Polish site Polygamia.pl has leaked the first video of The Witcher 2, and it basically looks shit hot. I’ve posted it below. The video contains loads of game footage, including new world details, new conversation system, and new combat dynamics, all narrated by the company CEO. Clearly it’s a pre-announcement internal video, so best take it all with a pinch of salt. But still…
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Let’s be honest, The Witcher’s combat system is already basically a series of QTE: just timed mouse-click after timed mouse-click (with some movement thrown in, naturally). Adding this type of QTE isn’t really a QTE – it’s merely an extension of the game’s combat system into cutscenes. I have absolutely zero problems with that, and in fact I think it makes a lot of sense.
But yes, thank god that voice-acting is placeholder.
The Americans and Accents thing is odd. I’m very English indeed, but anywhere in the US that isn’t a great big city, people seem to think I’m from mainland-European. I call this peculiar.
Might have something to do with being raised and living in a linguistically very uniform society. Most mainland Europeans are exposed on a regular basis to other languages and accents, giving them a little more ‘wiggle room’ (that and the fact that they usually know one or two other languages apart from their own). Recognition and production of sounds is formed in early childhood and is one of the less adaptive areas of brain development – cfr. Japanese toddlers being able to differentiate between our ‘l’ and ‘r’ sounds but quite uncapable a few years later.
As for the Brits…they are regularly exposed to American media, shows and films. Other way around, not so much.
…which reminds me, I once dated a girl named Claudine, whose parents wrote CRawdine on her birth certificate.
And the oddities of language claims another victim.
…which reminds me, I once dated a girl named Claudine, whose parents wrote CRaudine on her birth certificate.
And the oddities of language claims another victim.
If that’s an alpha then I’m a Quantum Physicist. If Oblivion banged Fable 2 and then their baby went emo, that looks good.
Ahahaha, nice analogy!
I do like this, in a kind of “It looks similar but much more spruced up way.” Seemingly a lot of the additions to the game are superficial, with more visceral feedback when it comes to Havok (isn’t that looking impressive these days!), and those day and night cycles… yum.
I just hope the story is more true to The Last Wish than the first game was. I can’t say that I really wanted to investigate cults as Geralt – I wanted huge beasties to be hired to slay.
So, new features:
- Dialogue with different camera angles! They’ve finally caught up with Deus Ex!
- NPCs with independent schedules! Cause that worked so well in Oblivion.
- Force Push!
- Bosses with snarky dialogue QTEs!
Add this to the features from the first game:
- Incoherent conversations
- A plot pocked with craters
- Genuine, outright sexism (Honestly? The cards were the least sexist part.)
- Horrifically obtuse and time-wasting interface (I remember you had to make up to seven separate clicks just to get the boatman to take you to the swamps)
People give the first game far too much slack. It sounded promising I’ll grant, but in practice it’s literally painful to play. The video pretty much indicates that CDProjeckqt are happy enough with the megasales of the first game that the second will just be the same plus a bunch of gimmicks.
Angry man needs hug?
actually ‘force push’ existed in the first game
I find that JRPGs have more neat camera cuts compared to western counterparts. But usually they do scripted events feel more “tighter”. (though some may say JRPGs are themselves giant scripted events). See Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Mass Effects, they all at some point break into quite abrupt and unnatural scripted events.
I disagree I had a lot of fun playing The Witcher
Well I’d rather have my ten pounds and several evenings back, but make with the hugs if you think it might help.
Most excellent news. I rank The Witcher: EE as one of the best RPGs in years, so I’m salivating for a sequel.
Great news, The Witcher was another euro diamond in the rough, best game since STALKER.
im only going to say one thing : this looks sooooooooooooooooooooo much bettter than Dragon Age
Different types of RPG, its like comparing Football manager with FIFA manager (for the Europeans amongst us), one is all consuming, the other is for those that dont know any better :)
@Kem0sabe: you are kidding right ? they couldnt be more similar
characters are similar
the setting is extremely similar (dark and gritty, wars between races, etc)
the story is similar (you are a member of an ancient group of monster slayers out to save the X, come on!)
the engines are similar
even the melee combat animations look kind of similar
the only “real” difference is that in witcher you play 1 dude and in dragon age you play a party
I’m too pumped up to think about anything negative to say at this stage. AWESOME
i don’T know why the witcher 1 was rated so good! i played it and thought it was absolutely no fun at all! plus i thought the graphics weren’t as nice as anyone was telling me n i don’t see any sweeter animations or graphics in the new witcher! plus i think that new weather siystem must be a joke! the one from far cry 2 n other games looks way way better!
You are trolling I hope?
i have difficulty taking people seriously when they use ! to end every sentence. Plus, you’d be surprised how far proper spelling and grammer can take you in regards to respectability.
It is amazing how far correct spelling and grammar can take you these days.
(I hope this posts in the right place, otherwise I’m going to look a bit silly)
Yes, but where is Marilyn Manson, a gallon of mature blood and some awkward secks?
Did that guy just say he was going to miss those barrels? *titter*
Still, always good to have player actions recognised by NPCs in a ‘living world’ setting.
As long as I can play this one in Polish with subtitles like I did for the first game I will be happy. The police voice acting was great and I even picked up some basic is probably dangerous phrases “Lets take this to the other room” :)
I meant “Polish voice acting” rather than “police voice acting”….
Awww, you made me believe there was a voice work done by Sting, Copeland and Summers :P
Did he just say… QUICK TIME EVENTS ?!??!?!?!!??!?
/rage on
Rage on indeed. While I agree that the clickity click sword combos are essentially short-form quick time events, they still allowed you to position your self and your enemy, and were not obtrusive into the game play. You could ignore them completely or follow through.
Having a mouse appear on your GUI with “PRESS NOW” then cutting to a new cinematic view where you lose control is WAY over the top, and should be removed IMMEDIATELY. GRRR RAGE RAGE ROAR.
Two things -
1) quicktime events – NOOOOOOOO!!!
2) I really hope that Geralt voice was a placeholder. The original voice actor was awesome.
*wants*
will need a new pc though sadly
Crap, now I REALLY need to get around to playing through that copy of the first one I bought. Where does the time go?
Anyway, looks fantastic, and considering the loving support the first one got from CD Projekt I find it hard to believe they’d put out a bad sequel.
Definitely worth playing, at least a little bit. I didn’t finish it (still hoping too one day) but I found the combat and leveling elements quite satisfying, the world grittier than typical fantasy trope fare, and the alchemy system better implemented (and more important) than in Oblivion.
Well, Oblivion (like all Beth games) is about freedom, The Witcher is fairly clearly about story (though I gather there’s some cool branching, which is nice). I’m a total open world whore, so The Witcher is a bit outside my usual zone of interest, but from the little I’ve played it’s certainly enjoyable and well done.
I just need to find time to really play the thing.
Important peroid. You could beat Oblivion without a single potion ( I couldn’t beat the freaking Hell Hound without using grateous amounts of potions in Witch )
Well, obviously. There’s an option in Oblivion not to even take the alchemy still in character construction. You can ignore the whole system and focus your energies on other things. Again, Bethsoft games are about freedom, they’re not going to tell you how to play the game. I’m not sure that “not important” is the same as “not forced to use” but whatever works for you I suppose.
I would say not useful. For the amount of work you have to put into making potions you get very little back even when at master level and using the best equipment. The strongest poisons I could make were totally useless I could just kil the monster with my weapon in the time it took to kil it and the debuffs ect made no noticeable change since most of the monsters are so easy already.
I think the big difference is the power of the potions. In witcher they are a LOT more powerful and last a lot longer. The same potions in Oblivion would not have worked though , it was already so easy giving you that much power would have made it a joke :P So I like Oblivion’s potions ect the way they are but I like Witchers a lot better.
Are potions in Obliv that different from potions in Morrowind? Because that certainly wasn’t true in Morrowind. I haven’t played through Oblivion with an alchemist yet (I’m waiting on a 1.0 version of FCOM, possibly in vain), so I can’t make a first hand comparison.
That does like quite nice, although I was one of those that wasn’t really enthralled with the game. I thought it was good, but not quite like everyone else. There were definitely things in the game, such as the blatant misogyny that were rather off-putting to me, however, that’s a more personal taste and doesn’t speak to the quality of the game itself. I’m under the impression, from that little “princess” moment, that there will be some more of that, but I’ll wait for a final verdict to see how things go.
The first game had some lovely 2D painted skies. I hope, hope, hope they don’t screw it up with a their new more ‘advanced’ day cycle tech. Most games that have tried that have ended up with boring same-y looking skies.
The 2D art was, in general, quite good (some weak spot here and there). The opening menu screen is one of my favorites from any game ever, it set the mood perfectly. It’s part of the reason I didn’t mind the cards much, more modern games need to give props to good 2D art.
agreed. in general, i loved the landscapes and skies of the original. the loading screen conceptual-art paintings were also fantastic and actually made me less angry about how much time i was spending watching them.
A quick example of some nice painted clouds.
Watching that video makes me exited for it to be released. it looks amazing.
Okay the Witcher didn’t have the best combat system, but I think some people are complaining about it a bit much. The physical act of performing the combat in Witcher wasn’t very exciting (click… wait… click… wait), but then again you can say that about most RPGs. RPG combat is generally more tactical in nature, and this is mostly true in Witcher, especially for the more difficult fights. The tactics in Witcher come from selecting your weapon/stance, and deciding when to use spells and potions.
That being said, anything they can do to make the combat more engaging would definitely benefit the sequel.
The Witcher is an awesome game.
Why does RPS attract so many angry nerds? Or are they all that way?
We’re all nerds, diffrent things make us angry just like normal people :P
/\ So true.
Hahaha, that looks hilariously wrong and completely awesome.
I am SOOOOO getting this.
please fix Geralt’s hair
This one likes the look of the new witcher, this one would really like to try it out in the very near future.
I really really hope that’s not his final voice. I do like everything other than that.
@JKjoker: they do look pretty different to me, as well, actually. They’re both RPGs with character development, so long-term strategy in character builds is important to both of them. They’re both fantasy settings, so yes, the setting is similar. But there the similarity ends.
Basically, I wouldn’t underrate the importance of the distinction between a party-based game and a single-character game. With a party, you have tactical combat. With a single-character game, it’s more action-oriented (though it’s very simplistic, calling it a series of QTEs, as someone above did, seems unkind to me; I’d compare it more to the GTA games).
Now, normally I’d be much more interested in the tactical (party-based) game than the single-character game (I do long for a successor to Baldur’s Gate!). BUT the material I’ve seen for Dragon Age so far — the characters, the plot elements, the visual style — is all so bland and immature that, while I am eagerly looking forward to The Witcher 2, I’m not even considering buying Dragon Age, unless the reviews suggest that I’ve misjudged it completely.
Now, looking at this video, there are certainly things I’d hope to see change between now and release, even bearing in mind that it’s an alpha. The character animations are basically unchanged from the first game, and still look decidedly wooden — the seduction scene shown is only a slight improvement on the ludicrous Dragon Age one. It’d be nice if they could make combat less repetitive than it was in the first game (and maybe reduce the quantity?). And, obviously, there’s the voices (shudder).
So, I’ll agree with you that this looks much more interesting than Dragon Age. But the differences are more important to me than the similarities!
@Petrushka: uh, “Tactical Combat” you say … did you forget Dragon Age is a game made for consoles ? it will have as much tactical combat as Mass Effect or Kotor, the only difference is that you have “extra” lives to use once your main char kicks the bucket (if the AI doesnt get your other chars killed first)
even if you are thinking about Baldur’s gate combat, it wasnt that tactical, it was better than newer consolized rpgs but the realtime crap (and the high levels in bg2) pretty much killed any strategy other than sending your tanks while you nuke the enemies with your mages with the slight variation of being forced to debuff them every once in a while
if you want “real” tactical combat look at Temple Of Elemental Evil, now THAT was combat, too bad Troika/Atari screwed up everything else
Pro-Tip: Disable audio, and turn on sub-titles. Trust me.
Sub titles yes, disabled audio no. Just leave it in Polish, that voice acting isn’t bad at all.
So apparently, when you catch a mistake in your own comment, by the time you hit the “stop the internet X-button” it’s too late. Wish I’d known this before I double-posted a comment with a one-letter difference.
Awesome, I can’t wait to be stuck with the heavily censored American version of this game!
Also, come on… “internal only — confidential”.
That’s why they’re introducing each person involved that someone in the company would already know? And that it has decent production value? Could this possibly be any more of an OBVIOUS fake “leak”?
While the censorship was annoying:
1) You could always import the uncensored UK version
2) Shortly after release there was a mod that restored the cut content
3) Fairly recently the devs released a directors cut patch that removes all the censorship
And finally, my guess is Witcher 2 won’t have the kind of censorship Witcher 1 did, because I doubt they’ll use Atari again now that they have their own publishing presence.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings – official FAQ
http://www.gry-online.pl/S018.asp?id=547
http://www.freedom-gamers.com
They still need to fix Geralt’s frickin hair, it was buggin me the whole time, watching his hair clip through his armor. Still looks pretty good though.