The Witcher (PC)

It's a place where you can feel the atmosphere from the crumbling stonework and the spacious interior as you track down various things as part of a quest in the Prologue.

Even the design of the various information screens and the GUI is a work of art, there are small pictures and illustrations scattered throughout the various pages and the whole thing takes on a sense of wonder, which is rare for me from a game, as I found myself just spending an hour looking at all of this determined to leave no stone unturned for the review. The art for the level loading is also suitably excellent and atmospheric.

The only thing that I have a slight problem with and it's a minor niggle is the inventory, there's no button to auto sort items but since you can't carry everything and the kitchen sink, it's a moot point. The developers have even included Tarot cards for certain mature scenes in the game (yes the Witcher has sex scenes moral majority, take down the flag-waving banners and put away the righteous indignation - it's tasteful and mild - children will have more access to real porn or internet based T&A than in this game). As a flag-waving rant of my own, if you're complaining that your child is playing the Witcher, you're the one who needs to actually take responsibility for your actions not the developers, shame on you for allowing a kid to look at or play an 18 rated game! No cookies for you, yes, I said cookies.

It is a point to note right now the Witcher is rated 18 for a reason, it's got foul language and it's got violence/some gore and as I said above sex. Oh noes, not the sex! Quick, hide the game from Jack Thompson. If he went as mad as he did over Hot Coffee it's thankful he never saw Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophesy) but I digress.

The graphics for the character models are again well designed, the engine has been given a boost in terms of more polys per character and Geralt is looking mean/moody/badass and definitely equipped to the nines to fight evil. There's some repetition in the NPC models (as there was in NWN/NWN2 and Oblivion) but I feel that tends to be unavoidable in a RPG most of the time. You don't want to lavish as much detail on the side characters as you do on the main, but these are decent enough and they don't look bad.

Moving on from the graphics then, animations are the next port of call. The Witcher is packed with animations for the main character, his movement, his fighting styles and it would take even more space than I've allotted myself to describe. Suffice it to say that the motion captured combat stunts used in the game are some of the most innovative moves in a RPG I've seen to date.

Especially the finishing moves (of which there are quite a few for each weapon) that Geralt uses when an opponent is knocked down or stunned.

The animation in the game is all fluid and it is top notch, the developers even paid attention to making Geralt (and anyone else he drinks with) stagger around when drunk, your vision blurs as well, as a bonus. You can fight in this state but you're at -50% combat efficiency: unless you take a particular talent of course.

To sum it up, the animation is great and everything is extremely well animated from the environment, characters, monsters and the world itself. I love thunder storms and the animation effects from them.