The witcher 3 thread.

[Snarly]

Got mine ready to go. first time player with this game and I been watching it since its PC birth. I am excited and if this game is what I seen in the past two... I am going to be in heaven.

 

[Thelorn]

First SS I've got so far.

 

[Man Called X]

Greatest game ever.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Apparently my computer can run this shit on Ultra. Who wants to fucking touch me?

Anyway, some screenshots. They're taken with Steam, so they look a little shittier than the actual game, but you get the idea.

So far so good. Only played about two hours, though. Haven't even killed the griffin yet.

 

[Chris]

Going to hold off a bit on this game, I'm finishing up Far Cry 4 and Dragon Age 3 first, although I feel like DA will take forever.

 

[Thelorn]

Going to hold off a bit on this game, I'm finishing up Far Cry 4 and Dragon Age 3 first, although I feel like DA will take forever.

How do you like dragon age 3? I never got further then a couple hours in. Thought 2 and 3 were pretty blah compared to the 1st which i beat a few times.

 

[Jack Brickman]

How do you like dragon age 3? I never got further then a couple hours in. Thought 2 and 3 were pretty blah compared to the 1st which i beat a few times.

I know this wasn't addressed to me, but I'll answer it as well. The first was easily the best of the three. It felt like a legitimate old school RPG like BioWare used to make before they got obsessed with the action (which was a good thing in Mass Effect but a bad thing in Dragon Age). The second one was pretty much a disaster. You could tell it was just rushed and unfinished due to EA stressing deadlines, much like what happened to the ending of Mass Effect 3 (which goes to show that you should spend money on the beginning and ending first, then flesh out the middle...if you run out of cash fleshing out the middle, it's easier to make cuts and still keep the story coherent).

The third Dragon Age is a lot better than the second, as it recaptures the big, epic world that the first one did so well at establishing. It's just not as entertaining. I kind of feel like it plays itself. Yeah, you can pause and issue orders, but how often does anyone actually do that in a game like this? It's one thing in a turn based game, because those are inherently more strategic. I just thought every battle in Inquisition just turned into a giant clusterfuck where your AI companions are on autoplay and you just run around in circles spamming magic as it becomes available. It's not awful, but it also doesn't feel terribly skillful or exciting. I never really got a sense of accomplishment from beating any enemies because I felt like I basically just did the exact same thing when fighting everyone.

Contrast that with Mass Effect, where I felt like there was an actual sense of strategy in some of the bigger fights. Different enemies required different tactics, and you got a sense that the abilities you used in battle actually mattered. Yeah, that happens occasionally in Inquisition, but mostly the fights are just slogs.

The story isn't bad, though. I haven't beaten the game yet, but I played it for at least 20 hours I think. It's a little cliche in that there's a big bad and you have to (presumably) track him down and kill him, but the dialogue is as solid as you expect from BioWare and the characters are mostly interesting enough to like. I also like how big the world feels. The first area you visit is massive with tons of things to find and do. Most of the areas I got to after were either significantly smaller or a bit smaller, but the game still dwarfs Dragon Age II in world size and content. Of course, a lot of that content can be boring and repetitive, like picking flowers and mining ores, or the general fetch quests (of which most quests fall into).

So yeah...better than Dragon Age II, but not nearly as good as the original Dragon Age.

---

As far as The Witcher III goes, I'll note that I've had the game crash on me two or three times so far due to my GeForce driver crashing. However, I literally downloaded an updated GeForce driver released today for Witcher III while I was typing this, so that may solve the problem. I save all the time in games that allow it, though, so I've only ever had to replay a couple of minutes worth of content or conversations.

 

[Mdog1]

Bought this, hoping it's better than Dragon Age fetch quest. Not sure when I'll play it since HOW dropped today.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Just an update...the GeForce patch appears to have fixed my issues from last night. Just played for a good two to two and a half hours without a single driver crash.

Moar screenshots!

---

Early part of the game is very exposition heavy, but I'm really enjoying it. I was actually surprised by how quickly I found Yennefer (I guess she technically found me, but whatever). I figured they'd stretch that out for like the first third of the game.

Killing the griffin was a lot of fun. Shooting it with the crossbow as it dove toward me and then rolling out of the way as it crashed to the ground felt suitably epic. Hopefully there are more great battles like that one. I also like how fighting monsters actually requires some prep. Sure, a lot of it is fetchy in nature, but scouting out the griffin's nest to learn why it's acting strange and then acquiring bait to lure it to battle feels natural rather than forced. The second game was similar in that regard, but the combat feels more fluid and fun in this one.

Right now my only real complaint is that Geralt moves pretty stiffly. This is an issue in a lot of RPG games that also try to get action games, but it's worth noting. Sometimes he doesn't turn the way you want him to and it's occasionally a chore to get him to properly face something you want to examine or loot. The issue doesn't really extend to combat, though, which is good.

 

[Thelorn]

I can already say this is the best game I've played since Red Dead Redemption.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Got some more screenshots for you degenerates.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Got some more shots from my ongoing chronicles of The Witcher 3. Today I rode through a random town with no quest markers over it en route to another mission and ran into a key character from the second game, who allowed me to accompany him on a quest of his own. It's a great example of some of the emergent gameplay this game does so well. I'm fairly certain that, if you don't ride through this random abandoned village, you'd miss out on this quest altogether. Very cool.

I followed that up with a relaxing tour of the swamplands, climbed a mountain to kill some harpies, and met a crazy bitch who sent me on errand to kill a monster of some sort or another. Good times.

 

[Marcus]

Fucking hell, I need to get this game. The other two were incredible, and this one seems to raise the bar even higher.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Fucking hell, I need to get this game. The other two were incredible, and this one seems to raise the bar even higher.

The third one is definitely the best one. It's really grabbed my attention and made me want to play it, something the first and second one did as well, but to much lesser extents. I thought the second one started out more exciting, but it also tapered off quite a bit when you got to that town in the woods and became a bit of a slog at times, probably since the combat had a tendency to be more punishing and frustrating than fun.

And with that, more screenshots from my continued adventures in the north.

 

[Jack Brickman]

The continued photographic adventures of Jack Brickman: