The Witcher 2: Assassin's of Kings

All you whiners. I thought the combat system felt a lot like Demon's Souls, but on PC instead of PS3. Parrying is something you definitely want to do vs humans, and once you unlock counter it gets a lot easier. I used Quen a lot, and when you max it out it's extremely powerful. Aard also makes many fights easier, expecially vs large groups. Bombs really help whittle down a group before dispatching them individually. There are really many ways to do it, but Quen, Aard, and bombs were what worked for me on hard.
 
How much does choosing Shani or Triss factor into the witcher 2?
 
Is that at the party? she doesn't stay that way for long.
 
I told her I don't wanna be her boo anymore.
 
I told her I wanted to be her boo but I never got around to getting the ring. All is well though, because Triss apparently forgot that I scorned her in TW1 and is my new boo whom I've already cheated on.
 
I ended up following through with Shani, I didn't trust Triss.
 
CDProjekt is earning a lot of respect points from me. I ordered the regular version for just 35 dollars and it came with a lot of neat goodies, I was very impressed. The old letter about the king, with the strange coin. The surprisingly quality cardboard dolls. The soundtrack, game guide, and bonus DVD.

Started the sequel today and I am loving it, lots of little details make this game so great. For some reason what really impressed me is when you are walking with the king and a soldier appears next to him with a mutilated face and says something like "My enemies did not survive, sir" in a slurred sad tone, and the king just pats him on the shoulder like an asshole.
Not sure what the complaint is with the combat. I have died a few times, but I learned quickly. So far I think it is very engaging and rewarding compared to the first witcher's combat. Maybe as I progress I will learn to hate it.

My biggest issue is the widescreen.
 
Not sure what the complaint is with the combat. I have died a few times, but I learned quickly. So far I think it is very engaging and rewarding compared to the first witcher's combat. Maybe as I progress I will learn to hate it.

You're fresh out of the first Witcher. I bet you love the combat.
 
I do, it reminds me a lot of Mount and Blade for some reason.
 
Only issue I have with it is the block button does not respond sometimes.
 
It does respond. Two things:

1. You need to have at least a single vigor bar left.
2. The game responds to the pressing of the block key. Even if Geralt doesn't go into the appropriate stance, he will still block.
 
Ah okay.

Also, how do you use potions? It doesn't seem to allow you to equip them in your pockets like bombs.
 
You can only drink them before combat, not during. When you press CTRL to meditate, there should also be a potions button that you can press to select which ones you want to drink.
 
Strategy. You need to know what and how you are going to fight, because the potions don't even last very long.
 
That pissed me off so much in one of the boss fights of Chapter 1. Theres a string of fights and shit before you get to it, and it was a pretty hard fight where you could maybe have a potion running for the first few seconds of it if you timed it right and fought through the prior fights quickly enough. Its pretty stupid having you use potions before a fight, especially since you usually don't know when a real fight is coming up. I don't think I've used a single potion since I started Chapter 2 because its just annoying having to think "hmm, do i use one now, or should I wait and see if I get a break later?" So **** potions entirely. I've gotten pretty good at the combat now, and I'm kinda liking it more now. Still wish I could stay facing people, and that I didn't have to use lame ass magic, but w/e.
 
The only time I've used a potion was with the haunted hospital level. That was only because I died several times and knew when I'd need one. It's a shame in my opinion, I enjoyed alchemy in the first Witcher.

What makes it especially dumb is that you can coat your blade mid-fight, still, but not drink a potion.
 
I rarely used potions in the first game to begin with, I only played on Normal difficulty though.
 
Is Axii worth upgrading in this one? It seems like it could potentially be the most useful sign next to Quen since you fight groups, however right now at Level I it seems totally useless.
 
CD Projekt RED is being sued by Namco Bandai because the DRM on TW2 was removed without their permission. They are also withholding roughly $1.75 million due to CDPR choosing THQ as the publisher for the 360 version of the game.
 
Real shame though I can understand where Namco Bandai is coming from.

If CD Projekt RED has breached the contract they have with Atari(Namco Bandai), then certainly Namco Bandai has every right to be pissed.

It's still a shame to see this happen since I really like The Witcher 1 and 2 and it's a shame to see the developer face lawsuits.

It's especially sad to see them get in trouble for doing something nice for the consumer (Removing the DRM.)
 
Welp. I may as well just start over then, lol.
 
I watched the CDP conference streaming live when they first presented all the features of 2.0 the other week. It's nice that they're adding this new content for free, but personally I'm a little underwhelmed by the actual substance. Arena mode is just a Survival mode high score challenge, like all the ones I never even bother attempting in beat em ups and puzzle games. 'Dark Mode' is essentially a new armour and sword set coupled with non-instadeath version of Insane difficulty mode, and considering how wonky the difficulty is in the first place I'm not tempted by anything higher than Hard. In fact the devs died within a couple of encounters while demonstrating both Dark Mode and Arena mode. The new tutorial area looks nicely conceived but of little interest to me. The only things to get my pulse racing are '40 new improvements', but considering they haven't elaborated on what any of them are and they've put them in the same category as the '100+ improvements made so far', I reckon they'll all be very minor.

The weird thing about the new Arena mode is they've tried to give it the vestige of a story and draped a bit of canon around it. The 'arena' is an old fortress in Kaedwen and Geralt receives an invitation to go there from a guy in the tutorial, I think. Once there you can chat to other would-be participants like sorceresses and have them fight alongside you. I don't know, when I was watching the presentation it just struck me as really dumb to try and fit the Arena mode into the Witcher mythos. Geralt spends a fair portion of both games agonising over whether it's right for a monsterslayer to be killing people, or even to be killing sentient monsters like werewolves, vampires and trolls, so I loled when, as part of the presentation, he ran past a werewolf in a cage on his way to slaughtering a load of trolls and soldiers in front of a cheering crowd. IMO it would have been better just to make it some dream/nightmare sequence, something involving Geralt's past or something relating to the Wild Hunt, if they were determined to situate Arena Mode in the game world.

Ah well, I guess it's just not aimed at me. I would have been nice to see the UI get a bit of a redesign but it hasn't been mentioned. Doesn't really matter, I'm on my second playthrough regardless of whether 2.0 will be worthwhile or not.
 
Reviving thread with an awesome intro created for the X360 version (which I guess releases soon? not that I care, I'll get it for the PC, since I finally have a capable rig).

Holy ****, I haven't seen such a good cinematic in quite some time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO49RZq5HCk
 
Yeah, saw that on GT the other day, very well made.

I'm ashamed to admit I still haven't gotten around to beating the game though.:(
 
I stalled on my second playthrough. Watching Jesse Cox's LP of it has whetted my appetite, though, and I may pick it up again soon. An Alchemy spec is such a pain in the pujole until you get out of Flotsam though :/

Great cinematic btw. They've really put out some slick little vids with this, the trailer for the aborted RotWW and the ending cinematic for TW1, which I watched over and over. The animation in this one isn't quite as good but it's a great idea and fleshes out some of TW2's back story. The only Witcher FMV I've not really liked was the intro to TW1, which set a low bar. All very flash, but having an undead wolverine do martial arts was just bizarre.
 
The only Witcher FMV I've not really liked was the intro to TW1, which set a low bar. All very flash, but having an undead wolverine do martial arts was just bizarre.

"Low" bar? Seriously? As an adaptation of the original Witcher short story it's brilliant, as is it's technical quality. What's bizarre is you praising a noticeably technically inferior cinematic, while at the same time smashing the intro, which has much higher production values.

And it's not an undead wolverine. It's a striga. And she behaves exactly as it was described in the book. L2ReadSourceMaterialPlz
 
I've read the Last Wish. Adda was stillborn so technically she was undead; CDP chose to depict her like a hyperactive Blanka, so 'undead wolverine' works fine for a description. My praise for the other one isn't bizarre, it's all self-explanatory - poorer animation, better idea, fleshes out the story, and I didn't ignore the 'very flash' production values of the Adda vid.

I remember reading that Sapkowski didn't like the intro FMV at all either. I guess he interpreted his own source material wrongly...?
 
In the words of my land: stary, nie ch?do?.

http://www.wprost.pl/ar/117243/Sapkowski-nie-gra-w-Wiedzmina/

Sapkowski liked it, though he was sarcastic about the amount of swordplay. As for the striga: one of the cornerstones of the Witcher universe, reinforced in the game and the entire series, is that what's dead, is, well, dead. Apart from supernatural apparitions, like haunts or ghosts, everything is very much alive. Wampires are simply species with a considerably different physiology (vide bruxae, Regis), ghouls and other necrophages are niche species that proliferated with the expansion of humans etc. The striga is simply a magical creature, created by a curse from the remains of Foltest's daughter. And it's very much alive (you can't make a living princess out of an undead creature).
 
Well, I won't split hairs over what 'undead' means in the Sapkowski universe since I don't know enough about it. When I read the story I seem to recall that she died, continued to grow in her crypt, and then returned as an angry monster, which fit what I understood to be 'undead'. It was just a throwaway comment.

I'll take your word on the interview since Google Translate butchers it. My recollection, now fuzzy, was of an interview with someone in CDP or maybe Baginski, not Sapkowski. If he wasn't too enthusiastic about the combat when he spoke to them, maybe that weighed on their minds when later recounting his opinion. Regardless, I just don't like the intro so I don't want to be drawn into a long dissection of it. If the Witcher cinematics are going to try hard to depict general cheesy badassery, I much prefer it to be the badass cheese of the newer clip (medieval fantasy commando mission with clever eye candy) rather than the TW1 intro (hand to hand kung fu with Blanka, slow motion mid-air punching off towers).
 
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