The Witcher

[Xiahou]

RE: The Beast

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

First thing- you don't need to keep Abigail "alive" during the fight with the beast. If she gets knocked down, she'll be up and alive again for the next segment. For me, the fight got alot easier once I realized I didn't need to protect her.

I thought the Beast was kinda cheesy, so I decided to get cheesy to beat him. I drank a swallow, a tawny owl, and started running in circles around the flaming ring until both bars (health/endurance) were full. Then I turned around and hit him with a flame sign and ran again til my health was full. Rinse and repeat until he's dead. In my case, when he was 3/4 dead, I switched signs and managed to stun him, but I could've kept on with the same tactic and killed him the other way too. If you get agony on you and get stunned, it's because you ran too close to the flames. Don't do that.

I think the easiest thing to do would've probably been to make the spectre oil (whatever its called) and use that on your blade to pwn him. But, I didn't have the foresight to learn to make oils prior to the battle, so it wasn't an option for me.

Incidentally, another time saver I found it that you can actually pull off a quicksave right before the fight with the Beast starts, so you don't have to keep watching the cutscenes over and over if you die.

I've gotta say, after playing this game for awhile longer, my opinion of it has only improved since my earlier comments. A thoroughly enjoyable game.

[Kekvit Irae]

After playing it more, I have come to the conclusion that I totally gimped my skills. I may have to restart, and I HATE Chapter 1. :(

[Papewaio]

How's the eye candy?

[Kekvit Irae]

It's pretty good. Not as visually stunning as Oblivion, but the makers have put a lot of thought into making Geralt's attacks look good. You often stare in amazement at how finesse he is when you chain your attacks, especially when you upgrade your combat skills.

[AggonyDuck]

After playing it more, I have come to the conclusion that I totally gimped my skills. I may have to restart, and I HATE Chapter 1. :(

Well the Bronze Talent skills can be gimped to be honest. You'll get a lot more of them in the process of the game. It's the Silver and Gold Talents that are more critical in the end.

[Bob the Insane]

Got past the Beast basically the same way as Xiahou...

It's funny how what seemed impossible is now pretty easy...

Got into the city and again they have achieved a much more lived in, real feel to the place than NWN/NWN2 managed...

[Somebody Else]

The group attack is quite handy against the Beast, and other bosses where there are lots of minions around - as it seems to have more attacks the more enemies are around, with sufficient enemies, not a single attack can be landed on you because everything keeps getting hit. It's when you're down to 2 enemies that there's a problem - then a bit of aard is always handy to stun/coup-de-grace one of your assailants. Fighting humans is easier - igni them - enough will be standing around screaming in flames for you to deal with the rest fairly easily.

Oh, and always swallow a swallow. If things get really nasty, blizzard helps a lot. Of course, if you have the potions, and the preparation time, take a whole cocktail (don't forget to use albedo potions so they stack better).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Only on medium, but the final boss (Wild Hunt) I took down in seconds, having taken swallow, tawny owl, shrike (damages those that damage you - handy against hard hitting enemies), moon rise (I forget the name - the one that doubles hp), the one that increases critical hits, possibly a couple of others. And oiled up my blade. Heh, I was hitting him with strings of 400+ damage.

Generally, I don't tend to bother with the fast style - group for large masses, strong for individuals - if they're hard to hit, flame them - the resulting pain will slow them down enough to whack. Or just knock 'em down and give them a coup de grace.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Another handy spell - Quen - the shield spell. Whilst battling the striga, I found that, charged up, it can result in dealing back a lot of damage - I was almost worried I'd kill it by accident. And that was only at level 2 of the spell...

[Navaros]

I have been reading good things from end users who have bought this game.

However, the North American version of this game is a censored version with some watered down content.

I have not yet purchased this game solely because I hate buying censored video games and if I buy the UK version and have it shipped to Canada then it can involve lots of nonsense surcharges at the border, especially if a courier company is involved at any point.

I recommend those who like me, hate buying censored video games, to buy the UK version instead of the censored North American version.

[frogbeastegg]

There is now a demo.

[alman7272]

RE: The Beast

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

First thing- you don't need to keep Abigail "alive" during the fight with the beast. If she gets knocked down, she'll be up and alive again for the next segment. For me, the fight got alot easier once I realized I didn't need to protect her.

I thought the Beast was kinda cheesy, so I decided to get cheesy to beat him. I drank a swallow, a tawny owl, and started running in circles around the flaming ring until both bars (health/endurance) were full. Then I turned around and hit him with a flame sign and ran again til my health was full. Rinse and repeat until he's dead. In my case, when he was 3/4 dead, I switched signs and managed to stun him, but I could've kept on with the same tactic and killed him the other way too. If you get agony on you and get stunned, it's because you ran too close to the flames. Don't do that.

I think the easiest thing to do would've probably been to make the spectre oil (whatever its called) and use that on your blade to pwn him. But, I didn't have the foresight to learn to make oils prior to the battle, so it wasn't an option for me.

I did this as well :) I'm not sure...but I may have also used Blizzard (an extremely useful potion that I wish I had a lot more of)

Really, what's absolutely key is potions believe it or not. And a recommendation: get the toxicity removal potion...it helps A LOT.

[Rodion Romanovich]

What a coincidence, I was just browsing around gamespot to see what games had been released lately, and this caught my eye for being one of the more interesting games released lately that I haven't yet gotten. From what the reviews say, everything is great except the voice acting - or?

[Xiahou]

What a coincidence, I was just browsing around gamespot to see what games had been released lately, and this caught my eye for being one of the more interesting games released lately that I haven't yet gotten. From what the reviews say, everything is great except the voice acting - or?

With exceptions, I think the voice acting is generally quite good. The biggest problem I have with the voices is that certain portions sound like they were re-recorded later and they don't blend well with the surrounding dialog. Of course, that's just my opinion- ymmv.

I think the biggest annoyance is their overuse of the same few character models for the various townsfolk. There's a handful of pretty well-done character models, but it seems like I keep seeing them over and over again, with slight variation all over the place. Even still, I've found the locales to feel much more immersive and real than say, Oblivion's were.

[Soulforged]

With exceptions, I think the voice acting is generally quite good. The biggest problem I have with the voices is that certain portions sound like they were re-recorded later and they don't blend well with the surrounding dialog. Of course, that's just my opinion- ymmv.

I think the biggest annoyance is their overuse of the same few character models for the various townsfolk. There's a handful of pretty well-done character models, but it seems like I keep seeing them over and over again, with slight variation all over the place. Even still, I've found the locales to feel much more immersive and real than say, Oblivion's were.

Just as there's an annoying overuse of the same 10 or 15 models, which was frankly just lazyness on the devs part, there's also an overuse for the english voiceovers (and probably for any other single traduction), that's why you noticed that weirdness during dialogs, for example: the expression "What?" or a simple "No!" have the same tone regardless of context, so it's quite funny to hear my american Geralt come with a "WHAT!!!!!" while talking calmly.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Thanks, the demo was great - but it took some time before I could figure out how to handle the combat combos without making the character freeze Also, the OTS camera is the only sensible way to play it IMO, the other camera modes ruin both combat and atmosphere. I think I'll definitely grab a copy of this asap!

[Husar]

Slightly different opinion here, found the OTS camera worst because the character stands to the left but runs toward the middle(well, that he runs crooked fits with the way he seems to stand crooked ), also the crosshair is small and I often misclicked or targeted the wrong enemy so I used one of the overhead perspectives(the only difference I found between them is that F1 is slightly more zoomed out than F2).

Then the engine limitation I actually found worst, you see those wide open fields everywhere but are limited to small fenced corridors and whenever you enter or leave a house you get a reload screen, to me that just doesn't fit very well into an atmospheric modern RPG and it's so linear.

Oh and if the first act really ends after you placed five fires, I'd call that a rather short act, I was expecting to see a bit more of the game for a 2GB download and the promise of a "tutorial plus a whole chapter" though I guess there are quite a few sidequests I didn't make.

I think I'll get it eventually since it's still an entertaining RPG and I'd like to see more despite the flaws but for now I spent my money for some christmas presents.

[Xiahou]

Thanks, the demo was great - but it took some time before I could figure out how to handle the combat combos without making the character freeze Also, the OTS camera is the only sensible way to play it IMO, the other camera modes ruin both combat and atmosphere. I think I'll definitely grab a copy of this asap!

Yeah, the OTS camera is the easiest for me to use as well. I also find it more immersive than the overhead view.