I think I've got a handle on the game's plot. It looks like there's a war brewing between a group of "freedom fighters" seeking the liberation of non-humans from racist human oppression and a knightly order who appears to protect both the innocent from monsters and the status quo from any sort of reform. The various quest-givers I've encountered have been trying to influence me to give aid to their preferred faction in order to manipulate the outcome of this war. I'm not sure how the Salamanders fit in with all this, but they have powerful friends, so I'm guessing that their raid on the witchers' alchemical supplies was no mere coincidence. One way or another, my mission of vengeance is going to dovetail with the war, and my choices will decide the fate of nations.
The only problem here is that I really don't want to. Both of the factions have managed to annoy me. The freedom fighters have a righteous cause, but it seems like every time I encounter them, they're threatening either me or the innocent. The knights are led by a guy, Siegfried who has always treated me with respect and seems personally honorable, but the organization itself is an obstinate and unshakeable defender of a corrupt and unjust society. The idealistic, modern part of me says that the solution to this problem is obvious - the kingdom must unilaterally begin to treat the non-humans with equality and dignity while still making clear that terrorism will not be tolerated, allowing the knights to protect the common folk while eliminating the iniquity that plagues their realm.
Unfortunately, Geralt is not a diplomat. He's just a humble monster-slayer whose only skills are alchemy and swordplay. With him as my avatar, I am helpless to turn the tide of history, and am crushed beneath these titanic political forces I couldn't possibly influence and only barely understand. Just like in real life. It's depressing. When I speak with an elf terrorist in the midst of a botched bank robbery, he tells me I must pick a side. What I really want to do is appeal to his fundamental decency and compassion and urge him to consider releasing the hostages in exchange for me brokering a deal that would allow him to escape. That's what would have happened in Fallout or Mass Effect, but here, it's not an option.
Perhaps the standard "you can find a third option" narrative is a bit naive. While I am very much against stark "you're either with us or against us" ideology in the real world, even I have to recognize that forging consensus and building bridges between antagonistic groups takes more than simply picking the right option from a dialogue menu. It is a painstaking and time-consuming endeavor that requires a lot of trust and faith and tolerance for the inevitable setbacks that will occur as people with a lot of built-up animosity learn, fitfully, to coexist. So the idea that some golden-tongued savior can just swoop in and fast-talk their way through problems that have endured for centuries is pure fantasy. On the other hand, so is the super-human killing machine who can take on whole armies without backup or support. If a game is going to be a power fantasy anyway, a fantasy of soft power isn't inherently more ridiculous than a fantasy of brute force.
I will grant, though, that others have a bleaker view of the world than myself. That it is easy to envision new types of force that will play out the same old, blood-soaked political dance that has so long been the curse of humankind. Perhaps peace requires a change to our very nature, or at the very least that more people than just one, lone hero be invested in achieving it. A thoughtful game could explore that very idea. That there might be an individual who is possessed of a phenomenal physical power, and yet is helpless to move the machinery of history, because their personal strength does not extend to hearts and minds.
However, The Witcher is not that game. It all comes back to the damned sex trading cards. Those are the most articulate examples of the game's thesis regarding the nature of power. Which is to say, power is awesome. You get to swing swords, and get drunk, and see boobies. And yeah, things are "dark and gritty," but it's the fun, shallow kind of dark and gritty were you're free to act with total irresponsibility (OMG - I just realized that the witchers' sterility and immunity to disease are not at all coincidental) because nothing will ever get better, so you don't have to worry about the hard work and compromise you could be doing, since those things will just lead to you getting screwed over by some other asshole who knows the real score.
What I really want is a ray of light. Some slim hope that my Geralt can be on the side of justice and peace, and not merely a sword in the dark. I don't think one is forthcoming, though. The question I have to ask myself is - is it worth it to stick with the game just for a bit of hope? Maybe, in other circumstances, I would. There was I time when I didn't have so many options, so I always took pains to get the absolute maximum out of any game. I may well have played The Witcher multiple times to see all the paths and explore as many sidequests and "romances" as possible. Now, I have more than a hundred games in my Steam library, with roughly ninety that I still need to play for the blog. The opportunity cost of continuing is just too high.
My final opinion of The Witcher is that it's adequate. It has some problems with its story, world-building, characters, and treatment of women (I understand it's based on some novels, and I'd be curious to know whether the problems are in the source material or were introduced due to the natural friction that comes with adaptation), but the core game was technically competent, with comfortable, if not especially compelling, mechanics and an well-put-together structure that does a fine job in managing the player's attention (or, at least, this player's attention) and keeping them interested. It won't go down as one of my favorite games, but on the balance I enjoyed it, and would not hesitate to recommend it to someone with a greater tolerance for its relentlessly dark and intermittently juvenile sensibilities.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition - 16/20 hours
This game has a lot of fill. I really shouldn't complain, because what is life if not a series of filler quests between notable events (what, I've got to go to the store to retrieve a list of items and bring them back home - jeez, how many more of these fetch quests do I have to do before I can advance the plot already)? Still, it comes to be a flaw when the significant information becomes so spread out in time and so buried in minor incident that you forget about it by the time it becomes relevant. For example, I just recently learned that Geralt has iron-clad proof that Raymond the detective, who was helping to uncover the location and activities of the Salamandra gang, had actually been killed and replaced by the leader of the gang. I know this because Geralt said as much to an npc, but for the life of me, I couldn't tell you what that proof actually is (I just looked it up on the wiki, and apparently you find the real Raymond's body, which I either completely overlooked or somehow the game glitched and triggered the dialogue anyway).
I think what I'm supposed to be doing is chasing the threads of a complex plot that can't be boiled down to simple summaries or easy answers. The game advertised itself by saying "NO GOOD AND NO EVIL - ONLY CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES" and presumably that means that The Witcher is attempting to create an ethically murky world where the line between right and wrong is not easy to discern. However, most of the time I feel less like I'm being presented with serious moral dilemmas and more like I simply don't have enough information to make a confident decision. And perhaps that, too, is realistic. How often in life do we fail to have the whole story? How often are we confronted by lies and self-serving mythology? Yet, to the degree that it is realistic, it emulates one of the worst facets of life. However ideologically dubious it might be, I like it when video games present me with a clear moral path. In some ways, it is better to play as an outright villain than to have to navigate through a story that casts you as a conflicted antihero (which is not to say that I don't like stories with conflicted antiheros, but when I'm presented with a choice, that's generally a path I avoid, with the caveat that in video game morality, slaughtering ordinary work-a-day mercenaries, gangsters, and goblins does not really count as a cause for ethical conflict).
I may be overthinking this, though. Geralt is really just a monster hunter. Traipsing through a swamp, killing random ghouls and plant monsters, that's where he's at his best. This whole thing with Salamandra is really just a distraction from his main business, so perhaps instead of viewing the sidequests as filler that distracts from the main plot, it is in fact the main plot that is superfluous. All this time I spend getting confused by the machinations of the various factions in Vizima's underworld is really time that I could better spend slaying cockatrices and hunting vampires. In which case, I'd better get it over with as soon as possible.
I think what I'm supposed to be doing is chasing the threads of a complex plot that can't be boiled down to simple summaries or easy answers. The game advertised itself by saying "NO GOOD AND NO EVIL - ONLY CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES" and presumably that means that The Witcher is attempting to create an ethically murky world where the line between right and wrong is not easy to discern. However, most of the time I feel less like I'm being presented with serious moral dilemmas and more like I simply don't have enough information to make a confident decision. And perhaps that, too, is realistic. How often in life do we fail to have the whole story? How often are we confronted by lies and self-serving mythology? Yet, to the degree that it is realistic, it emulates one of the worst facets of life. However ideologically dubious it might be, I like it when video games present me with a clear moral path. In some ways, it is better to play as an outright villain than to have to navigate through a story that casts you as a conflicted antihero (which is not to say that I don't like stories with conflicted antiheros, but when I'm presented with a choice, that's generally a path I avoid, with the caveat that in video game morality, slaughtering ordinary work-a-day mercenaries, gangsters, and goblins does not really count as a cause for ethical conflict).
I may be overthinking this, though. Geralt is really just a monster hunter. Traipsing through a swamp, killing random ghouls and plant monsters, that's where he's at his best. This whole thing with Salamandra is really just a distraction from his main business, so perhaps instead of viewing the sidequests as filler that distracts from the main plot, it is in fact the main plot that is superfluous. All this time I spend getting confused by the machinations of the various factions in Vizima's underworld is really time that I could better spend slaying cockatrices and hunting vampires. In which case, I'd better get it over with as soon as possible.
Monday, April 6, 2015
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition - 10/20 hours
How do you draw the line between sexism and depictions of sexism? I ask this, because over the last five hours, I managed to save a witch from being burned at the stake, and witnessed, as a consequence, some really horrific sexism. And I'm not talking about the overly-sensitive, politically correct version of sexism, where maybe the people who perpetrated it are actually just a little misguided, but seriously old-school violent misogyny, with the whole "women are the spawn of the devil who tempt men into evil with their wicked lusts" spiel.
And I'm not sure how I should react to that. The game doesn't endorse that view. It comes from the perspective of some dipshit villagers that I eventually wind up fighting, so it's obviously not meant to be a credible source. On the other hand, the game also does not make much of an effort to critique the villagers' sexism, and that can send the message that it is not their hateful misogyny, but the fact that they attack the player that makes them the enemy.
For example, during the whole witch-trial thing, the sins of the various men around town are revealed, and one of them, Mikul the gate guard, is a rapist. However, he's not present at the brawl. You don't see him again until after you defeat the Beast and are ready to move to the next area. He shows some small bit of contrition, but after literally one second the whole matter is dropped and never mentioned again. The rape of Ilsa is treated as unarguably a bad thing, but apparently not so bad that anyone has to do anything about it (maybe that's why she committed suicide).
If I were inclined to defend the game, I'd say that the sexist attitudes and injustice are a trait of the fictional society that makes up the setting, but that's not actually an argument that has a lot of traction with me. The question that leaps to mind is "why this society?" "Why these attitudes?" And the only answer that seems to make any sense is that the world of The Witcher is meant to be a grimy and unpleasant place, and the mistreatment of women is meant to act as a kind of shorthand to convey that. It all feels very exploitative.
Like, if you were setting a game in Earth's past, you'd have an excuse. You're just telling it like it was. Women did not have a very easy time through much of history, so changing things to make them more comfortable to a modern audience is to make your game at least somewhat fantastical. Similarly, if you were making a game about fighting for justice for women, then you'd also have reason to do this sort of thing. If you're going to have awesome feminist avengers, you're going to need some gender-based iniquities for them to rail against.
The Witcher, however, is neither of those things. It is a game about fighting ghosts and assassins, and violence against women is a mere backdrop. What's more, you can't divorce it from the context of its sex minigame. I'm not inclined, by temperament, to take an especially hard line against the game's sexy trading cards. They're cheesy as hell, and literally objectifying, but they are so incredibly stupid an idea that they possess a certain camp charm. And if I were in a generous mood, I'd say that there is an intersection between campiness and sentimentality that makes it almost sweet for a player to collect a tangible memento of the video game ladies he has once loved (full disclosure - I'm almost certainly saying this because I myself possess both those qualities in abundance).
Yet the way those cheesy card are acquired dovetails with the game's setting is unnerving. I've so far seen three of the sex scenes, and with the exception of the very first one (which was merely hilariously inappropriate in its abruptness) they have all had an element of the coercive to them. Not anything that I'd say crosses a line, due to the fact that they were both proposed by the ladies themselves, but they were nonetheless creepier than they were sexy. The second sex scene was with Abigail, the witch, who propositions you (possibly as a bribe) right before the mob of villagers comes to burn her at the stake. The third was with a prostitute who offers you a "freebie" for rescuing some of her fellow prostitutes from gangs of thugs. It's all very gross, and serves to paint a picture of a society where the feminine is completely degraded. Basically, if you ever wondered why the philosophy of political lesbianism would appeal to somebody, all you have to do is try and play The Witcher as a "ladies man."
(You may, at this point, be asking the obvious question - if it's so gross, how do you know so much about it? I'd like to say it's because of my intrepid doggedness as a reporter, and that I'm braving the seedy underbelly of the game so I can blog about it honestly, but it's probably more accurate to say that I'm triggering these sex scenes out of prurient curiosity. I keep wondering if they could possibly be as bad as my imagination makes them out to be, and so far, they are.)
What this all means is that I feel like The Witcher uses the mistreatment of women as material for entertainment, but it hasn't really earned the right to do so. In theory, you can take a pandering, cheesecake approach to erotica if your idea of sex is fun and goofy, and you can populate your "dark fantasy" setting with the bleakest horrors of history if you're otherwise conscientiously sensitive to the plight of downtrodden people, but to take The Witcher's approach is to combine the worst aspects of both.
The main redeeming factor of the game is the fact that this dubious gender stuff is like, 10% of the game. For most of the last five hours, I've been slaying monsters and running around a vaguely medieval town gathering clues about a criminal conspiracy. This mostly involves talking to npcs, getting a new, misleading quest marker, and talking to another npc across town, with the occasional punctuation of a sudden betrayal, but the individual subquests are short enough that they fall under that ineffable "just one more" threshold, so the game as a whole is moderately addictive. It does mostly feel like filler, however. If I were to summarize the plot since my last update it would be - saved a witch from an angry mob, discovered the villagers were in league with the people I'm chasing, killed a hellhound, and then went to the city to try and find the gang, where no one individual was able to give me a particularly large bit of help. Presumably, the devil's in the details, but I doubt they would be very interesting to someone reading along.
And I'm not sure how I should react to that. The game doesn't endorse that view. It comes from the perspective of some dipshit villagers that I eventually wind up fighting, so it's obviously not meant to be a credible source. On the other hand, the game also does not make much of an effort to critique the villagers' sexism, and that can send the message that it is not their hateful misogyny, but the fact that they attack the player that makes them the enemy.
For example, during the whole witch-trial thing, the sins of the various men around town are revealed, and one of them, Mikul the gate guard, is a rapist. However, he's not present at the brawl. You don't see him again until after you defeat the Beast and are ready to move to the next area. He shows some small bit of contrition, but after literally one second the whole matter is dropped and never mentioned again. The rape of Ilsa is treated as unarguably a bad thing, but apparently not so bad that anyone has to do anything about it (maybe that's why she committed suicide).
If I were inclined to defend the game, I'd say that the sexist attitudes and injustice are a trait of the fictional society that makes up the setting, but that's not actually an argument that has a lot of traction with me. The question that leaps to mind is "why this society?" "Why these attitudes?" And the only answer that seems to make any sense is that the world of The Witcher is meant to be a grimy and unpleasant place, and the mistreatment of women is meant to act as a kind of shorthand to convey that. It all feels very exploitative.
Like, if you were setting a game in Earth's past, you'd have an excuse. You're just telling it like it was. Women did not have a very easy time through much of history, so changing things to make them more comfortable to a modern audience is to make your game at least somewhat fantastical. Similarly, if you were making a game about fighting for justice for women, then you'd also have reason to do this sort of thing. If you're going to have awesome feminist avengers, you're going to need some gender-based iniquities for them to rail against.
The Witcher, however, is neither of those things. It is a game about fighting ghosts and assassins, and violence against women is a mere backdrop. What's more, you can't divorce it from the context of its sex minigame. I'm not inclined, by temperament, to take an especially hard line against the game's sexy trading cards. They're cheesy as hell, and literally objectifying, but they are so incredibly stupid an idea that they possess a certain camp charm. And if I were in a generous mood, I'd say that there is an intersection between campiness and sentimentality that makes it almost sweet for a player to collect a tangible memento of the video game ladies he has once loved (full disclosure - I'm almost certainly saying this because I myself possess both those qualities in abundance).
Yet the way those cheesy card are acquired dovetails with the game's setting is unnerving. I've so far seen three of the sex scenes, and with the exception of the very first one (which was merely hilariously inappropriate in its abruptness) they have all had an element of the coercive to them. Not anything that I'd say crosses a line, due to the fact that they were both proposed by the ladies themselves, but they were nonetheless creepier than they were sexy. The second sex scene was with Abigail, the witch, who propositions you (possibly as a bribe) right before the mob of villagers comes to burn her at the stake. The third was with a prostitute who offers you a "freebie" for rescuing some of her fellow prostitutes from gangs of thugs. It's all very gross, and serves to paint a picture of a society where the feminine is completely degraded. Basically, if you ever wondered why the philosophy of political lesbianism would appeal to somebody, all you have to do is try and play The Witcher as a "ladies man."
(You may, at this point, be asking the obvious question - if it's so gross, how do you know so much about it? I'd like to say it's because of my intrepid doggedness as a reporter, and that I'm braving the seedy underbelly of the game so I can blog about it honestly, but it's probably more accurate to say that I'm triggering these sex scenes out of prurient curiosity. I keep wondering if they could possibly be as bad as my imagination makes them out to be, and so far, they are.)
What this all means is that I feel like The Witcher uses the mistreatment of women as material for entertainment, but it hasn't really earned the right to do so. In theory, you can take a pandering, cheesecake approach to erotica if your idea of sex is fun and goofy, and you can populate your "dark fantasy" setting with the bleakest horrors of history if you're otherwise conscientiously sensitive to the plight of downtrodden people, but to take The Witcher's approach is to combine the worst aspects of both.
The main redeeming factor of the game is the fact that this dubious gender stuff is like, 10% of the game. For most of the last five hours, I've been slaying monsters and running around a vaguely medieval town gathering clues about a criminal conspiracy. This mostly involves talking to npcs, getting a new, misleading quest marker, and talking to another npc across town, with the occasional punctuation of a sudden betrayal, but the individual subquests are short enough that they fall under that ineffable "just one more" threshold, so the game as a whole is moderately addictive. It does mostly feel like filler, however. If I were to summarize the plot since my last update it would be - saved a witch from an angry mob, discovered the villagers were in league with the people I'm chasing, killed a hellhound, and then went to the city to try and find the gang, where no one individual was able to give me a particularly large bit of help. Presumably, the devil's in the details, but I doubt they would be very interesting to someone reading along.
Saturday, April 4, 2015
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition - 5/20 hours
Virtually nothing of importance has happened in the last three hours. The game has done that thing that rpgs do where you need some simple piece of information to proceed to the next step of your quest but the npc who can help you somehow contrives to send you out on a bunch of small, unrelated errands that eat up a lot of time, but don't really amount to much.
Most of my time has thus far been spent walking from place to place. All the enemies I've encountered have only come out at night, so half the time I'd be perfectly safe. It kind of feels like padding to me. The layout of the level is basically a huge looped tunnel, and if you have two objectives on opposite sides of the map, there's no way to cut across, so you wind up having to cover a lot of ground.
I'm not really inclined to complain about this too much, because there's something enjoyably relaxing about just wandering around and looking at things, and unlike a game like Ship Simulator Extremes there's enough action to keep my mind occupied when things start to flag. The combat is still on the simple side, and I'm not sure it'll get better. All the talents I've unlocked so far has been passive bonuses.
I think I've got a handle on the alchemy system. Each of the ingredients is associated with a couple of different colors, and the alchemy recipes require a certain combination of colors. This is a nice change from something like Skyrim's alchemy system, where not having the exact right ingredient will shut you out of using important potions. The only thing that concerns me is that I'm not accustomed to using expendable items in rpgs, so I'll probably just wind up hoarding materials and finished potions without actually benefiting from them.
It's hard for me to get a grip on my emotional reaction to the game after only a few sidequests. I like that the errands I'm sent out on are easy enough that I can I finish them in a reasonable amount of time. Completing a quest, even one that is simply taking an item from one place to another, is moderately satisfying, and the leveling rate is fast enough that I'm getting a genuine sense of progress. I'm thankful that I haven't encountered any more terrible sex scenes. There's some kind of political stuff going on with non-humans, where they are persecuted by the dominant human majority, but the elves and dwarves are thus far so generic that I find it difficult to care.
I don't anticipate ever becoming really invested in the story or the world of The Witcher. There would have to be some incredible swerve or revelation that has not been foreshadowed. However, I'm also starting to become convinced that the uncomfortable sexual politics I was afraid of in the first post are a small part of the overall game, so I'm not too worried about disliking it either. What I expect is to be moderately entertained for the next fourteen hours (or beyond, if I don't want to quit when the deadline comes), and is not moderate entertainment exactly what one wants from a video game?
Most of my time has thus far been spent walking from place to place. All the enemies I've encountered have only come out at night, so half the time I'd be perfectly safe. It kind of feels like padding to me. The layout of the level is basically a huge looped tunnel, and if you have two objectives on opposite sides of the map, there's no way to cut across, so you wind up having to cover a lot of ground.
I'm not really inclined to complain about this too much, because there's something enjoyably relaxing about just wandering around and looking at things, and unlike a game like Ship Simulator Extremes there's enough action to keep my mind occupied when things start to flag. The combat is still on the simple side, and I'm not sure it'll get better. All the talents I've unlocked so far has been passive bonuses.
I think I've got a handle on the alchemy system. Each of the ingredients is associated with a couple of different colors, and the alchemy recipes require a certain combination of colors. This is a nice change from something like Skyrim's alchemy system, where not having the exact right ingredient will shut you out of using important potions. The only thing that concerns me is that I'm not accustomed to using expendable items in rpgs, so I'll probably just wind up hoarding materials and finished potions without actually benefiting from them.
It's hard for me to get a grip on my emotional reaction to the game after only a few sidequests. I like that the errands I'm sent out on are easy enough that I can I finish them in a reasonable amount of time. Completing a quest, even one that is simply taking an item from one place to another, is moderately satisfying, and the leveling rate is fast enough that I'm getting a genuine sense of progress. I'm thankful that I haven't encountered any more terrible sex scenes. There's some kind of political stuff going on with non-humans, where they are persecuted by the dominant human majority, but the elves and dwarves are thus far so generic that I find it difficult to care.
I don't anticipate ever becoming really invested in the story or the world of The Witcher. There would have to be some incredible swerve or revelation that has not been foreshadowed. However, I'm also starting to become convinced that the uncomfortable sexual politics I was afraid of in the first post are a small part of the overall game, so I'm not too worried about disliking it either. What I expect is to be moderately entertained for the next fourteen hours (or beyond, if I don't want to quit when the deadline comes), and is not moderate entertainment exactly what one wants from a video game?
Friday, April 3, 2015
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition - 2/20 hours
I can see why this game was given to me so soon after playing Ride to Hell. Its treatment of women is dubious. In the first hour there is only one female character, and she is kind of ridiculous. I don't mean to sound like a prude, and it is better that she exist than she not exist, but why is the mage assistant of a grizzled group of mystical survivalists dressed like she's late for her shift at the strip club? (And I mean this literally - the neckline of her blouse goes down about halfway to her navel, and she wears actual fishnet stalkings). Is it to set up the awkward and cheesy sex scene that happens when you've gathered the alchemical ingredients necessary to heal her of her coma? Almost certainly.
Maybe I should be charmed by the game's juvenile approach to sexuality. I mean, why shouldn't the woman who was knocked into a coma while failing to defend the secret laboratory from an invasion by mercenaries want to immediately bone like ten seconds after she regains consciousness? Maybe the potion was just, like, really effective.
I'll admit, I'm inclined to be generous because I do believe there is a place for the "heh, heh, boobies" school of erotic thought in this world. If the game plays like the fantasy of a horny fourteen-year-old boy, how can I possibly begrudge that, being a former horny fourteen-year-old-boy myself? I don't necessarily buy into the notion that just because games can be a rich artistic medium with an appeal and worth beyond mere adolescent power fantasy that everything that caters to the "stereotypical" gamer is automatically an embarrassment.
That being said, there is every possibility that The Witcher is, in fact, an embarrassment. In addition to Triss, the inexplicable stripper witch, there have so far been two other female characters in the game, and they both have a certain, um, boobicular focus in their character designs. This is most obvious in the case of a young mother who is traveling with her son when the two are attacked by demon dogs. The son escapes, but she is horrifically killed. So, you know, the choice to give her astonishingly (and perhaps distractingly) epic cleavage is kind of a mystifying one.
However, for now, I'm willing to cut the game a little slack, because its cheesiness is not confined to this one area. A good example is the fate of the son. After his mother dies, and the demon beasts dispatched, he becomes overcome with a mysterious blue energy that lifts him up into the air and gives him the power of prophecy. And then, when the fugue is over, he falls to the ground writhing in agony, but you, the main character, are almost instantly talking to some other sexily-dressed woman who is undoubtedly a plot-important badass. And while the subject of the conversation is your typical rpg-exposition, and more or less exactly what you'd expect from this portion of the game, all the while, in the background, you can see the kid on the ground, clutching is stomach and shaking back-and-forth, because the animation of him getting up and being mostly all right after his ordeal does not trigger until after you get done with the conversation. The whole thing was inadvertently hilarious.
The comparisons to Ride to Hell practically draw themselves. However, so far I can see two main differences. One, the plot of The Witcher actually makes a certain degree of sense. There are these super-powered fantasy monster police called the Witchers who just got robbed of their magical potions, so they need to track down the bad guys before they can figure out how to use the stolen goods to give themselves similar powers. Two, the gameplay is actually fairly compelling. You've got a simple point-and-click combat system and what looks to be a huge and complex system of alchemy to buff your character. It may turn out to implode in the later acts of the game (I could see the combat as not having enough depth to sustain interest and the alchemy becoming a nightmare of super finicky ingredient collecting), but this early on, I'm intrigued.
My big hope is that the story and characters get a little less by-the-numbers (cliches already hit - a hero with amnesia, magical elven prophecies, and genre-bending technological gnomes) and that I've already seen the worst of the game's sexism (the soft-core "trading card" you get after bedding Triss treads a line between "harmlessly lame" and "bizarrely skeevy" that I don't even want to begin to analyze). I suppose its naive of me to think that I've seen the worst of the game a mere two hours in, but surely the opening of the game is The Witcher at its most typical, in order to put the identifying traits of the game front and center. Only time will tell, but for now, I'm optimistic.
Maybe I should be charmed by the game's juvenile approach to sexuality. I mean, why shouldn't the woman who was knocked into a coma while failing to defend the secret laboratory from an invasion by mercenaries want to immediately bone like ten seconds after she regains consciousness? Maybe the potion was just, like, really effective.
I'll admit, I'm inclined to be generous because I do believe there is a place for the "heh, heh, boobies" school of erotic thought in this world. If the game plays like the fantasy of a horny fourteen-year-old boy, how can I possibly begrudge that, being a former horny fourteen-year-old-boy myself? I don't necessarily buy into the notion that just because games can be a rich artistic medium with an appeal and worth beyond mere adolescent power fantasy that everything that caters to the "stereotypical" gamer is automatically an embarrassment.
That being said, there is every possibility that The Witcher is, in fact, an embarrassment. In addition to Triss, the inexplicable stripper witch, there have so far been two other female characters in the game, and they both have a certain, um, boobicular focus in their character designs. This is most obvious in the case of a young mother who is traveling with her son when the two are attacked by demon dogs. The son escapes, but she is horrifically killed. So, you know, the choice to give her astonishingly (and perhaps distractingly) epic cleavage is kind of a mystifying one.
However, for now, I'm willing to cut the game a little slack, because its cheesiness is not confined to this one area. A good example is the fate of the son. After his mother dies, and the demon beasts dispatched, he becomes overcome with a mysterious blue energy that lifts him up into the air and gives him the power of prophecy. And then, when the fugue is over, he falls to the ground writhing in agony, but you, the main character, are almost instantly talking to some other sexily-dressed woman who is undoubtedly a plot-important badass. And while the subject of the conversation is your typical rpg-exposition, and more or less exactly what you'd expect from this portion of the game, all the while, in the background, you can see the kid on the ground, clutching is stomach and shaking back-and-forth, because the animation of him getting up and being mostly all right after his ordeal does not trigger until after you get done with the conversation. The whole thing was inadvertently hilarious.
The comparisons to Ride to Hell practically draw themselves. However, so far I can see two main differences. One, the plot of The Witcher actually makes a certain degree of sense. There are these super-powered fantasy monster police called the Witchers who just got robbed of their magical potions, so they need to track down the bad guys before they can figure out how to use the stolen goods to give themselves similar powers. Two, the gameplay is actually fairly compelling. You've got a simple point-and-click combat system and what looks to be a huge and complex system of alchemy to buff your character. It may turn out to implode in the later acts of the game (I could see the combat as not having enough depth to sustain interest and the alchemy becoming a nightmare of super finicky ingredient collecting), but this early on, I'm intrigued.
My big hope is that the story and characters get a little less by-the-numbers (cliches already hit - a hero with amnesia, magical elven prophecies, and genre-bending technological gnomes) and that I've already seen the worst of the game's sexism (the soft-core "trading card" you get after bedding Triss treads a line between "harmlessly lame" and "bizarrely skeevy" that I don't even want to begin to analyze). I suppose its naive of me to think that I've seen the worst of the game a mere two hours in, but surely the opening of the game is The Witcher at its most typical, in order to put the identifying traits of the game front and center. Only time will tell, but for now, I'm optimistic.
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition - Initial Thoughts
About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)
NO GOOD AND NO EVIL - ONLY CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES
Become The Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, a legendary monster slayer caught in a web of intrigue woven by forces vying for control of the world. Make difficult decisions and live with the consequences in an game that will immerse you in an extraordinary tale like no other. Representing the pinnacle of storytelling in role-playing games, The Witcher shatters the line between good and evil in a world where moral ambiguity reigns. The Witcher emphasizes story and character development in a vibrant world while incorporating tactically-deep real-time combat like no game before it.
Previous Playtime
0 hours
Expectations and Prior Experience
I've heard mention of the game's title, but I know basically nothing about it. It's an rpg, and the screenshots on the store page look promising. It's a pretty-looking game that appears to have a significant action element. I don't know anything about the story, but the store description certainly seems confident. The whole "no good and no evil" thing leads me to expect a generically "dark" fantasy story line that may well be pretty lame. This is compounded by the fact that this game was gifted to me by my friend Jared right around the time I was complaining about the sexism of Ride to Hell: Redemption so I have a feeling that there is some kind of politically incorrect plot bomb waiting to blow up in my face.
On the other hand, it's an action-rpg, so as long as it is not punishingly difficult and has a functioning control scheme, it's hard to say how it might go wrong. A hackneyed or offensive plot could easily be ignored in favor of focusing purely on monster-slaying and exploration. I'm kind of looking forward to it.
NO GOOD AND NO EVIL - ONLY CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES
Become The Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, a legendary monster slayer caught in a web of intrigue woven by forces vying for control of the world. Make difficult decisions and live with the consequences in an game that will immerse you in an extraordinary tale like no other. Representing the pinnacle of storytelling in role-playing games, The Witcher shatters the line between good and evil in a world where moral ambiguity reigns. The Witcher emphasizes story and character development in a vibrant world while incorporating tactically-deep real-time combat like no game before it.
ABOUT THE WITCHER: ENHANCED EDITION
The RPG of the Year (PC Gamer, GameSpy, IGN) is back in a Premium Edition packed with powerful extras! The
Witcher: Enhanced Edition takes all of the acclaimed gameplay that
garnered the original game more than 90 awards, and perfects it with a
number of gameplay and technical improvements.Previous Playtime
0 hours
Expectations and Prior Experience
I've heard mention of the game's title, but I know basically nothing about it. It's an rpg, and the screenshots on the store page look promising. It's a pretty-looking game that appears to have a significant action element. I don't know anything about the story, but the store description certainly seems confident. The whole "no good and no evil" thing leads me to expect a generically "dark" fantasy story line that may well be pretty lame. This is compounded by the fact that this game was gifted to me by my friend Jared right around the time I was complaining about the sexism of Ride to Hell: Redemption so I have a feeling that there is some kind of politically incorrect plot bomb waiting to blow up in my face.
On the other hand, it's an action-rpg, so as long as it is not punishingly difficult and has a functioning control scheme, it's hard to say how it might go wrong. A hackneyed or offensive plot could easily be ignored in favor of focusing purely on monster-slaying and exploration. I'm kind of looking forward to it.
The Last Remnant - 20/20 hours
It's all over. I'm done with The Last Remnant. I still have a significant amount the story left, but I've hit a road block. There's a boss battle that is kicking my ass and according to the advice I found online, my problem is that I made a mistake with my party composition several hours ago and I lack characters with sufficient healing abilities to survive the boss' onslaught. I could grind up my medicinal skills, but who knows how long that will take. I'm going to cut my losses and move on to something else.
Playing this game has gotten me thinking about genre. It's obvious that The Last Remnant shares some of its DNA with previous Square classics like Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger, but I find myself unable to appreciate its unique characteristics, and wound up constantly comparing it to games I enjoyed more. I'd always thought of myself as a fan of the jrpg genre, but I'm not sure how to parse this experience. Does appreciating a genre mean that you care about its core aspects and resent deviations from the formula? Or is the nuance that distinguishes different games a key aspect to a mature enjoyment of the genre?
The part of the game I enjoyed the most was farming previously visited areas for weapon components. Towards the end, I began to dread advancing the story, because I feared (rightfully as it turned out) that I would not be powerful enough to handle the new areas. It's embarrassing to admit, but I spent a lot of time wishing this game were more familiar and conventional. I especially wanted to have levels that provided a consistent benchmark of character power, instead of this vague battle rank system.
I think that means I'm less of a jrpg aficionado and more of a jrpg curmudgeon. I want things to be like how I remember them from my youth. This is a strange experience for me, because I'm used to enjoying novelty. Is this a result of me getting older? Am I becoming more set in my ways? Or am I reading too much into a single game? As far as I know, The Last Remnant isn't really considered a classic so much as an ambitious yet forgettable entry in the genre. It could just be that I don't like the game because it's not especially good.
I may come back to this game some time. For all my harsh words, I'm still moderately interested in how the story turns out, and when I wasn't stressing out about the level-scaling I found the gameplay moderately diverting. I will, however, have to start from the beginning in order to unscrew my party composition and that's a project that will have to wait for a time when I have nothing better to do (so, realistically, never).
Playing this game has gotten me thinking about genre. It's obvious that The Last Remnant shares some of its DNA with previous Square classics like Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger, but I find myself unable to appreciate its unique characteristics, and wound up constantly comparing it to games I enjoyed more. I'd always thought of myself as a fan of the jrpg genre, but I'm not sure how to parse this experience. Does appreciating a genre mean that you care about its core aspects and resent deviations from the formula? Or is the nuance that distinguishes different games a key aspect to a mature enjoyment of the genre?
The part of the game I enjoyed the most was farming previously visited areas for weapon components. Towards the end, I began to dread advancing the story, because I feared (rightfully as it turned out) that I would not be powerful enough to handle the new areas. It's embarrassing to admit, but I spent a lot of time wishing this game were more familiar and conventional. I especially wanted to have levels that provided a consistent benchmark of character power, instead of this vague battle rank system.
I think that means I'm less of a jrpg aficionado and more of a jrpg curmudgeon. I want things to be like how I remember them from my youth. This is a strange experience for me, because I'm used to enjoying novelty. Is this a result of me getting older? Am I becoming more set in my ways? Or am I reading too much into a single game? As far as I know, The Last Remnant isn't really considered a classic so much as an ambitious yet forgettable entry in the genre. It could just be that I don't like the game because it's not especially good.
I may come back to this game some time. For all my harsh words, I'm still moderately interested in how the story turns out, and when I wasn't stressing out about the level-scaling I found the gameplay moderately diverting. I will, however, have to start from the beginning in order to unscrew my party composition and that's a project that will have to wait for a time when I have nothing better to do (so, realistically, never).
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