Gorgeous, ambitious and not afraid to kill you dead, "The Witcher 2" can be a harsh mistress. This dark, unique world is so well realized and populated with interesting characters that it's easy to lose yourself in it. Yet, you might just hate portions of the game with a burning passion. The driven Polish developers at CDProjekt boldly cut their own path in creating "The Witcher 2," and their vision is one worth sharing, despite its few snags along the way.
Legendary monster slayer Geralt of Rivia is the fulcrum around which the fates of entire kingdoms pivot. As Geralt, the player makes decisions that determine the direction of momentous events. You're not just affecting a portion of the ending cinematic when you choose between working with a royal officer and an outlaw terrorist/freedom fighter (depending on your point of view, of course). You're picking between two radically different paths that each have hours of divergent gameplay. Save this man, kill another, solve a town's problems or don't -- nearly everything you do has a real, noticeable effect on the world around you. RPG players have dreamed of this level of interactivity since the medium's inception, and the deftness with which "The Witcher 2" pulls it off makes a mockery of the rest of the genre. Your choices shape the 30-plus hours of this heroic adventure to an unprecedented degree, but the ending leaves much to be desired.
The most alluring part of the game is exploring the finely crafted, endlessly detailed world. The audio-visual presentation is second to none, which certainly helps, but the writing puts a soul behind the pretty face. "The Witcher 2" is a lasting, rewarding relationship where many other RPGs are a fun night on the town.
The fiction behind "The Witcher 2" paints Geralt as a wandering monster hunter in a world full of dangerous beasts and evil men, and the game is at its best when you stick to that role. The studio has emphatically targeted mature audiences, with relatively explicit sex scenes to match the game's brutal violence. CDProjekt uses the adult subject matter well on occasion, giving complex characters genuine reactions to tragedy and triumph that delve well beyond the shallow power fantasies that limit so many video games. With foul-mouthed dwarves, giggling whores, and enough crude humor to make Bam Margera blush, there's no shortage of titillating fan service for nerdy man-children, either. If you're not into that kind of thing, it's not difficult to avoid.
As amazing as the role-playing is, the gameplay is merely adequate, with infrequent (but amazing) set-piece moments and too-common frustrations. The third-person action-oriented combat is brutally difficult in the beginning. The game is tuned to be "realistic," where just a few blows from any old longsword can ruin your day. Things get easier as you level and unlock new powers, but even a powerful witcher is two mis-clicks away from reloading his last save in most encounters.
Allies are also known to come up from behind and prevent you from dodging an incoming strike. When the combat goes the way you want it to, it can be amazing and rewarding.
Inventory management is a disaster. The lame crafting system clogs your bags with hundreds of nearly useless items and rewards tiny incremental upgrades for hours of effort. Interacting with the world is often a pain as well; targeting specific objects in the environment is so finicky that I found myself regularly shuffling back and forth and swinging the camera around to get at a plainly visible container.
The one system that I can endorse with no reservations is the character development. Each point you spend has a dramatic effect on gameplay. Some boring percentile increases exist, but at least they're noticeable -- 10 percent more damage is no joke. Other abilities, like doubling the distance covered by dodge rolls or adding area effects to magical signs, are great perks that can completely change the way you approach combat situations.
