a while ago, probably shortly after release and while I enjoyed the game quite a bit, I was distracted by another game before I had a chance to finish it (probably Mass Effect when it was released on PC to be honest). The Witcher 3 has often been lauded as one of the best games of all time and after being gifted a copy from my generous brother, I felt it was about time I returned to the series but I wanted to start from the beginning! I restarted playing the first game and I gave it the old college try, but I couldn't finish it, the game just would keep crashing to Desktop at a certain point and that was it. In this review, I intend to talk about what I liked and disliked in the short time I played the game along with the issues I had in getting it to work in the first place.
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| *sings* Geralt's horny! Horny, horny, horny! |
Which Witcher?
The Witcher has really blown up as a franchise: besides the original books, and three games in the main series, there are spin-offs, a board game, a card game and comic books. The books were adapted into shows for Polish TV (although the author apparently hated these) and eventually a Netflix version of the series was released in 2019 starring Henry Cavill. So, a lot of you probably already know what "The Witcher" is all about and probably even recognise the character of Geralt of Rivia, but here's a quick run-down of what the first game is about.
Geralt of Rivia, the character you play, is known as a "witcher", a type of monster hunter with superhuman resistance and slowed aging. He wakes up at a school for Witchers called Kaer Mohan but it's not long before the castle is attacked by unknown assailants. After fighting off the intruders, Geralt discovers that the ingredients and instructions to create new witchers have been stolen, and his quest is to now pursue these thieves across the continent.
As far as fantasy fare goes, it's a darker, grittier fantasy world with much inspiration from Slavic mythology. It also happens to be a very horny world since just about every woman wants to sleep with Geralt. Some of the lines are particularly corny and the game even has sexual conquest cards (noticeably absent in later games).
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| This still image doesn't do the boob physics justice |
Buggy Audio and Graphics
Audio and Graphics are a mixed bag. I vaguely recall the audio and graphics not being this bad when I first played the game, so some of the issues may be Quality of Life issues as opposed to the game just being of poor quality from the start. While the graphics were probably good enough back in the day, they do look quite primitive now and the boob physics in this game is quite ridiculous: right at the beginning of the game it seems that Triss's breasts are ready to lift off into outer space. It's almost comical.
I also experienced a lot of popping audio and static, not to mention the audio never seemed to sync with what was happening during pre-rendered cutscenes. It was rather disappointing. However, what wasn't disappointing was the soundtrack by Adam Skorupa. It's as beautiful and melancholic as I remember.
You're the Diablo in Disguise
The Witcher feels more like a hack 'n' slash RPG like Diablo although tacked on with some traditional CRPG elements including fleshed out character backstories, bushy conversation trees and crafting. The game also remembers decisions you made earlier on in the game which is to be commended: it makes the game less linear than more action-oriented RPGs. But in the end, I think the first Witcher game has more in common with Diablo than it does with Baldur's Gate.
Your skill trees are very much attuned to gaining benefits from different Witcher swordfighting styles and these fighting styles have different strengths and weaknesses. Some are better at fighting mobs of monsters while others are better at doing damage against tough boss monsters, for example. The game also encourages you to chain your attacks for a combo which will cause bonus damage. It does so by turning your cursor into a flaming sword when it's time to click and continue the chain. You're also able to use other weapons such as daggers and axes but you're unable to use the Witcher fighting styles with these weapons.
Surprisingly, there is no fast travel in this game, which means it takes a couple of minutes to travel between destinations. I am of two minds when it comes to this missing feature. In some games, ones that are immersive and reward the player for taking it slow and smelling the roses, such as open world RPGs like the Elder Scrolls games, preventing fast travel might not be a bad thing, unless you're in a rush to get someplace obviously. In general, adding fast travel respects the player's limited time and allows you to quickly travel across areas you've already explored. It's ideal for games where there is nothing to be gained by treading on old roads over and over again, when once you've cleared a certain area, there's no real reason to revisit. The Witcher is one such game that could benefit from fast travel: the scenery is rather bland and you play the game from an isometric view, meaning there's not really much to see and appreciate.
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| A lack of fast travel means a lot of backtracking |
Don't Stop Me Now
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to progress through the game due to a showstopper bug: a persistent Crash to Desktop. At first I thought it was the way I was saving the game. GOG Galaxy (also developed by CD Projekt) has a 200MB limit on cloud saves and as each save game in The Witcher takes 12MB, it doesn't take long to reach this limit. It turns out hitting "Quick Save" in the game doesn't actually save to a single "Quick Save" slot like other games but just creates a new save each time (you can see where this is going). So, this was a problem and I rectified it by deleting a whole bunch of saves and ensuring I overwrote old saves from then on.
And yet, I still experienced the CTD. No matter what I did, I couldn't get past a certain point of the game and the thought of restarting the game again in the hope it would work the second time round, was just too much for me to take.
It's a pity as the game does show promise in certain areas and would benefit in being remastered or remade. Thankfully, this appears to be exactly what game developer Fool's Theory are working on: a remake of the original Witcher game.
The game still has other flaws though. It sometimes feels like a game that's trying to be an "adult" game by throwing in lots of sex, profanity and violence for the sake of it, and while I don't mind the hack ‘n' slash mechanics it might seem too shallow for veterans of the CRPG genre.
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6
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I came across a showstopper and couldn't progress the game any further despite my best attempts. This means I can only judge the game's first few hours and while what I experienced is a decent enough hack 'n' slash RPG accompanied by a fantastic soundtrack, it's also a game that hasn't aged well with buggy audio, graphics and somehow coming across as really horny. If you really want to experience the original Witcher, you might be better off waiting for the remake to be completed as in its current state it's a challenge getting it to behave with modern operating systems and even if you do, it's in desperate need for Quality of Life updates. |
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