Tag: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

Return To The Witcher 2 Successful

On March 30, 2015

As always, you can click on images to view larger versions. Also, if you are considering playing The Witcher 2, I recommend the original Polish voices with subtitles. They’re just better.

After my first post chronicling my return to the Witcher 2, I imagined I’d have two more, one for each of the two remaining Chapters in the game. But after I finished Chapter 2 I just kept on going, and I’ve now finished the game. Now that I’ve seen both sides of the story, I can write my thoughts on the game as a whole.

If you’re unfamiliar with The Witcher games, you should read my posts about the first game before reading this. And, of course, you should read my earlier post discussing my thoughts on the Prologue and first Chapter of The Witcher 2.

Returning To The Witcher 2

By waltorious

On January 24, 2015

In Uncategorized

As always, you can click on images to view larger versions. Also, if you are considering playing The Witcher 2, please use the original Polish voices with English (or other appropriate language) subtitles. They are, in my humble opinion, much better than the English voices.

Over the summer, I wrote a bunch of posts about the bonus Adventures included with The Witcher. I decided to play them before for my long-delayed second playthrough of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. This was all in preparation for the imminent release of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which was originally slated for February. I thought if I played the bonus Adventures over the summer, then I’d have time to get through The Witcher 2 in the fall, and still manage a short break before The Witcher 3 came out. Silly me. Naturally I’ve only had time to get through the first third of The Witcher 2, and February is almost upon us. Fortunately (for me), the Witcher 3 has been pushed back to May, so there’s a chance I’ll actually get through it before the third installment arrives.

Readers unfamiliar with the Witcher series should read my posts about the Adventures first, as they contain copious ruminations on the first game in the series (including an introduction). Returning to the second game now, I am struck by the differences between the two, both good and bad.

You Should Play The Witcher 2

By waltorious

On April 17, 2012

In Uncategorized

Today I heard that the Enhanced Edition of The Witcher 2 was released. I fully intend to return for a second playthrough of The Witcher 2 and I’ll definitely write some posts about it when I do, but as I’ve still got a staggering amount of Skyrim to play and a rather big backlog of other games, that won’t happen for a while. But I did want to make a rare timely post and encourage everyone to play The Witcher 2, now conveniently in Enhanced form and with an Xbox 360 release to boot. It has a fascinating world, a great cast of characters and is full of tough choices with true consequences. Rather than simply leading to a few different endings (although The Witcher 2 has those), the player’s choices actually change the game itself, up to and including a choice between two vastly different second acts. Plus it’s one of the best-looking games I’ve ever seen. Along with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, The Witcher 2 was one of the highlights of 2011.

And this Enhanced Edition is no joke, greatly extending the game’s final chapter with new characters and other content, and featuring a slew of other improvements like a new lighting system. Add that to the earlier 2.0 patch which created a completely new tutorial and added an extra-hard difficulty mode with new items, and you’ve got a significantly improved game compared to the initial release, which was already great. And all of this is free to anyone who’s purchased the game.

If you need further convincing, read on for more (brief) thoughts on the game. Don’t worry, I’ll have more to say when I play it again.

The Finishing Line

By waltorious

On February 12, 2012

In Uncategorized

I’m currently playing X-COM: UFO Defense — a game I have never played before — and I wrote up a History Lessons post about it before realizing that I probably shouldn’t post it due to a conflict of interest. Sorry! I will have to come up with other posts (like this one) while I’m playing it.

Playing X-COM has further delayed my playthrough of Skyrim, but this had an unforseen advantage: last week, Bethesda released the full modding tools for Skyrim along with a high-res texture pack for the PC version, and both are free to all who purchased the game. This means that when I do play Skyrim, I will not only get some shinier graphics, but can also make use of a variety of community mods that will surely crop up now that the tools are available. And that doesn’t even take into account the various patches that Bethesda put out shortly after the game’s release. The news got me thinking about what it means for a game to be “finished”.