Quick Look: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (360)

This game continues to look like something I would play, and PS3 continues to be the only platform I could play this on.

Get on this, CD Projekt. I want to give you money.

@Lightningproof said:

Patrick went Iorveth. Patrick made the correct choice.

When I saw that he was in Vergen I was hoping that he'd trigger the scene with Philippa whipping her apprentice. That would have set the right tone for a Witcher QL.

@tactis said:

Man so I played through this part of the game yesterday took me like 30 min to find that elven part of town that leads to the catacombs. I agree with Patrick this game needs a better map/ bread crumb trail like Fable games because right now too often I get completely lost. Otherwise fantastic game.

If you examine the map it's actually pretty clear about how you get from place to place in most instances. You do have to actually look at it though, the map can't help you if you just run off in the general direction of a marker.

Fable-style breadcrumbs would be fucking awful.

I do not remember rolling that much when playing The Witcher. Does the difficulty change a lot between 1 and 2, or does Patrick just play very cautiously?

@Brendan: Although Patrick is exaggerating a bit in the QL (he's not fighting very difficult enemies, he seems pretty well quipped and leveled) I rolled A LOT in this game when I played it last year. The upgrade slot to increase rolling is ESSENTIAL. Also, you get a major damage bonus if you strike an enemy from behind. So even if you don't particularly need to roll, it's often worth it to get damage bonuses.

It's nice to see Patrick enjoying it so much. More people need to play this game!

Witcher 2 have some crazy quest and dialogs but Patrick din't show any , great QL anyway

@kpaadet said:

@MosaicM80 said:

I heard the game on the PC works better with a controller, so it makes sense to be on a console.

I still dont know who these crazy people are. This game plays best with M&K, just because the game was designed with a controller in mind does not mean they were successful.

but they were successful. it plays great with both. i prefered the controller personnaly. i found it suited the sword fighting combo's better. but the KB/M worked great to.

10 hour learning curve? more like 5 at most. I just dont understand how it takes people so long s=to get a hang od=f some games.

10 hour learning curve? more like 5 at most. I just dont understand how it takes people so long s=to get a hang od=f some games.

The kerfuffle that Vinny was talking about was Namco Bandai, the European publisher, suing CD Projekt for removing DRM from all copies through the patcher and then CD Projekt publishing through THQ for the 360 version.

Also, all the DLC was free on the PC.

Patrick really needs to work on his talking while playing skills, the quick looks he helms always seem to involve him wandering around doing nothing while talking. Perfectly understandable, I know I find talking while playing really difficult. I guess it just makes me appreciate how good the rest of the crew are at showing off a game while talking about it.

hope this sells well.

I preferred the pc quick look of this game, though.

MAN I SURE LOVE ALL THESE QUICK LOOKS WITH PATRICK.

@Soviet666 said:

@Cloneslayer said:

10 hour learning curve? more like 5 at most. I just dont understand how it takes people so long s=to get a hang od=f some games.

Maybe they are from United States :P.

Im from the United States, sooo.. ya

also, i really hate playing games using keyboard and mouse anymore, controllers are the only way to go

double also, that quest partick was on around 22:00 took me FOREVER to find. The map is not the best.

@Bell_End said:

@kpaadet said:

@MosaicM80 said:

I heard the game on the PC works better with a controller, so it makes sense to be on a console.

I still dont know who these crazy people are. This game plays best with M&K, just because the game was designed with a controller in mind does not mean they were successful.

but they were successful. it plays great with both. i prefered the controller personnaly. i found it suited the sword fighting combo's better. but the KB/M worked great to.

I found that the game on PC played much better with a controller, with the exception to one very annoying detail that I couldn't overlook.. looting.

Looting with a controller on PC was restricted to TAKE EVERYTHING, and you have to manage weight enough in this game as is.

what ever happened to Michael Moorcock suing the Witcher for ripping off Elric?

@Vinny No, Vinny, you're totally right about the meditation animation in Witcher 2. You'd see him drink his potions, and it'd have a different animation for how poisoned he is. In Witcher 1 it added time to your meditation time, in Witcher 2 you could get back up right after drinking your potions.

Edit: Also, it is not removed in enhanced edition for PC. I've been playing since they patched.

@Soviet666 said:

@Cloneslayer said:

10 hour learning curve? more like 5 at most. I just dont understand how it takes people so long s=to get a hang od=f some games.

Maybe they are from United States :P.

Im from the United States, sooo.. ya

@rebgav said:

@tactis said:

Man so I played through this part of the game yesterday took me like 30 min to find that elven part of town that leads to the catacombs. I agree with Patrick this game needs a better map/ bread crumb trail like Fable games because right now too often I get completely lost. Otherwise fantastic game.

If you examine the map it's actually pretty clear about how you get from place to place in most instances. You do have to actually look at it though, the map can't help you if you just run off in the general direction of a marker.

Fable-style breadcrumbs would be fucking awful.

I don't really think that is the case at all, there are many examples where there will be a quest marker and it will be in the middle of a light portion of the map, that looks like its in the middle of a mountain, not connected to anything. For example, when I needed to go to the war council, I pull up my map, oh look its this way, wait thats weird it seems to be in the middle of a random place on a map not actually near a doorway or a road.

Perhaps breadcrumbs would be too extreme but how about the game actually put its markers for the quests on the door of the building that I need to enter, and then after I enter the building the quest marker would change to the person I need to talk to inside the building, that doesn't seem unreasonable. Instead I am left with a quest marker in what looks like the middle of nowhere on the map.

Yes, eventually you will find stuff but I do feel like I waste a lot of time being lost. I think my problem is exacerbated by the fact this town is not gridded and has levels and stuff.

amazing game, do not want to play it with a controller.

The combat animations aren't really random, that running jump at enemies can be forced by double clicking while holding forward and is great for closing the gap after killing something. Well, how it was on the PC at least, can't imagine they would of changed it.

I don't want to go so far as a Fable or Dead Space map trail.. but I still want a better map.

I really like how the map looks, I just don't think it plays very well, and that's much more important.

@tactis: Does every game need to hold your hand to that extent? Try playing Morrowind sometime. No quest markers for anything...ever.

@Peanut said:

@tactis: Does every game need to hold your hand to that extent? Try playing Morrowind sometime. No quest markers for anything...ever.

Which is not a good feature, and there's a reason gaming has moved on from that. Blind exploration and taking in the sights is fun initially but there comes a time when you want to stop traipsing in the bushes and get some shit done.

@emem said:

Now that's how you port a game, it looks fantastic for a console version.

I agree. It's great to see a developer taking the time to make sure that the quality of their game isn't significantly diminished when ported instead of them just rushing it out.

Why don't you ever use aard. Man. And I love Vinny's little hint "Man I can't believe you're leaving all these harpy feathers on the ground". FYI, keep all your harpy feathers.

Cant wait to play this! Looks awesome.

@Efesell: yea it doesnt really, just looks nice. they really need to not make this game so fucking hard to understand and make it more accessible.

@seanfoster said:

Glad this QL is up but a whiny comment from @Vinchenzo? Fuck that

He can whine all he wants, it's a free (internet) country pal.

I miss when Patrick wasn't in 90% of all quick looks.

@Vorbis said:

The combat animations aren't really random, that running jump at enemies can be forced by double clicking while holding forward and is great for closing the gap after killing something. Well, how it was on the PC at least, can't imagine they would of changed it.

Hm, really? I'll have to double check that today.

@damnable_fiend said:

what ever happened to Michael Moorcock suing the Witcher for ripping off Elric?

Was that ever actually on the cards? That would be pretty funny, given that Moorcock has been so forthcoming about the various sources which "inspired" Elric.

@Milkman said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

@seanfoster said:

Glad this QL is up but a whiny comment from @Vinchenzo? Fuck that

He can whine all he wants, it's a free (internet) country pal.

Alright...I have zero desire to get into an argument about this but the Internet is not a "free country." Using that or freedom of speech as an excuse to say whatever you want only protects from the government. Once you're on the Internet, your right of freedom of speech is gone and is completely in the hands of the website you're posting on. So, no, Vinchezo can not be a prick all he wants.

Yes I can.

This game is so beautiful

This.

This is the game that is making me save up for a GTX680.

One day The Witcher 2, one day I will finally be able to run you well on my PC.

Can someone bit smarter than me answer my question. Ive got a laptop with an i3, a geforce 460m and 4gb of RAM. Should i get this on xbox or pc?

@Dagmar said:

@Animasta said:

@buckybit: there was DRM in the boxed version if I recall

The DRM had a negative effect on performance so they scrapped it in all versions. Except Steam, of course. They got into a lot of trouble from their publisher because they didn't ask.

The retail boxed version had DRM, which was removed later via patch, which got them into trouble with the publisher. Steam version never had the mandated DRM, just the built in Steam stuff.

@Efesell said:

@Bell_End said:

@kpaadet said:

@MosaicM80 said:

I heard the game on the PC works better with a controller, so it makes sense to be on a console.

I still dont know who these crazy people are. This game plays best with M&K, just because the game was designed with a controller in mind does not mean they were successful.

but they were successful. it plays great with both. i prefered the controller personnaly. i found it suited the sword fighting combo's better. but the KB/M worked great to.

I found that the game on PC played much better with a controller, with the exception to one very annoying detail that I couldn't overlook.. looting.

Looting with a controller on PC was restricted to TAKE EVERYTHING, and you have to manage weight enough in this game as is.

I still think you're both crazy, I tried it and it was all right. But on the hardest difficulty it was just way too slow (when using the magic wheel etc).

@Stubee: You should get it on PC and buy a new PC to play it on.

Level 18 and in act 2 and he's still using that same starting armor? You should have crafted that Kayran armor Patrick.

I own the Witcher 2 on the PC and Xbox 360. I prefer the Xbox 360 version. The controls are spot on. The PC version's controls are fine, but there's just something about the 360 version that I like more. Also the controller is better implemented on the 360 than the PC. The mouse/keyboard combo just didn't do it for me on the PC.

@patrickklepek said:

@Vorbis said:

The combat animations aren't really random, that running jump at enemies can be forced by double clicking while holding forward and is great for closing the gap after killing something. Well, how it was on the PC at least, can't imagine they would of changed it.

Hm, really? I'll have to double check that today.

I think you have to be a certain distance from the enemy and he will lunge at them, I'd check but my game has randomly stopped working, that's PC games for you.

@kpaadet said:

@Efesell said:

@Bell_End said:

@kpaadet said:

@MosaicM80 said:

I heard the game on the PC works better with a controller, so it makes sense to be on a console.

I still dont know who these crazy people are. This game plays best with M&K, just because the game was designed with a controller in mind does not mean they were successful.

but they were successful. it plays great with both. i prefered the controller personnaly. i found it suited the sword fighting combo's better. but the KB/M worked great to.

I found that the game on PC played much better with a controller, with the exception to one very annoying detail that I couldn't overlook.. looting.

Looting with a controller on PC was restricted to TAKE EVERYTHING, and you have to manage weight enough in this game as is.

I still think you're both crazy, I tried it and it was all right. But on the hardest difficulty it was just way too slow (when using the magic wheel etc).

Were you bringing the wheel up while standing still? I made it a habit to only pop it up after I started a roll.

@Stubee said:

Can someone bit smarter than me answer my question. Ive got a laptop with an i3, a geforce 460m and 4gb of RAM. Should i get this on xbox or pc?

I can tell you that the hardware details you posted meet the publisher's recommended specs for running the game. Up to you to figure out which platform gives you the better experience.

@Stubee said:

Can someone bit smarter than me answer my question. Ive got a laptop with an i3, a geforce 460m and 4gb of RAM. Should i get this on xbox or pc?

Xbox. Unless you're okay with low settings. I have an i7@3.8ghz with a 470GTX and 8GB ram and I can barely max it out.

I'm watching this at 720p, and somehow I feel like the image compression looks worse than standard def. Does the game really look like this? Vinny mentions it at the start, but they seem to be ok with it. I'm thinking if it looks this bad on my 21" computer monitor, it's going to look outrageously bad on the 50" TV my 360 is hooked up to.

Or is this just the result of some weird thing with youtube trying to recompress an image that's already compressed to begin with?

@Jace said:

@Stubee said:

Can someone bit smarter than me answer my question. Ive got a laptop with an i3, a geforce 460m and 4gb of RAM. Should i get this on xbox or pc?

Xbox. Unless you're okay with low settings. I have an i7@3.8ghz with a 470GTX and 8GB ram and I can barely max it out.

what I have an i5 2.8 ghz 8gb ram and and a 460GTX and i can run the game with everything on max except ubersampling and with a very smooth framerate so something is clearly wrong with your setup if your not able to do the same.

@Jace said:

@Stubee said:

Can someone bit smarter than me answer my question. Ive got a laptop with an i3, a geforce 460m and 4gb of RAM. Should i get this on xbox or pc?

Xbox. Unless you're okay with low settings. I have an i7@3.8ghz with a 470GTX and 8GB ram and I can barely max it out.

I think you're doing something wrong.