The Witcher is the Planescape Torment of this Decade

The Witcher enhanced edition distracted me from programming, from writing, from eating… and among other things I don’t plan to talk about. Planescape Torment was the game that did all those things a decade ago. But to understand the Witcher, you don’t have to understand Torment, you simply have to know it as the best cRPG of the last decade. The Witcher is developed by the Polish developer – CD Projekt Red Studio, built on top of the Bioware Aurora Engine, based on the series of novels/short stories about Geralt of Rivia by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. And if I were to write an official review (which this isn’t), I would say the story is well written, with a good amount of twists that keep you well immersed and guessing even after you finish the game, the voice acting professional well-done, the English VA of the protagonist was a little dry but not enough to detract me from enjoying the work of others, especially the women (The Polish track is possibly superior, but I am not the one to judge). The women of this game are just sultry, and delectable, convincingly so, because you are given the opportunity to basically copulate with anything that walks with 2 legs and has a cunt. Did I actually say the word cunt? And by that I mean from prostitutes, temple harlots, courtesans , princesses, sorceresses, witches, elves, vampires,  to your friendly neighbor goddess (and no female dwarfs here, thank the goddesss). Copulating in this game don’t show you much, it shows you some vague generic graphics of the act and grant you a sexy tarot card. Supposedly the US version was censored but I didn’t really care, if I really wanted to see pixelated boobies… well I have already seen enough real ones.

Sadly, the console version has been canceled, which deprives me of achievement whoring (and whoring actually means 2 things here), which I may or may not care about, since I already enjoyed this piece of virtuosically told masterpiece. The combat is not without its problem, the combo system is not very fun, it’s simply Diablo, with timed clicks. The stances, are a good idea, but Heavenly Sword this is not, and by that comparison I am in no way suggesting that Heavenly Sword is a good game, it’s simply a good implementation of a good stance system on a poorly told story, and this is the reverse of that case. The combat, is a simple distraction in this game, it distracts you from everything else. And the combat in the console version, would have been much better, and if it was to have been released, I wouldn’t have the need to play GOW3 (G here stands for 80% God and 20% Gears). Other problems of the game includes a helpful quest pointer which points you to where you want to go next as long as you have the task selected, which doesn’t always work, because people have real schedules like Ultima IV, but the pointer doesn’t always point you to the person, it points you to where they shit and eat and sleep for the most time but that’s not always where they are, it is frustrating when you need to wait around for a person to come back to a location when they are not there, this is much like real life I reckon but I shouldn’t need to put up with this crap in a video game. And passing time isn’t the easiest thing, you have to meditate at a fireplace and when you are in someone’s house you have to ask for permission, which means when you are at someone’s house and try to finish a quest and the person is not there, you have to look for another place to meditate, that or you could go take a crap and come back later. You can’t keep hitting space bar like you did in Ultima IV, but at least you can wake someone when they are actually sleeping. But of all the negative nit-picking I am doing, you have to focus on one thing, people have real schedules (like Oblivion), they have real personality (unlike Oblivion). Hack, Ultima IV had that before you were born, Ultima III probably had it too but I hardly played it for it to matter. Even the early Dragon Quests had night and day, so why am I impressed by a game’s NPC schedules twenty damn years later? Because most other games are lame enough to not include it. When they remade U5 Lazarus, they had to build it into the Dungeon Siege engine. Every RPG should have this by now?

I mentioned Sex, but did I mention Vampires, did i mention sex with Vampires, and did I mention Sex with more than one Vampire (and yes, at the same time). Did I forget to put a spoiler alert, too late now. If you haven’t played this yet, chances are you won’t, so I am technically not spoiling anything; During a particular side quest, the protagonist would be tasked to look for a sister of a certain captain of the guards, who is rumored to be bewitched away by some kind of evil. She would be found at a brothel, run by the Ladies of the Night, as a courtesan who works there, and the protagonist would no doubt copulate with her to obtain her sex card. The quest can be ended in several ways resulting in a confrontation between the guards and the vampires. Prior to that you could promise to side with the vampires, and being in bed with 3 of them seals the contract, or you could fight them, and yes, did I mention Witchers are a sort of European Ninjas who kill monsters. They carry a silver sword for monsters and a regular steel sword for human, but they actually work vice versa, though not as effective. You could kill the vampires, believing that they bewitched the innocent girl, or you could have sex with them, and side with them against the humans at the confrontation, or you could sleep with them and still side with the humans, going back on your word and slaying them at the last moment, or you could kill both sides, or try all your options and reload your savegame. But this is what I really want to say about my love for gaming and a game that gives me choices, it isn’t about having sex with vampires, and yes that is glorious too and if you haven’t done so you should put that on your real-life achievement lists. But none of the above decisions is the right one and will give you a bad taste in your mouth if you take your game seriously because no matter what you do, you will take a stance and the other side will perish. Witcher is about a story which the protagonist is trying to not take sides but find that he is drawn into the fray and is forced to take a stance regardless, a simple good or evil bedtime fairy tale this is not.

But given that if I were to write a CRPG, I would take out saving and reloading, I would make death permanent, I would make it impossible to backup your save games (will format your HD when you die) and I would make your choices count, and if you have to find out what happens if you do things differently, you would just have to play the game multiple times. I would take out the class system and randomly generate your talent without telling you what it is (yes, much like real life), you will swing a sword and kill monsters for 10 years (which probably translate to 10 in-game hours) and figure out you aren’t getting as much experience points in swordplay than casting spells, you figure out you are a magic-user. Yes you have the choice of still killing your foes with steel, you will just need to spend more time mastering it, you are less efficient, much like people who insists on going to medical school while they are better at math. There you go, people will curse at my game and shun my existence but it will forever remain art and a  lesson to everyone else. People will pirate my game and I will remain broke but still a legend.

In Conclusion, just read the title, Witcher is Planescape: Torment of this decade, and if you haven’t played Torment, you need to hunt down that game right now. And well, good news,  is that fans can look forward to a sequel, Assassins of Kings IS on the horizon. The bad news is, well I already gave that to you.

Here is some footage of the console version that may never come, just to tease the heck out of you, but I hope that I will see this game on console  some time in the future regardless, because there is no reason not to.

Source: The Witcher Official Site

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