Zero Punctuation Review: The Witcher • VideoSift: Online Video *Quality Control

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Zero Punctuation Review: The Witcher

published by Zifnab

3 months 3 weeks ago • 4991 views

tags: Yahtzee, zero punctuation, fully, ramblomatic, witcher, painkiller, boring, mumorpuger

Yahtzee roleplays a pale, lanky misogynist. Get ready for an extra surprise at the end of the review...

Comments

I'm thinking of getting this game while I'm in Europe...

written by Krupo

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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Oh man I love his reviews... and the extra surprise... BRILLIANT... it deserved the treatment, oh yes it did. I look forward to more of those, I hope.

written by spoco2

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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So the Witcher is basically Oblivion?

written by MarineGunrock

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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The Witcher actually turned out to be a pretty damn good game once it got going. I enjoyed it even if the dialogue had some weird moments with crap translations. I almost gave up on it too during the initial tutorial level, but went back to give it another shot. I'm glad I did. Good stuff despite it's quirks.

written by Lurch

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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20 minutes... pufferfish...

written by gwiz665

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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Oblivion was a nice looking game with absolute crap everything else. Witcher is descent looking game with better story lines, but an un-intuitive talent system, and an alchemy system that is abit to complex and restrictive for something that is required in the game unless you set the difficulty setting to pussy. And yes the attacking system is that bad. You do more damage by chaining attacks, each set of attacks can be 3-5 hits depending on how upgraded your talents are, and when one flurry of attacks is up, you have a limited amount of time to click the screen and start a second more powerful attack of flurrys. And yes, for some brain dead reason, in "hot zones" your character will sheeth his sword and you WILL get hit while his lanky ass takes his time to draw it back out.

I find it funny and insulting that he labels this as a single play MMORPG, because MMORPGs usually drop you lots of weapons and armor, generally giving you upgrades as you go in the low levels. In witcher you wont see any upgrades for several hours into the game.

written by jmd

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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Krupo: based on this review I have to ask...

Why?

written by therealblankman

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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Wow, first time I seriously disagree with Yahtzee on most of his criticisms.

The depth of the storyline only truly becomes apparent as the interdeveloped plot lines and sub themes serve as a harbringer and weave together quite eloquently later in the game based upon choices made earlier. This is where the decision making, role playing aspects of the game really do shine. Yahtzee seems to be obsessed with indepth storylines so I guess he missed out by not persevering.

Also the combat system. Would he prefer the mind numbing spam-click equivalent of most action RPGs? A combo click system based on timing, where the tighter you are the less likely your opponent is likely to score a counter-hit is far superior to spam-clicking. Similarly having to juggle different fighting stances and different sword types, while maneuvering to avoid being surrounded actually means you receive a sense of self-gratification from combat.

The two problems with the alchemy system are that it's not sufficiently elaborated upon first introduction and that it's a tad aggravating to find the right ingredients. Beyond that though, it means once you learn enough recipes you have a smorgasbord of potions you can concoct and a diverse number of ways you can approach any dilemma. Which is a nice change from most RPGs which are so obsessed with defining a character through skill/stat selection that you end up firing the same fireball for the whole 50 odd hours of gameplay. Yes Oblivion, I'm looking at you.

written by RedSky | 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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Puffer fish.

written by dannym3141 | 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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redsky, no, the fighting system is ass, no doubt about it. I dont want a clicky fest..I want WoW and Guild wars, where attacking is automatic, and special attacks, abilities, and spell timing is criticle and under my control. Witchers lack of of a competent magic system (Your a warrior who can shoot fireballs and some electricity, and thats about it) if anything knocks down your role playing claim right there. You can role play all you want, youll still be a warrior with sub par magic.

Youll need more then a story to make a game. Imo FF8 and FF12 are the two low points in the final fantasy series because of a crappy battle system.

written by jmd

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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I suspect you haven't played it very much because there are a broad range of bombs and potions you can utilise, yes you only essentially have 5 skill spells but that means you're not restricted to only using the abilities you've levelled. Okay the variety of abilities is not as broad as say Guild Wars, but it's not a MMORPG, it's a role playing game in the sense it focuses on developing a storyline that gives you genuine choice, something that GW lacks on the other hand.

Ultimately I think you were just expecting something else from the game, particularly the fighting system but that comes down to personal preference. I don't think you can deny it's sufficiently involving though.

written by RedSky | 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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>> ^therealblankman:
Krupo: based on this review I have to ask...

Why?

I wrote my comment while waiting for the vid to load, ironically.

My desire to get it stems not from the review (actually it's ill-defined, it should say "First Impression"), but from the positive stuff I've read, including the other comments seen here *as well* as the fact taht it might be easier (though not necessarily guaranteed) that I might find the original Polish version, where the voice acting is apparently great (from the YT clips I've seen) compared to the English abbrev. version.

written by Krupo

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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I'm playing this game and am quite addicted. First time for me that I don't agree with Yahtzee. I think he just doesn't like RPG in general. Also I don't think it's hard to understand the game, you don't even need the manual. Following the tutorial and having some basic RPG intuition is good enough.

written by cybrbeast

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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Avenged sevenfold FTW!

written by serosmeg

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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I read you guys discussion and it sounds yatzee-esque, except there is some puntuaction here and there... I havent Played the game but man did I enjoy the review!

written by neuralnoise | 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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You know his reviews are never really 'reviews' in the traditional sense?

They're meant to be funny... man, lighten up!

written by spoco2

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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So was that the intro to Painkiller he voiced over? I assume it was because the text said something about Painkiller... could have been the expansion though.

Never played either, only the demos... I was expecting Serious Sam. I cried and ran the uninstaller.

written by cheesemoo

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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Has anyone ever gotten this damn flash player to work on Firefox at all?

I'm tired of opening IE just to watch this...

written by WolfDemon

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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>> ^WolfDemon:
Has anyone ever gotten this damn flash player to work on Firefox at all?

I'm tired of opening IE just to watch this...

I've had no problems using Firefox on multiple systems to view this flash player...

written by Zifnab

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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To me the combat system in this game rendered it totally lifeless, I mean honestly time based attacks win over spam clicking? No. But there has to be a better way, I felt totally left out of the combat process, it didn't feel like I could affect the outcome in any meaningful way, other then being like a fucking trained dog who clicked when the icon changed.

And yes I had problems with this Flash player in Windows Vista with Firefox. Out of them all its just this flash player specifically that almost always fails to load.

written by Farhad2000

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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I loved The Witcher. One of the better RPGs I've played in a long time.

Farhad2000:
Play at a higher difficulty level and you don't get the icon helper telling you when to click.

written by Soupskin | 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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I knew this game was going to be shit after sitting through the 20-minute boring-as-hell introduction video... that was all I needed to see before I uninstalled it.

written by Xax | 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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I have trouble with my Fx3 beta and this player, but it's fine in Fx2.

Xax, you gotta play the Polish version I'm guessing.

>> ^Zifnab:
>> ^WolfDemon:
Has anyone ever gotten this damn flash player to work on Firefox at all?

I'm tired of opening IE just to watch this...

I've had no problems using Firefox on multiple systems to view this flash player...

written by Krupo

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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Oblivion is the best game ever created.

written by Ryjkyj

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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"Oblivion is the best game ever created."

I get the feeling someone hasn't played very many games.

written by scottishmartialarts

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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I actually think Morrowind was better, as far as gameplay is concerned, than Oblivion. Oblivion has this stupid leveling system, where basically all the enemies are always about the same strength relative to you. So when you level up, the creatures just do the same. This really robs you of the RPG element of feeling your character getting super strong. And it makes everything too easy. In Morrowind there were areas where you just couldn't go at a low level, except on very risky missions to maybe grab some cool items. In Oblivion is is not even possible to get cool items as a low level, they only start appearing as you level up. In Morrowind you had to work really hard to get a great set of armor together but in oblivion all the good stuff just appears as you level higher. I think all this was done to make it more accessible for the console kiddies.
Modders have tried to fix these problems, but they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

written by cybrbeast

| 3 months 3 weeks ago | CH

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Puffer fish...

written by legacy0100

| 3 months 2 weeks ago | CH

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I agree with you, but to play devil's advocate for the system for a moment, the potential 'upside' from the levelling system is that it keeps things "interesting", since you still have a "challenge" rather than a cakewalk throughout the later game.

It also keeps the random sites/dungeons interesting.

Of course, they could've done the same thing by doing away with the level-dependent enemy strength, and instead mixing up easy and tough places. Controversial choice and on the whole I agree with you, mainly because of the absurdity of finding thieves and bandits sporting glass armour and other riches when this stuff is supposed to be some sort of luxury.

Making things stupider is the fact that the 'other' NPCs don't level up (or at least, not as much... but I think not at all is in fact correct), so guardsmen are liable to get smacked down on higher levels by enemies that would otherwise pose no threat to them. Sad.

At least the bears and wolves seem to have a level cap, eh?

>> ^cybrbeast:
I actually think Morrowind was better, as far as gameplay is concerned, than Oblivion. Oblivion has this stupid leveling system, where basically all the enemies are always about the same strength relative to you. So when you level up, the creatures just do the same. This really robs you of the RPG element of feeling your character getting super strong. And it makes everything too easy. In Morrowind there were areas where you just couldn't go at a low level, except on very risky missions to maybe grab some cool items. In Oblivion is is not even possible to get cool items as a low level, they only start appearing as you level up. In Morrowind you had to work really hard to get a great set of armor together but in oblivion all the good stuff just appears as you level higher. I think all this was done to make it more accessible for the console kiddies.
Modders have tried to fix these problems, but they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

written by Krupo

| 3 months 2 weeks ago | CH

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Maybe you'd want to try Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. It is a massive effort to 'fix' the leveling system.

http://jorgeoscuro.googlepages.com/oscuro'soblivionoverhaulfaq
Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul seeks to erode the hard-caps placed on the possibility of encountering content in the game world. Essentially, it makes almost all content available at any given time. The hierarchy of item quality, quest and creature difficulty is preserved by balancing the difficulty in acquiring, completing and defeating them, respectively. The result is a world with less boundaries, more diverse and mysterious, where excelling in exploration, skill, wit and resourcefulness leads to higher kinds of rewards for the effort spent in attaining them. The world does not reward you, or place difficulty against you, solely based on chance or a solidified scale based on level, which tends to equate to how much time you have invested in the game. Now you can experience at any time the thrill of facing almost unsurmountable odds and receiving a well deserved reward for your courage and skill.

written by cybrbeast

| 3 months 2 weeks ago | CH

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Yeah, I've seen OOO and figured I'll give it a shot if/when I replay it. Currently still playing through with my original character, though I've tossed in so many add-ons that it's like a new game all over again halfway through. Fun.

written by Krupo

| 3 months 2 weeks ago | CH

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I'm waiting for my new GPU (GeForce 8800GT), then I'll replay Oblivion with OOO. Can't wait, and have been waiting for weeks on the pre-order of my card