As other people have mentioned, the moral system is superb, far in advance of the black-and-white model of other games. And the STORY! I haven’t finished the game yet, and I have to resist the temptation to go to a spoilers page, so that I can find out where Geralt’s been for the last five years and how he lost his memory and how he survived a wound that should have killed even a witcher. I love it that there’ so MUCH story and that every interaction has at least a short cutscene — this isn’t a game where you just hack and slash; it feels like what’s going on matters.

And God, the opening cutscene took my breath away. I’ve seen movies that weren’t as well done.

I’m surprised to hear that people think that the voice acting in the English-language version is bad. There are one or two clunkers, but on the whole, I thought the voice acting was far, far above average for a game. I thought the guy who did Geralt was right on, I love the way all the dwarves sound Scottish, and I think even the random passers-by say some really interesting things. Usually the townspeople say something like “nice weather,” but I overheard a woman in the Temple Quarter tell another woman to hit her abusive husband with a frying pan — that’s sure not same-old, same-old.

I think there’s been great attention to detail in this game, and you can tell that the developers love those stories. The whole game reminds me of the way that Peter Jackson handled The Lord of The Rings movies — lovingly, and with great attention to detail.

As far as the sex goes, I’m an American who thinks that my country’s attitude towards sex is absolutely ridiculous. I guess this is what happens when the first settlers of your country are mostly religious fanatics, cranks, and other misfits. :-) I think it’s high time that sex was included as a part of life in games, and it seems completely bizarre to me that it’s okay to spray blood around and have decapitated heads lying on the ground, but showing breasts is considered offensive.

I’m a woman, and I think that having cards for each woman that Geralt beds is a bit juvenile, but it seems to me that the developers, like Geralt himself, had a bunch of unclear choices, none of which was obviously the best. Personally, I would have liked real sex scenes, but then, I have a crush on Geralt. :-) I can see why the stupid prudery of my country would have made it impossible for them to sell a game with real sex scenes here, and we’re a big enough market that it would be difficult for a game developer to forgo it. So the cards are a compromise, and while they might not be the compromise I would have chosen, compromises, by their very nature, don’t please everybody. I’m willing to cut the developers some slack on this one.

I love this game. If it’s about to get even better, I’m thrilled.

Michal Medej, please don’t take negative comments too much to heart. A lot of people like to complain, but go look at your list of awards and at your sales figures — an awful lot of people know that you’ve made something very special.

What’s good about the game is sheer story telling – a very dystopian world in which the actor – Geralt – is forced to make decisions in a hurry and with imperfect information – and where there very often are no good choices.

Yes, the sex thing is handled awkwardly. If they had been making a game just for Europe they could have handled it much more intelligently, but they had to cope with the extraordinary prudishness of American market and so we get this half-baked, trivialised mini-game. That’s a shame. And it’s one of the reasons why I think that in future we’ll see better RPGs.

But for the time being, this is the best there is; and it’s astonishingly good.

This game is easily an 8.75/10 to me, but after the enhancements and the removal of censorship and more animations, and of course, D’Jinni, it’ll be 9.5 at the very LEAST, dependant on the community and the learning curve of the toolset.

The loading times are not any more a problem for a decent PC since the patch 1.2, so let’s forget this drawback (except maybe for the unfortunates under Vista).

The sexy cards? You have them only if you search to have them, so if you don’t want to see (very very soft) sex in The Witcher, you won’t.

The Witcher is the most involving solo RPG I’ve played since a very long time, and the choices we sometime have to make in the game cause serious personal questions: what would you do in the real world in such situation? Would you save Abigail or let her burned by the population because it’s not your business? It’s the first time that racism and people’s differences oblige you to choices: are you a proud supporter of The Order (the humans), or do you, The Witcher, feel belonging to “the others” ?

For those not yet belonging the game or not convinced, wait and try the EE. I hope it will give you all the pleasure many of us (already) have with this game.

And I definitively don’t understand how it’s possible to state that the rate will stay unchanged (8/10) BEFORE anybody had a look upon the EE. You could be stunned !

Note for David: You really thinks that Carmen on the picture has giant boobs? I’m not interrested in big sizes for such items in real life, and my opinion is that these ones have just the perfect medium size.

This seems to be the case with a lot of people who played the game.

I was in the same boat. Somewhere in the middle of chapter 3 the focus started to wander, and I was on the verge of quitting. But luckily it got back on track after a little bit and the game picked up again.

If you can put in the time to get past that out-of-focus section, I think you will find that the later-part of the game makes it even more enjoyable.

I am really surprised by how much negative reaction there has been to these cards. To me it is just a fun little extra, but almost everything I read about it has been negative

BTW, I stopped in chapter 3 too (or was it chapter 4 – after you left the city again). I felt the story lost focus and I was running around another stone picking up stories aimlessly. The dialogue problems definetly didn’t help.

I am looking forward to trying the game again post EE-patch and I will probably by the EE to support the devs.

Well, at least they’re covering the ‘key’ part.

I wish they’d stop toying with us right-shoulder fetishists.

LMFAHS @ the ‘Chesty McGiantboobs’ observation.

Well, at least they’re covering the ‘key’ part.