I've spent some time the last few days with the Witcher 3, and while I have never finished any of the previous games, it's safe to say I will follow this one to completion. Below is a list of things I love, and a few things I despise, about Geralt's latest adventure.

(side note: I started writing this before the latest Giant Bombcast, and was both excited and dismayed to hear a lot of the same points brought up.)

Things I love:

- You're Not Trying To Save The World Witcher 3's plot (thus far) isn't about saving the world from some unknown, mysterious destruction. It's more like Game of Thrones, complete with endless regions and kingdoms you'll need a glossary to remember (and thank goodness, there's one of those too). You're hired to look for a woman, bring back that woman, and slay monsters along the way. Simple where it needs to be, but more importantly, it's personal. Even better, this removes some of the inherent pressure of having to finish the main quest because, you know, world is ending, bro.

- Side Quests Are Not Fetch Quests In my 20 + hours thus far, I don't think I've encountered a single quest that has tasked me with finding X number of items, or defeating X number of enemies. The structure of each quest is organic and plausible. If you are fetching any items, such as collecting plants for special potions/oils, it's optional.

- Even Side Quests Have Plot Twists Bioware who? The side quests are like playable folk tales, complete with fable-like moral quandaries and nightmarish creatures just outside the realm of reality. Every story I've encountered so far has been highly entertaining, and the outcomes are more often than not a surprise. It's games like the Witcher that makes me wish there was a game where the world is already saved, and you just play side quests.

- Potions In Combat! For Witcher fans, this is a huge plus (though I am sure that the faithful will cry foul over this "consolification" of their beloved PC franchise). You still have a toxicity meter, and you can only carry three of one type of potion into battle, but this definitely makes the combat easier to Swallow (get it?).

- There Are No Wrong Choices, Only Choices My biggest gripe with Bioware games (and more recently, Telltale games) is the transparency of choice. In Mass Effect, as morally gray as the characters were, my Shepard had only two choices: be a hero, or be a dick. If I wasn't sure, the game color-coded it for me. While this serves as a convenience for those who wish to play all Paragon or all Renegade, the actual thrill of choice is gone. Witcher gives you choice, but doesn't spell it out for you, meaning you won't know the consequences of your action until it's too late. You know, like in real life. It gives you a sense of ownership to your choices, a feature that many games fail to recognize is the most important part of choice in the first place.

Things I despise:

- A Mess of A Menu Innovative as the Witcher is, the in-game menus are a blast from the PC past. Items are barely organized, notes and books are stored as actual items with no categorization (or even a separate tab for lore that doesn't take up inventory space? Come on.) Playing with a controller, choosing items to dismantle or repair can be needlessly tedious. At least the potion making has been simplified.

- Mixed Signals A Witcher can perform magic, did you know that? Because I keep forgetting that when I have seven Drowners on my ass. More often than not, my fights become a hack and slash, because with so much going on, you can forget about Igni or Quen or Axii. What does Axii do? I forget because the names all look the same. To be fair, Igni makes fire, and that does make sense. That being said, I'm started to see the usefulness of a spell like Axii (which mind controls/stuns an opponent) for larger creatures.

Stuck In The Middle With:

-Combat Let me just say, you don't play Witcher for the combat. While games like the Batman Arkham series and last year's Shadow of Mordor are starting to redefine and streamline the combat-with-multiple-foes genre, The Witcher plays catch-up to 2011. Combat is simple, until you realize it isn't. Enemies have to be researched for weaknesses to oils or spells, as mashing the attack button will only get you so far. That being said, mashing the attack button gets you pretty far most of the time. When you take on Witcher contracts, researching the beast you will be fighting on is not only crucial, it helps bring you into the world. A lot of games present this information to you with a click, but The Witcher asks you to do the work and is better for it. Except, sometimes you encounter a group of Drowners and just want to hack their heads off because good gravy, are they annoying.

Also, the lock-on function. Broken at best, Geralt's stubborn tendency to "stick" to one enemy at a time makes navigating multiple-foe skirmishes unnecessarily difficult, and because the game demands that each frame of animation be complete, you have to be well aware of the enemy attacking you if you wish to block in time. Once you find the rhythm of the game's combat, this becomes less of an issue, but an issue nonetheless.

-Witcher 3: The Wild Wind First time I started exploring White Orchard, I looked up and saw storm clouds. The trees bent heavily as the wind blasted through the landscape. I thought, wow, there's gonna be a hurricane coming! Nope, that's just how wind works in the Witcher. With great exaggeration. While it is neat at first to see a living, breathing world, the exaggerated tree physics can look like they're trying to get your attention.

Overall, play the game. Play it now, as it's a glimmer of hope in this increasingly dire gaming landscape.