The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

Talarin gives his verdict on CD Projekt's second installment of the Witcher - the 'mature' roleplaying game based on the works of Andrzej Sapkowski.

Talarin's Introduction to RPGs

Role Playing Games. The phrase brings to mind slightly sweaty teenagers - desperate to escape their mundane lives with tales of sword, sorcery and rampant heroism or acts of evil(preferably with nubile, scantily clad slave girls thrown in).

If you're really aware of the genre, you might also think of badly photocopied character sheets covered with pencil marks and evidence of plenty of erasing, dice with more than six numbers and stacks of books containing everything from rules to missions (or 'quests' - dependant on your genre).

As you can probably tell - I'm more than passingly aware of this activity.

It's no surprise then that I tend to quite enjoy games built around the idea of role-playing (although I suppose you could argue that all games are built around roleplaying - but that's another article altogether) and have invested plenty of my leisure time in games such as the Elder Scrolls series, Knights of the Old Republic and the original Witcher.

The trick, I find, is making the world that the player is in believable. Sapkowski and CD Projekt managed it brilliantly in the first game. Would they be able to keep it going for the second?

The Witcher 2

I'll save you a bit of time if you're wanting a quick opinion. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is one of the best RPG's that I've ever played. In fact, I've had to re-write this paragraph more than once to eliminate all of the superlatives I had put in. It is quite simply outstanding - to the degree that you have to wonder how they'll top it with the Witcher 3.

At the same time, it's not perfect. The combat can be brutally tough (especially early in the game), and isn't helpful by a less than intuitive system. The DLC system, which was supposed to be a major part of the game, could only be described as a shambles that Konami would proud of. The third of the three chapters is incredibly short compared to the first two, and the ending... :sigh: The ending is basically nothing more than a stepping stone to Witcher 3 and, to be honest, I feel a bit robbed.

Those irritations aside, the game and it's world seem wonderfully fulfilled. Very few parts of the game seem contrived or unrealistic (or as unrealistic as a game with Dwarves and Elves can be) and it plainly has been written with an adult audience in mind.

For example, the game is not shy about nudity (you are treated to the sight of a naked character within a few clicks of the start), drugs or racism (in fact racism is a major theme of the game).