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A Game: The Witcher (Enhanced Edition)

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If you’ve ever felt that every fantasy RPG always rehashes the same generic tropes over and over again, then you might want to check out The Witcher. The first release of the game last year by its Polish makers at CD Projeckt suffered from numerous technical hitches and a Polish-to-English translation that sometimes left players scratching their heads. Thankfully, the newly released Enhanced Edition of the game, available as free download for customers who had bought the original, fixes many of these problems and includes extended and fully voiced translations, so RPG fans have no excuse to put off buying this gem, even if it is still a bit unpolished.

The game is based on the Polish book series of the same name by Andrzej Sapkowski and as such is set in a medieval fantasy world with a distinctively eastern European twist. It is a grim and dangerous place where at night simple folk bar their doors and huddle safe in their houses while monsters roam at will. The player takes on the role of one Geralt of Rivia, the most famous of the few remaining witchers in the world who are tasked with defending humanity from these monsters, for a fee of course. As the game explicity states, witchers aren’t noble knights in shining armour, and as you’ll soon learn over the course of this game, there’s no unalloyed good in the world since everyone, and I mean everyone, has an angle.

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Shout-out in The Witcher

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I noticed a sarcastic shout-out to a popular novel while playing The Witcher the other day, so I saved a screenshot of it. The full text as follows:

This was popularized by Bronze Dan and begins with a convoluted theory about the derivation of the word Grail. A few tortuous pages in, we learn the Holy Grail is actually Sang-Real, which in the elder tongue denotes royal, “hallowed blood.”

I’ll leave it to the reader to notice which book is being alluded to.

I’ve just finished the game last night. The ending was a real shocker. Dramatically powerful, yes, but also painfully cruel to the player. Look out for a full write-up soon. In the meantime, I’m playing the two downloadable adventures for it, The Price of Neutrality and Side Effects, available from the official site of the game.

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Sex Cards in The Witcher

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I’m now playing the recently released Enhanced Edition of The Witcher. I’d originally bought the game at the beginning of year but put off playing it after reports came in about its lack of polish, garbly translation from the original Polish, frequent crashes and extremely long loading times. The Enhanced Edition of the game, which was made available as a free download to customers who had already purchased the original, fixes many of those problems, and I’m happy to say that even though there are still too many crashes for my comfort, I’m very happy with the game. I’ll write a full review when I’m finished with it, but so far, the game easily matches Mass Effect.

One of the most controversial aspect of The Witcher are the infamous sex cards. As an M-rated game, it presents plenty of opportunities for sexual activities, and it’s fair to say that the protagonist, Geralt of Rivia, is more than a bit of a ladies’ man. Each time you manage to bed a lady in the game, an entry is recorded in your journal together with a “sex card” of the lady in question, something like a collectible card. I was leery of this aspect of the game at first, but after having played the game for over a week now, I have to say that it’s damn refreshing to play a no-holds-barred, mature RPG that doesn’t skirt around sex and morality for once.

I note however that the copy of the game I purchased in Malaysia turns out to be the U.S. version, which is censored. The original Polish and European versions of the game had uncensored sex cards and in-game textures. Of course, this being the Internet age and all, it’s easy enough to get a look at the uncensored versions if you know where to look.