So, I'm slowly making my way through the Xbox 360 version of The Witcher 2 and there's a lot to like in this game. I like the world, the story has me (even though I'm finding Chapter 2 a bit less tight than Chapter 1), and the combat is pretty fun now that I've upgraded my abilities. That said, I had a moment yesterday where I almost shelved this game. Without going into spoilers, there's a part in this game where Geralt has to go into a dead man's memories and relive an event.

When this happens, the game cuts to a black and white flashback where you take control of the dead man. As part of the memory, he has to follow an NPC into a cave that is covered in snare traps. The NPC tells you to follow in his footsteps. The problem is, even if you do, the game will sometimes instantly send you to a fail state if you get within range of these traps. I was walking maybe 1 foot behind the guy, at the same pace, and randomly I would get a game over.

Now, I could see the traps. They were metal bear traps. I wasn't standing in one, but apparently you can trigger them if you're within a fairly large radius of them. Making things worse, since the section is in black and white and they've applied heavy vignetting, it can be really difficult to see these traps. Also, you've encountered these throughout the game as Geralt, where, if you do trigger them, you maybe lose 10% of your health - here it's an instant death.

What made this all the more frustrating was that after the fail state, there's a loading screen to take you back to Geralt's reality. Then he has a maybe 10 second conversation with another character and has to ask to try again, then, you have to watch a short, but unskippable cutscene. Then another loading screen to get you back into the dream.

I maybe tried 30 times before I could get past this part. Infuriating and badly designed. For all that this game does well, there's several moments that feel like it's just not giving the player the information needed to get past a section and/or what you're seeing on screen (i.e. I am not standing in a bear trap) doesn't match up with what the game decides is happening.

I can't say I recall this part but that does sound awful.

The witcher 2 has a ton of great qualities but man some of it is terrible. Really it is nice to see a game made with such heart but the way some people rave about it you would think it was flawless.

@theoldhouse: It's part of Roche's path - I assume if you did Iorveth's path you wouldn't have encountered this

@ztiworoh: I didnt think it was a fail state, I remember it being a part of the segment. Getting kicked out of the memory and re-entering it at a different point to continue.

@Giefcookie: Every time I somehow got in range of one of the traps, the screen faded to black, went back to Geralt saying he needed to try again, and then dumped me at the beginning of the cave.