The Witcher 2 360

[Yakumo]

I just bought this from Amazon Japan (Asian import) after reading peoples comments about this game. To be honest I'd never heard of it before but I'm sure looking forward to trying it out.

[fuse]

Gotta ask - for those who are loving this, was the appeal instant? I'm only a couple of hours in but it's not grabbed me just yet.

[MrKirov]

For me, no.

It took me a few hours, the prologue and the opening of flotsam had me. I don't know about you, but id meet played the witcher before and it does throw you in at the deep end - I had no idea who characters were or what was going on.

Luckily the prologue explained it to me, and upon questioning some locals in flotsam, and looking at the info in the menus, I had a decent a decent understanding. Once I'd gotten past that feeling I really enjoyed the game

Perhaps read a wiki on the first game I catch up with the story, might help!

[capcom_suicide]

Gotta ask - for those who are loving this, was the appeal instant? I'm only a couple of hours in but it's not grabbed me just yet.

Not until I took the first Boss, and realised that the game was non linear.

[Neon Ignition]

I'm at the start of the Dwarf city and I'm not going to lie, I'm enjoying it but it's in an incredible stable fashion. It's not getting worse but not getting better. It's very polished and fun to play but there's nothing particularly outstanding about it. Even the sex is overrated, after all the fuss I'd expected it to be a bit raunchy at least but American Pie is more hardcore than this. If anything I'm getting the feeling might even start to drag on too long if there's that much left of it as it's mostly fetch quests of the most basic order. Will have to see if that's the case. One of the better games released on console this year so far for sure, but again, mostly due to the lack of competition for that title.

[MrKirov]

Couldnt disagree more. I find the side quests to this to be outstanding, offering much more than fetch quests, and instead giving actual storylines which branch off and change depending on how you deal with them. So many of then offer opportunities to solve things in different ways, or to give you the option to investigate further than what the quest log tells you you can. Doing so reaps rewards as well.

In finding this enthraling, loving most every aspect of it. Got to be said that the achievements are great as well, mostly all secret, and genuinely give you achievements for doing cool things, and solving quests in certain ways.

Really looking forward to a second time through, apparently a lot changes!! The gametrailers review summed up my thoughts quite well.

[Neon Ignition]

That's what I'm finding so slight ironically, the story is pretty straight forward and the core line doesn't deviate that much. With people repeatedly mentioning about the storyline options I googled the branching options assuming I was missing something and it looks complex but for the vast majority is how I expected, small non-essential cutscene alterations with no real consequence later on. Removing minor alterations there's three main ending branches and that's the only real story branching. It's enough for sure but again just part of the over-credit I feel this is getting. Most mission variants offer small variance (such as whether a non-essential character lives or dies) with nearly all items attainable no matter the outcome. It's Fable IV in short.

[MrKirov]

Isn't there one specific choice you have to make which dictates you you ally with- i.e what side characters you have around you/ what side of the war you ally with/ what camp you up up in in chapter two, and the associated quests/ storylines from there on?

[PeteJ]

It took me a while to get into it also, still on Act 1 but things are starting to click into place at last. About 10 hours in and only now do I feel like I'm making actual progress, such was the difficulty in getting the quests moving in the right direction early on. It seems to assume far too much, like everyone knows every piece of Witcher lore and the characters of the original before they even start.

I critisised Mass Effect 3 for changing the game to appeal to new players, and am now complaining that the Witcher 2 doesn't do enough for players who haven't played the original... I don't know, the balance just feels 'off'. There is too much information and it isn't clear how much you need to take in.

But I am enjoying it more. Last night I killed the big beastie and went through a few other minor quests. Now I have my silver sword and a better understanding of combat I've had a great time exploring the forest (which is nowhere near as large as I first thought!) which looks absolutely stunning in places. The game creates a great atmosphere at times.

By the way - counter attacks. How? I've unlocked the skill but I can't do it, the icon never seems to appear

[Brad]

Hold block. When enemy attacks there'll be a shield icon (think it's a shield anyway) appears. If you hit attack button then Geralt will Parry and Riposte for MASSIVE DAMAGE!

I'm playing the first game at the moment so memory may be failing me but I'm pretty sure that's right.

[MrKirov]

Parrying and riposte are two different abilities.

Parrying is in the training path, and allows you to parry the attacks so they bounce off.

Riposte the first abort in the swords master tree, it allows the symbol to appear when attacked to attack them first. Have you got this one?

[Neon Ignition]

There seems to be two or three key decisions in the game which guide you to one of the three main allignment endings, the decision at the end of Chapter I is one of them.

Without the difficulty being ramped right up parrying isn't really required. Spamming X and A will see nearly all enemies in Ch1 dispatched without taking a hit.

[PeteJ]

Yeah I have Riposte unlocked. I hold down right trigger to parry but the counter-attack icon never shows, I'm guessing it's a timing thing but I haven't sussed it yet. Or maybe you aren't supposed to hold down the trigger?

I'm playing on hard and am doing so completely by accident. I swear I picked Medium (after the tutorial said I was useless and recommended Easy!) but I refuse to knock it down a level

[Brad]

Hard probably won't flash up the timing hint. You'll have to just know when to press the buttons! lol.

[MrKirov]

Iirc you have to block an attack from someone, then When they attack you a second time the icon will appear (you have to hold right trigger). I think you can't just riposte someone without parrying/ blocking their first attack.