The Witcher II!
See:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/thewitcher2/news.html?sid=6254071&tag=topslot;thumb;1&mode=previewshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JciyoGmnGyo
The Witcher is a role playing game that puts you in the leather boots of one Geralt. Geralt has a few problems:
- He lost his memory
- Everyone hates him
- His way of living is being threatened by various forces
- His friends are in trouble
Luckily, Geralt also has a few good things going for him:
- Every woman wants to fuck him
- He can decapitate bitches like it's no one's business
- He can set bitches on fire
- He can diss bitches
- His friends have roughly similar skills.
Here is he posing:
Geralt is a witcher, a special sort of being that has been enhanced by all sorts of magic and SCIENCE to be the ultimate monster slayer. His job description states that he is supposed to protect humanity. However, humanity is a bunch of murderous assholes. As with most RPGs you get kicked into this world, have to make moral decisions and gain levels.
What makes this game special is that its moral decisions are - on average - horrible moral dilemmas. You have to make your decisions based on limited information and that often leads to a realization somewhere down the line that you helped torch down an orphanage. Also: there is no clear good/evil scenario, just like real life, there's all sorts of shades of grey.
Combat is more fun than your average RPG: instead of *click* *watch your guy kill other guy* *click* you'll have to time your attacks, pull off combos and switch between fighting styles. To make this easier you can pause the game at any time.
The Witcher is a great game, critics loved it, fans love it and most importantly: the developer, CD Projekt Red, loves the game and its fans. The original version of the game had its problems, so the developer decided to release a huge extended edition and gave it away for free. It contained tons of new dialogue, various bug fixes, slight changes to make the story flow better and the complete soundtrack and a 'music inspired by...' all packed together in one huge patch.
As if this is not enough, they have now also released a new big patch, years after the game went live, to further upgrade their game. They have even removed the DRM on this, because they figured it's pretty damned useless by now. The industry can learn from these guys.
Note to our American friends: the original game was censored to get through the biblehumping/prude/retarded rating systems you folks have in place. However, with this latest version they decided to do away with all the censorship and release the game in all it's soft-porn, profanity spewing, gore-y goodness onto the American countryside.
Note to our console-playing friends: at first there were plans to release a refurbished version of this game to PS3 and Xbox, but the company that was supposed to make this happen cocked some things up and the financial crisis didn't help either, so it got tossed into the freezer indefinitely.
Links to patches. To install you need to register your game on their website:
Finding 1.4 is as easy as going to
this page. (this is the version you have when you buy the Enhanced Edition)
Then you go to
this page and download 1.5. (this is the version you have when you buy the Director's Cut)
Then, for the boobies, you go to
this page.
Alternatively:
Fileplanet has all patches available as well.
Enough dwarfshit, screenshots and videos:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/40361.htmlhttp://www.gametrailers.com/player/39962.html
Posts
I started running into some technically problems in Act 4 and just never soildered through the rest of it.
I've augmented my rig and updated everything in it, time to d/l the 1.5 patch and get my killing and shagging on.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
I've been waiting patiently..for sooooo long..
man...Disappointment
Wtf do want.
Yep, if you have a legit registered copy, simply go to the official website and get update 1.4 + a language pack.
From there you can upgrade to 1.5 and add in the extra adventures they have as well.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
*e: oh ok added that in right away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWD4c2RsdMY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCk7wpk5Fys&feature=related
(Very nice otherwise)
Oh, and I bought the EE just because of all the nifty bonus stuff. Still a wonderful game, I'll get back to it when I finish my replay of Bloodlines.
I'm at Chapter 3.
I should look into reading the novels, as the short story included with the EE is quite good. You should read it if you're curious about what's going on in the opening video.
I understand if they did since most people favored one choice, and it was a relatively minor choice. But did they change any other choices later in the game?
Great game, great characters, great story.
@grrarg
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
I did that ending on my last playthrough.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
But this is a game worth getting a nice PC for.
I don't have a great PC, but I meet all the recommended specs, and games like Fallout 3 run very well, even on high-ish settings. Looking forward to it.
Edit: However, with the new patch that removes the censorship, I may just give it another go.
I love it already. Great characters and atmosphere.
In one awesome word, Yes.
Be prepared to wait a bit on downloading, unless you have a smoking fast connection. IIRC the 1.4 patch + a language pack is 1.4 gigs.
The 2 extra adventures (Price of Neutrality and something else) are about 300 megs a piece, and then the 1.5 patch (removes DRM, puts all the lovely blood and titties back in, also improves load times again and adds 5 more community written adventures) is another 300-400 megs.
All told, you're looking at around 2.5 gigs of patch goodness (tack on another 2 gigs if you download the bonus DVD content), but they are very much worth it.
Also, the patch up to Extended Edition (1.4) can tak a long ass time to install (about 40 minutes on my rig and that's with a 2.8GHz dual core, 4 gigs of RAM, and a 7200rpm HDD).
I've played back up to the start of Act 1 today and it runs like butter now, plus I got a new Triss card.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
I didn't have to, of course I bought mine way back in 2007 when it first came out.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Technically you could do it before by downloading files from another source, but now it's officially patched back in (something that required getting re-rated by the ESRB).
Actually the soundtrack is also available online. As is the map, manual and game guide. All that stuff's just a digital download instead of a physical copy. Not sure whether the "making of" DVD stuff is available as well.
The first chapter of the novel they couldn't put online for publisher reasons (likely because that'd be making it available in territories it wasn't already).
Word of warning though, I just went to the site now and tried to download the 1.4 patch and addon stuff, I'm just getting a blank page. I'm guessing the server's just getting hammered or something, but I can't say for certain. Could also be because I'm not logged into the site, so who knows.
Steam version already got 1.5, but didn't get the boobies yet. Soon.
They missed the milestone deadlines and didn't meet the quality guidelines, Project Red stopped paying them, deal was off.
Project for now is frozen, development continues on Witcher 2 (I believe an expansion project was in the works at first but got merged with The Witcher 2 project because of financial difficulties).
It's possible they do something with White Wolf in the future with a new partner, for now they aren't expanding yet. Had to cut a few jobs a while back thanks to mentioned financial difficulties.
By the way, that demo is also old, made when the game ran like ass. CD Projekt optimized performance considerably in the various patches.
Incidentally, is there any way to patch out inventory limits? Because I just found that annoying after a while.
Understatement of the year. What a pain in the ass. I can't believe they don't have a better system. Their website is terrible as far as support goes. The first thing it tells you to is upgrade to 1.5, well you can't do that unless you're at 1.4 already, and finding 1.4 is annoying when you are dealing with a Polish website. This is 2009, I shouldn't have to download 3 different things just to patch the damn game. The game has a "check for updates" button, but all it does is take you to their website.