The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (PC) First impressions

As I sat down with my copy of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, I did not know what to expect. I had briefly played the original game, but found the fetch quests a tad stale in a single player RPG (role playing game). With little experience with the story and lore of ‘The Witcher’ I am thrown into the fray upon start-up of the game.

The story starts with Geralt the Witcher, (a monster slayer) being hunted down and captured, awaking in prison to be beat on by guards (so far I have no clue what’s going on). Geralt is then taking to an interrogator and is asked about the events that had happened prior to the start of the game. At this point the only controlling of a character I have had is that of choosing what my character ‘Geralt’ says, which is done quite well, similar to the Mass Effect Radial window, it displays the simplified version of what you want to say, and then followed by the characters voice actor.

(On that note, the voice acting in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is astounding, each character is voice acted very well and the lip-synching has had no errors. And the lines of dialogue that are said can be quite entertaining aswell.)

The interrogator asks you to recap the events of a siege that you and the king were fighting in; you are presented with a list of 4-5 options. I recommend if you read this review before playing the game to start with the first option, as I chose the 3^rd and was confronted with a dragon and some knights when I did not know the controls. The first option you choose is setting up the characters, the recap begins with; Geralt and his witch/companion in bed, she completely naked.I t was a shock to see so early in the game, though it was handled tastefully.

Don’t worry, I will not recap the entire prologue.

The Witcher 2’s visuals are done very well; with cut scenes playing out like that of a fantasy movie, with some great camera angles and well placed slow motion effects, It is a real treat to watch these. I have noticed some graphical tearing, but it has not affected the enjoyment of the game.
The games engine seems to be very solid, I've had no game breaking bugs so far which is a blessing with new release titles these days. The engine is also visually pleasing, for example when I was being roasted by fire from a dragon, I noticed the flames were slowly eating away at the wooden structure I was hiding in, forcing it to buckle.

The Game play of ‘The Witcher 2’ is quite tricky, I started the game on normal and could not take on more than 3 enemies at a time, when it is more common to be taking on 5-6. So I had to lower the games difficulty down to easy (Shame on me). So if you are expecting an easy button mashing RPG, think again. You have to switch between; light strikes, heavy strikes, magic and defence while taking on many foes. It is challenging but very rewarding.

I’ll skip a head a little bit, after recapping the events of this siege, the interrogator leaves, Naturally in most games with a prison, now comes the prison break. The game implores you to use stealth, but does not really teach you how to use such mechanics, so when you’re like me and get spotted, you leave the prison drenched in blood, and a trail of poor olde’ prison guards behind you.

Some gripes I have with the game so far is the lack of a tutorial, it took me a lot of deaths to realise that 'e' was parry.

I’ll keep on updating this play through as I go, but as it stands so far; I think this may be one of the best role playing game in a long time.