The Witcher (PC)

All the graphics and gameplay in the world wouldn't be able to save a game if the sound design were not up to par; again the Witcher excels in this department and provides a veritable swell of special effects that are ambient, spot or related to the action being taken. The sound of steel on steel from a parry for instance marries nicely with the audio generated from the sword neatly slicing off an enemy's head or slamming through his guts.

The rumble of thunder in a storm or the swish of a nearby river is one of the things that the Aurora Engine has always been very good at. So it's nice to see that the developers made use of the feature to bring Sapkowski's world to life in an aural sense as well as a visual one.

Along with the top notch sound work there's of course the music, where the themes are nicely integrated into the whole package. The music accompanies the game's environments depending on various factors; day/night and location are all taken into account as well as action. Every piece of music from the Witcher even the menu theme is a wonderfully crafted tune that brings you deeper into the dark fantasy.

The voice work in the game varies from being fairly decent to bearable, it's by no means as bad as Two Worlds, but there are some performances that set my teeth on edge at times. The voice they used for Geralt took some getting used to but it fits quite well now and I can say that the actor manages to deliver his lines with the right kind of timing and spirit.

The dialogue in places is harsh, so beware if you do have younger eyes watching; you never know when someone will come up with a random colourful phrase in combat or even just passing by in the street. I won't repeat any of the phrases but they raised a couple of smiles I can tell you.

Sapkowski's mature dark fantasy world of the Witcher has never felt more alive than in this game, the atmosphere and attention to detail is second to none. The game's story is twisted and leads to some unexpected places where there is as they say, no good, or evil, just decisions and the resultant consequences. It's paced extremely well and the side-quests are plentiful, you might not tag them all on the first play either, so there's definitely replay value since there are also different endings depending on how you have tackled the game.

I've heard rumours that the game crashes on Vista, well, this game was tested on a fairly high end rig running XP and I've experienced no crashes and no problems at all. I've also patched and played it to the 1.1 and 1.1a patch that the developers put out on the release day. I tip my hat to them for that since it shows commitment to their game and the community that's been built up from it.

If you like PC RPGs and you're sick of the various clones in the genre, you should check out the Witcher since it takes the fantasy clichés and hits them over the head with a hammer so that J.R.R. Tolkien and David Eddings wouldn't even recognise them.

With a mix of non-linear gameplay (even though the story is fairly linear in places) you are given freedom to follow numerous quests and just explore the various locales at different times of day or night. Thanks to the excellent time-management system employed in the meditation screen you can choose to meditate till specific segments of the day and then change the time via a slider.

There's always something to do in the game and it never leaves you alone for long, you can turn a corner in Vizima and find a couple of bloodthirsty assassins are looking to hunt down a non-human mutant such as yourself. No one ever said the life of a Witcher was easy and for me, I'm glad that it's not.

This is one game that I can truly say deserves to be the best PC RPG of the year, even though 2007 is almost over, if not that then the best PC RPG period.