Much like civil war or the outbreak of some hideous disease, fornication in The Witcher is a complex phenomena which can happen suddenly and without warning or, alternatively, as the more predictable culmination of a long process of rising tension. From a narrative standpoint, it's sometimes presented in a reasonably convincing manner (both the Shani relationship in this video and a few of the one-night stands are pretty plausible), but more often than not the constant screwing around comes across as inexplicable and rather gratuitous. It also has a "gamey" element to it, in that there's a very strong urge to, so to speak, "catch 'em all"...which of course only further undermines the psychological realism and personal integrity (such as it is) of the main character.  
  

The first few minutes of this clip was recorded many weeks ago, just before I stopped playing The Witcher last time. I left the game rather abruptly because of sudden increases in the game's difficulty, a constant stream of fetch quests as well as a couple of performance issues related to the Swamp area featured in this video. 

After having been gone for more than a few months, I'm finally back in the world of The Witcher - where sword fighting, heavy drinking and engaging in existential discussions about the nature of Good and Evil are considered good ways of spending a dark and dreary night in the shady back alleys of Vizima.   
  

The recent Quick Look of Divinity 2 was hotly debated in its comments section (as tends to be the case when a QL includes a lot of fairly negative staff commentary about the game in question), and this is my take on this minor controversy.  
 
First off, while no one would mistake Divinity 2 for a polished game by one of the wealthier RPG developers around, once again I get the feeling that the GB staff and their various guests are just a little too picky when it comes to the general audiovisual presentation. I played the X360 demo after having watched this QL and, sure enough, the graphics aren't state of the art...but they're not that bad, either (Vinny is certainly easily pleased by less-than-Crysis-like graphics...). In fact, if I hadn't known about the graphically superior PC version I would even have been positively impressed by the lush outdoor environments, vibrant colors and nice lighting effects. As for the frame rate, it looks considerably worse in this video than it did on my TV (a very cheap HDTV). 
 
Now over to the more importand and tricky question; is an unabashedly generic game like Divine Divinity 2 really worth playing (especially considering all the other supposedly awesome RPGs on the market right now)? I don't own the game and probably won't get it for quite some time, but from my brief time with the demo I'd still answer that question with a tentative "yes". In the closing minutes of the QL, Dave correctly points out that there very much is a hardcore audience for roleplaying games which completely lack the narrative flair, visual pyrotechnics and inspired settings of the genre's AAA titles, but instead focus on delivering huge game worlds, deep character development/customization systems and a fairly steep, grind-friendly challenge. Despite Dave's obvious lack of enthusiasm for the game and Vinny's tendency to make fun of its technical shortcomings I for one definitely got more interested in the game by watching it being played for an extended period of time during the Quick Look. 
 
The hint of despair in Dave's voice when he was talking about the difficulty of the game's early quests actually whetted my appetite - not because I think I'm a better gamer than Dave (I'm probably not), but rather because my natural RPG impulse when presented with tough enemies is to grind away at random enemies for hours (as well as explore the game world thoroughly) so I can then finally wipe out those previously unbeatable foes. That said, I'm not a completionist in any way and usually criticize JRPGs for unreasonably lengthy main quests; so merely celebrating the sheer time investment a game requires is emphatically not something I would endorse. Still, my overall perspective on this indicates a fairly obsessive-compulse playing style which clearly doesn't fit everyone in the modern RPG world of incessant level scaling and tidy, main quest-focused game structures. I hasten to add that none of this is meant to imply that Dave (or anyone else who didn't get excited about the game) doesn't like rolling up his sleeves and digging deep into a complex RPG world - I don't know the guy but I'm sure he does - the point I'm trying to make here is merely that different player's relative tolerance for grinding and deliberately slow-paced game progression is a highly relevant factor here, and that what frustrates some players might very well be the exact same thing that motives other gamers to start paying some serious attention to character development, world exploration and other important aspects which might ultimately determine his or her own ability to master said game.
 
Assuming that the game's worst technical issues (save game glitches etc.) can be sorted out, I hope DD2 will find its audience. I have a feeling it would be quite content with standing not on the shoulders but in the shadow of the genre's giants, where a certain subsection of the RPG fanbase will gather together in the shade and live to grind another day.