And what is your expectation for W3 because of it?

I remember really liking the first Witcher. It felt like a more focused Skyrim to me. Lots of things to collect, good number of quests to do. Pretty interesting world.

However many times I tried, I just couldn't get into W2 though. Not that it was bad, it just felt so slow to me. I think W1 was just as slow, but I noticed it a lot more in W2. I think I just wasn't in the mood for the game, all the times I tried it. It also didn't feel as polished to me as it should've been.

As a result, I think I might not like W3 as much as other people. I'm certainly not as hyped for it as others seem to be.

What's your stance on this?

I never played Witcher 1, but I absolutely love the Witcher 2. I really enjoyed the slower pace because it didn't really feel like any other game I had played recently. The way the game made lots of grey areas kept things interesting. While I enjoyed the combat, looking back on it now I can't think of anything spectacular about it. I think I enjoy the Witcher for the characters, storyline, and player choices the most. So hopefully most of that continues to be good in 3.

I recently played witcher 1 and I loved it. It's a clunky mess, even compared to Mass Effect 1, which came out around the same time and is similar in a lot of ways, but I ended up loving The Witcher more. What does it for me is the irreverant nature of the characters and world. The voice actor for gerault is amazing at producing a monotone snarl, and when gerault comes across an idiotic npc (which happens often) his reactions are always priceless.

Didn't play witcher 2 because my computer is shit and I wasn't going to pick up witcher 3 until I found a way to play 2, but the devlopers said they are catering to people who are new to the series. They'd almost have to if they want it to sell well on consoles, because witcher 1 was only ever on pc, and witcher 2 was on pc/360.

I have fairly high expectations for three. I loved the story in both Witchers 1 and 2, but I thought various gameplay issues with the combat held both games back. In Witcher 1 it was ridiculous status effects and insta-death attacks from enemies that were impossible to avoid while in Witcher 2 it was having to roll around like a fool all the time and an inverse difficulty curve that made things really hard at the beginning and a cakewalk at the end.

Witcher 2 also suffered from a lot of running back and forth with lots of load screens in between, particularly in the first main story area. You couldn't go three feet in Flotsam without needing to hit a load screen. It seems that won't be a problem in three.

From what I've seen in the previews, they've changed a lot of that stuff up for the better. They've definitely given you more ways of avoiding attacks than just rolling all the time (2 kinds of dodge roll, a timed parry mechanic, and 2 forms of Quen), and it seems like they've handled potions much better too, moving to a charge based system rather than needing to re-craft your potions all the time.

I never played the first one but I've tried playing the second one several times since it came out. I think I came 5 hours into it the last time before I stopped. The story and characters just didn't appeal to me. It looks pretty though.

As a result I have no interest in The Witcher 3 at all.

Not a fan of them, but I recognize they are well made and great games. I'm still excited for three.

My problem is always the writing and some of the characters. It's "mature" in the same way a metal album is mature sometimes, super self-serious, kinda shlocky and pulpy. I'd prefer it to be a little more self-aware I guess, but that's personal.

It's a little disappointing because everything these games do is great for me but then the I'm always turned off by the writing.

i'm gonna fire out some negatives here, i didn't like either of the first two, and i won't be getting the third unless a quicklook or some twitch viewing changes my mind.

my main problem is i don't think cd projekt red have a good grasp of pacing or flow. most aspects of the witcher games i find jagged and jumpy, from the way it controls, to the rate that cut-scenes pop up, to the over-abundance of dialogue, it all feels out of balance and awkward to me.

i can see the appeal of the dark and mature medieval setting, but i think a lot of the characterization in the games is puerile, and i can't play them for long without getting the urge for something more acclimatized to the marketplace you could say.

also as an rpg there's not nearly enough customization in it for my tastes.

I liked the first game a whole lot. Enough to play it twice. Witcher 2 was good and all, and I beat it eventually. But I was never nearly as into it as the original.

Looking at the direction they are taking with 3, it could either be the best or worst thing for me. I have a bad track record with games that try to create huge open worlds....

Never played the first one but I enjoyed the second Witcher well enough. I didn't think it was amazing and it definitely had some of that European jank to it, but I was impressed with what that studio was trying to do.

My feelings on the Witcher 2 have no bearing on the Witcher 3 though. I'm excited for this newest entry in the series because I love open world games more so than any of my inherent love for the Witcher series or lore. It doesn't hurt that it looks like a good open world game either. Static enemy levels, bring them back!

I really like both games, and I think it's largely because of the tone of the world. To me, the Witcher is less standard fantasy, and more a mixture of medieval society and folklore/fables. The game is at it's best when both of those influences are used together, like in chapter 2 of Roche's path, or chapters 1 and 4 of the Witcher 1.

The biggest issue with the games was always the combat. In both games, avoiding damage could be a real pain. Also, I found that most of the potions and oils in the game were useless, and that the signs were never terribly useful.

I've been pretty in the dark about the Witcher 3, mostly because I've been distracted by other things. I haven't decided yet if I'm buying it day one, because I might like to play it through with all the expansions in one go.

I really liked the story in the first Witcher game. I liked it so much that I went and bought the books. But I ended up not finishing the game because the gameplay didn't feel good to me and it had too many mechanical quirks.

I liked the second one way more. It felt better to be in that world. I finished it three times.

One thing I don't like about the games is the excess of female nudity. It felt like a bunch of adolescents were making the gaming. I have no problem with the womanizing nature of Geralt's character, I might not agree with it but that's how the character was written. But if you are going to show me breasts and vaginas I wanna see some penises too.

I didn't like combat in the first Witcher game, and based on my experience with it I never bothered with The Witcher 2.

I've only actually been able to play 1. I really liked certain things about the game, but it was definitely rough around the edges. You could tell it was from a first time developer, albeit an ambitious one. I think what I ended up liking the most about the game was the world and atmosphere. I didn't care much for the combat, and although there was some good quests on the the way, the main plot was kinda dumb and pointless.

That being said, I'm actually super hyped about The Witcher 3 right now. I debated for a long time whether I wanted to play 3 without 2 first, but after paying closer attention to coverage lately it's looking to be must have. (I think it was Gamespot/Danny O'Dwyer's documentary style preview that really pushed it over the edge.) The gameplay looks like it's dramatically improved over The Witcher 1, and I already know I like the world of The Witcher, so it feels like a safe bet at this point.

The Witcher 1 would probably be in my Top 5 games of ever. The Witcher 2 would maaaybe be somewhere in the Top 20.

Objectively speaking I realise they are both flawed in significant ways, I just don't care. The stuff they got right is the stuff I most care about in games I guess.

I'm expecting TW3 to feel closer to Skyrim et al and probably less divisive as a result, but I think the open world and inevitable lack of focus will probably prevent it becoming a personal favourite.

Witcher 2 had competely different combat. As completely different as you can get really.

Witcher 1 was an amazing mess of an amazing game. Witcher 2 was just a really fucking good game with some slight problems. I rank Witcher 2 in my top 5 favorites of all time honestly and I've read the books since playing it. Super excited for Witcher 3

I liked The Witcher when I first played it, though I feel like it lacked polish (heh) in quite a few areas, mainly visually and control-wise. I did enjoy the combat a lot which was one reason that pulled me in. But it was The Witcher 2 that made me fall in love with the series. I think Game of Thrones had a hand in that because during the time Witcher 2 came out I got into the TV show and both offered that dark fantasy/political intrigue theme that grabbed me. The world of the Witcher was rendered beautifully, even on my crappy computer and playing with a controller just felt natural. The combat was different, but I think it was for the better, leaving behind the timing-based system from the first game. The Witcher 3 sounds like it's going to be more of Assassins of Kings but with a much more open world and more content, I can't wait to explore it.

I only played the second one on the 360 and I thought it was very good, mainly because of the storyline, characters and quest design. The story was perhaps the best I played in any fantasy role-playing game. The combat on the other hand was the game's weakest aspect; it certainly wasn't as tactical as advertised. Sadly, the combat system in The Witcher 3 seems largely unchanged from the previous one, so I'm not sure if I'll be getting it at launch (probably not, actually).

Witcher 1 was interesting but very flawed. I thought it was a bit aimless and seemed to be much too long for what was going on with the story overall. I am cool with any top down or isometric RPG but it didn't feel like it needed to be, with just one character. It definitely didn't do anything interesting with that viewpoint to me (and worked better with 2's changes).

I was blown away by Witcher 2. The story and delivery of it are both done very well and the pacing is strong. The combat is weirdly hard at first and ultimately not that challenging or deep but it's not bad. Really great to look at and I thought the way the plot goes at the end was very interesting. Cool how the game branched off. I found both sides interesting. One of the better jobs with story, plot, world, characters in any RPG, to me. It's a top 5 RPG for me.

If 3 can lay out similar feel to 2 across an open world, that would be a really impressive game to me. Of course, that'd change things quite a bit but in general the feel of 2 was great and I love the story and setting. I have been concerned about them delivering because it sounds like a tall task to deliver that quality in an open world game (as they have said they would) but as it's taken longer I feel better because this should take a long time to do right. Sounds like a giant game. I hope they pull it off. I hope they take some lessons from Red Dead about weaving story and quests into open worlds.

My expectations are very high.

Both are fairly different from a gameplay perspective, but both are equally great in my opinion. I'm replaying TW1 right now to remember the plot etc. better in preparation for TW3, and aside from being a bit clunky, it's still just as good as I remember.

So this and what I've seen and read of TW3 makes me have really high hopes for that game.

I liked the first Witcher, but like any long RPG I stopped playing it at some point. I played a good 20 or more hours of it, though, and I think the combat was the best in that one.

The Witcher 2 was interesting because they went very much for a Game of Thrones type intrigue with the story so that was cool. The combat was awful in the Witcher 2 (and when they patched it it became servicable).

Overall I never finish them because I find that I can't ever finish games that expect that much play time investment for whatever reason. I still enjoyed them and look forward to Witcher 3, but I hope they make the combat better. It's never been great in these games and was only not in the way in the first one. The combat in the second game was terrible. If they make it more like Dark Souls combat it will be amazing, though. We'll see if they're good enough to pull that off.

I think the first Witcher is decent. I enjoyed it a lot, but I can see how it can lose people easily. The Witcher 2 I think is absolutely fantastic. The difference between the two games is almost like going from Uncharted 1 to 2 for me. Needless to say, I'm very excited for 3. So much so that I decided to read all the books and that's only making me look more forward to it now that I know about Ciri, more about Yennefer, and understand Geralt a lot more(it actually provides some interesting context to his relationship with Triss). At first when I heard that there was gonna be another playable character I thought "Fuck that! Just give me Geralt!" But I'm actually looking forward to playing as Ciri. I'm still in the middle of the final book, but I love this world.

Never played through The Witcher 1 but played through The Witcher 2 once it came to consoles and loved it. The completely branching story line, where you miss a large portion of the game was unlike anything I've ever played. The main story line was pretty good and I loved how many of the choices were grey as opposed to A) Good choice B)Evil choice. I thought the combat was really satisfying even though it certainly took some getting used to. Even though The Witcher 3 won't be as tight an experience, I'm curious to see how they work with choices having effects as the playthrough goes on where in large open world games choices are usually pretty meaningless. Also for a person that should be a monster hunter, you only ever really had to read up on monsters a few times in TW2 it'll be great to have monsters living organically in an environment where you're actually going to need to know how to get the upper hand rather than a monster just being placed at the end of a quest or the back of a cave. Easily my most anticipated game this year.

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They're pretty great games.

Can't comment on TW1 since my computer can't run it. Yes, my PC really is that bad.

As far as TW2, I very much enjoyed everything about except the actual game itself, if that makes any sense.

The narrative was excellent. Strong dialog, great voice, Geralt is the most alpha protagonist to ever exist, weighty choices, but clunky combat and poorly designed hub worlds, made worse by a lack of way-points, made playing through it an absolute slog

Fortunately, it seems CDPR has fixed most of these issues with TW3.

I had to start the second game about four times over until I made it past the forest/swamp area (first act?) but I thought the game really picks up after that one. Not one of my favorite games ever, but it's pretty damn good!

The first Witcher, that is a different story. Way too hard/impenetrable for me. Didn't like the three sword styles and the way it made you jog everywhere (and there wasn't a whole lot to do or see in some areas).

Really excited for the third one, since it seems to fix a lot of the tedium and bad quest design that plagued those games!

I really liked the careful preparation of the 1st game. You had to find good booze for your potions, talk to the old people to gain knowledge about the beasts. Also the "romance" stuff was very much like in the books.

W2 was better in many ways but it got worse as the story went forwards. I liked more of the closed story of the W1 instead of the "saga" approach of the second one.

Played Witcher 1 at a friend's place for an hour or so, liked it fine. This was right after I had read "The Last Wish" so my Witcher hype was at a fever pitch. I didn't have a decent PC so I couldn't do it on my own.

Witcher 2 on the Xbox 360 ran like shit for me, with dropped or bugged quests that, after looking online, had to be completed in a very methodical fashion, enemies becoming non-combattable mid-fight, frame rate drops abound and a weird instance where I entered a town and none of the NPCs or detailed textures loaded; it all just looked like cardboard cutouts. Also, the pace at which Geralt moved while exploring the world felt awkward; ever played Fallout 3 in 3rd person? It kind of felt like that glide-y, floaty movement. I gave up eventually. Unfortunately, an extreme minority of people seem to mirror this experience, even on the 360.

Needless to say, I have reserved expectations about 3. I really want it to be good, but am going to wait for reviews to be sure.

The witcher 2 is one of my top 5 games of all time

Really liked both games. I was super impressed by the Witcher 2, so I'm really looking forward to the third.

I tried to play Witcher 2 a couple of times to get ready for Witcher 3, but it just isn't grabbing me. The combat is so... all over the place. Maybe Dark Souls ruined Third-Person melee combat for me forever.

I also really liked the witcher 1, though I had to take a couple months-long breaks from the game, as there are some dry spots. I tried getting into the witcher 2 a couple times, I liked what I played but while the storyline was more involved, it didn't keep me going in the same way. I also felt like the original's quest structure was a bit easier to follow compared to how far I got into the sequel. Not to mention how annoying the combat could get early on, you're not playing the game at all for the combat.

Still I really ended up liking the first one a lot. I felt like the prologue and the first chapter set things up really well, chapter 3 had a nice climactic close (after having been weak throughout chapter 2 and 3), chapter 4 was really refreshing to be out in the countryside again, and 5 was nuts. In the final chapter you suddenly are plopped into this really dense, big area with chaos going on all around and really no direction. It felt more hectic but got exciting. The way that you basically redid the game's intro was cool. The final part long sequence was the longest that I'd played through since Chrono Trigger (I got to the final boss in CT by boarding that star destroyer), I marathoned it figuring that at some point I'd reach the end then go to bed. Well I eventually did reach the end - in the morning.

I never played the first Witcher game and tried a couple times to get into the Witcher 2. I didn't love the combat and I never got far enough to see how the story agency paid off. I'm unsure how I feel about the Witcher 3. Even if it does play more to my liking I'm not sure if I'm up for another massive RPG time sink.

TW1 is one of my top 5 games of all time and i enjoyed 2 aswell. I fully trust them to nail the third person perspective this time but sometimes i wich CDPR would take the Pillars of eternity approach instead. Go back to their roots and their passion instead of this superhyped AAA approach where they try to please all. Super flashy graphics, massive open worlds and top of the line action combat aint what makes The Witcher series great but seems to be the mainfocus of 3.

@rethla: Sometimes I do worry that they're biting off more than they can chew with their ambitious, but I also think what they're trying to do with this game is truer to a real "Witcher experience" than what they have done so far. I think that's especially true in terms of the whole monster hunting aspect that defines a Witcher. I don't think a Pillars of Eternity style of game could accomplish what this game is trying to do in a way that I would be happy with.

The first Witcher is memorable to me for giving me the most problems I've ever had with a PC game. For whatever reason, it would crash regularly every 30 minutes to an hour. I had to regularly quicksave just in case the game locked up and inch my way through the game. As such, my experience with it was tainted, even though it had some cool ideas.

I actually just replayed the second Witcher and found it didn't hold up very well. There's a lot about it that I found to be rough around the edges: systems that were pointless, meaningless running back-and-forth, confusing quest objectives, and touchy combat. Sadly, it actually managed to sour my original positive opinion of the game. It's still an impressive visual experience, particularly in how well it builds a world, but my replay actually made me want to wait and see how Wild Hunt turns out before making a purchase.

Liked the first one (bought a new video card specifically for it), loved the second one, can't wait for the third one.

Sure, each game had its share of issues, but I thought the positives far outweighed the negatives.

I tried to play one of them probably the first one and it seemed like total garbage so I gave up.

I really like the first one, despite the super, super weird combat. Most of the rest of the stuff in that game is pretty great, though. I'm replaying it right now and am enjoying the hell out of it.

I consider Witcher 2 to be one of the greatest games ever made. It's truly a classic.

I like the books quite a bit as well. Geralt is a fantastic character.

I only played 2 which I loved even though the combat had room for improvement. Seeing that Witcher 3 may be a more polished 2 but open-world gives me the strongest of erections

Witcher 2 is one of the best games of the last generation and pretty far up there as far as voice acted stories in games go (top 5ish if Xenosaga only counts as one game).

Witcher 1 seemed interesting but man the Yahtzee review is spot on.

I enjoyed my time with Witcher 1 in spite of it's flaws and outdated graphics/mechanics/etc (I played it not too long before 2's release). I think it's a really cool world and mythology and Geralt is an interesting character.

Unfortunately, while 2 was an improvement in every way, I stopped playing not too long after the first big choice in the story. No real reason, just had other things. I haven't played it since and I'm really not into the idea of starting all over, which would probably be necessary at this point.

I loved both games, played the first one twice, the second one three times. I also read all the books which are pretty fantastic. So yeah, I'm fairly stoked for Witcher 3 to say the least.

I liked both and each had their flaws. I have pretty high expectations for 3.

As much as possible and I expect W3 to be ASTOUNDING, which it will be. Have faith ye of little faith, CDPR may not be developer we deserve, but they're the developer we need. Or something.

I liked them both. Just got through the first at the end of last month, and then played through two again. I wouldn't consider them some of the best games I've played, but they have a lot of good qualities to them, and I'm really happy to have gone through them before three, and would recommend everyone do it. The first game kind of takes time to get into, and the second game to me isn't quite as appreciated by myself when I hadn't played the first, and was initially kind of disappointing. They both have strengths and weaknesses, but both are great overall I think.

I enjoyed the Witcher 2 and loved chapter 2 of Witcher 1..... too bad chapter 3 was only okay, and chapters 1, 4, and 5 all sucked. That said I am super excited for the Witcher 3 since I have gotten into the books as well since playing the games and they give you a much bigger understanding of the world and the politics.... not to mention respect for the characters. I am just pissed off though that the Sword of Destiny (aka the next book in the Witcher series) finally gets released in english.... the same day Witcher 3 comes out!!! Now I will be torn between playing the game or reading the book.

@fredchuckdave: Yeah, he complains about the whole part about learning of the monsters you have to hunt, before hunting them, and that did kind of suck. While it was easy enough to over time find the books to get the mission, in the end, the contract missions in the game are worthless and a waste of time, and a detriment to the experience, so it's advisable to skip them I think. I also enjoyed the way they went about combat when compared to two; it doesn't look as cool as two's does, but to have a heavy attack, a light attack, a group attack and then two different swords, I actually liked, and it's only a simple click on the keyboard to change it, though at times it didn't quite respond as one would like. The group attack especially was more useful than the upgrade you get in two that's supposed to do the same thing.

I came to The Witcher 1 fairly late (early 2011), but I absolutely fell in love with it. There's a texture and sense of history to the world of that game that drew me in and kept me going even when the gameplay was a little weird (rhythm-based fighting) and the story got a little slow (chapter 1). I ended up playing in through twice before The Witcher 2 came out in May of that year. Witcher 2 is fuckin awesome. The story is much better paced than in the original game and the visuals convey that world as well the dialogue and encyclopedia did in the first game. I might be in the minority, but I actually liked the combat as well. It wasn't super deep, but you had to think on your feet to survive and I appreciated how useful your signs and potions were. I finished reading the books earlier this year and I'm spending my time before the release replaying both games. I don't think I could be much more excited if I tried.

I played The Witcher 2 first and loved it. So much of that game felt unusual and unique at the time, and even though I think the combat is introduced in a pretty brutal way that's off-putting to begin with, I came to really enjoy it once I'd got to grips with it. I only went back to the first game because I was interested in filling in the back-story and learning more about the world. I enjoyed a good part of the original but it was pretty dated in many respects even back then. I found the back half of that game a bit of a slog, if I'm honest, and it's generally over-long as a whole I think. I'm glad that I finished it but it felt maybe more of an obligation than a pleasure by the end.

My only concern with The Witcher 3 was that the "Skyrimification" of the franchise might lose some of what made the second game so compelling and different with it's branching storyline and so forth, but having seen and heard more about the new game it does look like it's going to be awesome and retain some of that individuality. It's definitely the next game I'm most interested in getting at launch.

The only reason why I played Witcher 1 was because people said that it had a lot of nudity in it.... Nobody told me it was just in the form of trading cards though. So I played it and I had just come from Dragon Age, which I disliked, so I immediately disliked the combat in it, plus it just felt really clunky and I was just not getting immersed into the game. So I never beat it.

When I saw the trailer for Witcher 2, I was pretty blown away by how the game looked graphically and story wise. This seemed more like a true medieval fantasy themed game than the 1st one and that's definitely the feeling I got while playing it. I got this at launch and my one gripe with it was how hard the first few combat instances are in this. I was a little disappointed by how Dark Soulish this felt, it seemed like a Witcher should be able to handle blocking attacks more than 2 times before getting "tired". But that changes about half way through the game, after leveling up and getting better gear. The game opens up much more with what you can do in combat. It just seems weird that the game limits so much in the beginning. Those boss fights though... I'm sure there's a Kotaku article out there somewhere that has explained this better, but those boss fights were pretty lame. Especially the "monster" boss fights. Wasted potential in my opinion.

I'm excited for the Witcher 3, I was a little bummed to see the combat really hasn't changed much from hacking at a piece of meat til it drops like in the second one, but it seems the tweaks to the magic signs and the addition of a crossbow will help the flow of combat more. Plus the open world seems sooo awesome.