This is another game that a good friend of mine has been encouraging me to play for some time now. And I initially bought it back in 2012 when I rebuilt my gaming PC because I heard it was a very demanding game with beautiful visuals that would push machines to their limits but this is the first time I actually played it. They were not wrong on the claim about visuals...
The Witcher 2 picks up not long after the ending of the first game with Geralt in prison being 'questioned' about his involvement in the murder of a king (hence the name). This involves some flashbacks to the events surrounding the assassination which mainly act as tutorials to get you used to the games mechanics. You are quickly exonerated and go about your merry way in finding the real assassin. Along the way you are also trying to find Geralt's lost memories as he is still missing most of his past life's memories. This involves the usual RPG like quest of visiting areas, talking to people, finding out they have problems, solving those problems for them and then eventually getting their help in solving your problems.
Most of the mechanics stay the same from the first game, but some have been changed quite significantly. Combat being the main one in that you no longer have different stances but can perform different kinds of attacks like slow, heavy, parry, block, etc. You no longer have a sword style dedicated to group combat so it makes things a lot trickier when fighting multiple enemies (which is quite often). Later in the game, you can acquire skills that will increase swing range and aid you in group combat, but for the majority of the game, rolling is your friend. Geralt must now roll around like a mother fucker to dodge blows and keep enemies strictly in front of his blade and not facing his back. I found this made the combat a lot more interesting and dynamic compared to the previous game's which did sometimes have a point and click feel to it. You can also still learn multiple offensive and defensive spells which will further aid against groups and single opponents.
- Witcher: general physical enhancements like health, speed, etc
- Magic: stronger spells to stop you dying and help others die
- Swordmanship: all kinds of sweet sword skills including group combat skills later on
- Alchemy: make better and stronger potions to enhance yourself before fights
A lot of the annoying problems of the first game have been fixed such as now being able to meditate or make potions anywhere. Sadly, this is balanced by only allowing you to consume potions when not in combat but it seems a fair trade.
And on the topic of the aforementioned visuals, well...just look at them for yourself. This game truly is a feast for the eyes with every character and vista being rendered in stunning detail making the world feel so vibrant that it could suck you right into it. One particularly interesting part for me was at one point visiting an encamped army where every soldier spoke with a Northern Irish accent. Being from Northern Ireland myself, it is not common to hear local accents in video games and has only happened one other time to my memory:
The Witcher 2 provides further adventures for Geralt in an achingly beautiful world where every problem from the first game has been tweaked and improved to make the overall experience much more smooth, polished and easy to jump into and enjoy right away. All in all, a vast improvement over an already very good game making this even better and easier to recommend. Those of you wanting to get in on the Witcher action, but not keen to play all 3 games, I'd advise that it is possible to start with this game as long as you get up to speed on the story of the first game beforehand, which this game does not do a great job of recapping sadly.
This game also does a better job of leading into the next (and final) game in the trilogy, The Wild Hunt, by small mentions here and there and hints of things to come. So by the time I was finished with this one, I was very excited and looking forward to The Wild Hunt only to find shortly after that it had been delayed until next year. Sigh. But I'm sure it's for the best in the long run and will only make this final game even more awesome than this one.
On a side-note, this is the last PC game on the backlog. Yes, there will still be plenty of PC games played in co-op and there will be future releases on PC added as and when they come out, but for now, this is the final single player PC game on the backlog. Just goes to show how close I am getting to the end of the list if there is no more PC games on it seeing as they have always been the majority platform.