The Witcher (video game): Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
No edit summary
Feyre (talk | contribs)
200 edits
Undid small vandalizing stuff
Line 145: Line 145:
! align="center" width=45 |<small>Leather bag</small>
! align="center" width=45 |<small>Leather bag</small>
! align="center" width=45 |<small>Super powers</small>
! align="center" width=45 |<small>Super powers</small>
! align="center" width=45 |<small>Pink Dildo</small>
|-
|-
|<small>US/European/Chinese</small>||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|<small>US/European/Chinese</small>||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|-
|-
|<small>European LE</small>||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|<small>European LE</small>||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|-
|-
|<small>Polish</small>||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|<small>Polish</small>||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|-
|-
|<small>Polish CE</small>||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|<small>Polish CE</small>||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|-
|-
|<small>Czech</small> ||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|<small>Czech</small> ||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|-
|-
|<small>Czech CE</small>||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|<small>Czech CE</small>||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|-
|-
|<small>Hungarian</small>||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|<small>Hungarian</small>||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|-
|-
|<small>Hungarian CE</small>||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|<small>Hungarian CE</small>||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|-
|-
|<small>Russian</small> ||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|<small>Russian</small> ||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|-
|-
|<small>Russian LE </small>||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|<small>Russian LE </small>||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}
|-
|-
|<small>Russian CE</small>||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{n}}
|<small>Russian CE</small>||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{n}}||{{y}}||{{y}}||{{n}}||{{y}}
|}
|}


Revision as of 20:43, 27 February 2008

The Witcher
Developer(s)CD Projekt RED STUDIO
Publisher(s)Atari (World), CD Projekt (Poland)
EngineAurora Engine
Platform(s)Windows
ReleaseEurope: October 26, 2007
US: October 30, 2007
Genre(s)Action RPG
Mode(s)Single-player
File:Gen Con Indy 2007 - video game advertisement - (The Witcher).JPG
Advertisement for The Witcher at Gen Con Indy 2007

The Witcher (from Polish: Wiedźmin) is a computer role-playing game for the PC developed by CD Projekt RED STUDIO and published by CD Projekt in Poland and Atari for the rest of the world. Based on the book series of the same name by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski,[2] the game uses BioWare's proprietary Aurora Engine.[3] It was released in Europe on October 26, 2007 and in the US on October 30, 2007.[4]

The Witcher follows the story of Geralt, one of a few remaining "witchers" — travelling monster hunters for hire, gifted with unnatural powers. Taking place in a medieval fantasy world, the game implements detailed visuals. The natural light during various phases of the day is realistically altered, and the day and night transitions serve to enrich the game's ambience. The weather can dynamically change from a light drizzle to a dark, stormy downpour accompanied by thunder and lightning.

Story / Plot

The game tells the story of Geralt the Witcher, who at the beginning of the game suffers from amnesia. He gradually learns that he's a very renowned witcher, and that he has had friends and enemies almost everywhere who remember him but whom he does not remember. Through the player's actions he will redefine those relationships and choose his path in the political intrigue that surrounds him.

Many parts of the plot actually depends on the choices of the player since non-linearity is one of the game mechanics which the developers tried to emphasize in The Witcher.

Gameplay

There are three camera styles available when playing The Witcher. The game can be played from one of two top-down perspectives, in which case the mouse is used to control everything, or it can be played from an over-the-shoulder view, which brings the player closer to the ingame combat, but limits visibility. In all the views the keyboard and mouse controls can be changed to be primarily mouse focused or a combined keyboard and mouse approach.

The combat system in The Witcher represents a departure from most RPGs. Players choose one of three fighting styles. The quick style allows for faster, less-damaging attacks with a greater chance of hitting faster enemies; the heavy style deals more damage in exchange for a slow attack speed, and a lower chance to hit faster enemies; and the group style, which features sweeping attacks best used if the player is surrounded.[5] The player can switch between the styles at any point.

Each of these stances has its own unique combat style. Both of Geralt's main swords - the steel and silver ones - have distinctively different combat styles from the rest of weaponry, and serve very distinct purposes: where the steel blade is used to fight humans and other flesh-and-blood beings, the silver one is more effective against supernatural monsters and beasts (against some of which steel may have no effect whatsoever).

Alchemy is a major part of gameplay. The player can create potions that increase health or endurance regeneration, allow Geralt to see in the dark, or provide other beneficial effects. The recipes for these potions can be learned through scrolls, or by experimentation. Once the player creates an unknown potion he can choose to drink it, but if the potion is a failure it will poison the character. Each time Geralt drinks potions they increase the toxicity level of his body. This can be reduced by drinking a special potion or by meditating at an inn or fireplace.

In addition to potions, the player can also create oils and bombs, respectively used to augment the damage done by weapons, or as weapons in combat. Neither can be created until talent points have been allocated into the corresponding skills.

A time delayed decision-consequence system means that the repercussions of players decisions will make themselves apparent up to 10 -15 hours later in the game. This prompts the players to put more critical thinking into making each decision, and circumvents a save-reload approach to decision making. It also allows the game to have a unique approach to replay value, as the consequences resulting from the player's decisions can lead to great difference in the events that take place later, and ultimately a very different gameplay experience than in the prior play-throughs.

The nature of the options faced when playing the game rarely falls into the typical black-and-white morality present in most regular computer RPGs, and the players often find themselves choosing from the lesser of two evils rather than making a clear choice between good and evil, a situation more reflective of real life morality.[6]

Game engine

The Witcher is powered by a heavily improved version of the Aurora Engine by BioWare, modified for a single-player experience. A number of changes have been introduced to the original engine, some of them are described below.

World visualization

One of the most important features of the Aurora Engine is how the developers design the game world, and then implement that design into the final game. In BioWare's Aurora Engine the world is designed exactly as it was envisioned rather than using a tile-based system. All the environments are developed in 3ds Max and then exported into the game engine. As a result, developers can create unique game worlds, rather than recycling the same tiled objects over and over again.

  • Light maps
CD Projekt's version of the engine supports lightmaps generated in 3ds Max. Shadows generated this way are reported to look more realistic, and provide better game performance.
  • Texture paint
This is a special tool that allows the developer to paint the environment using custom textures. This enables the developer to make the game world truly unique.
New realistic skyboxes and water effects designed specifically for The Witcher were added to the engine.

Rendering

All the in game and tool set rendering is done using DirectX9, and the engine now supports many different shaders (water effect, bump mapping, environment mapping, etc). Additionally the whole rendering system has been unified and a new light manager was added.

Other changes

Other important changes include the following: motion-captured animation, physics effects, new mechanics and combat system. There are also many other modifications, like introduction of portals, additional graphical effects (glows, advanced dynamic shadows, blurs).

TAGES Issues

The game uses the TAGES copy protection system, which has been found to conflict with disc image drive emulators and react similarly to presence of SCSI and SATA drivers in the system, leading to a number of occasions where the copy protection system has prevented users from running legitimately purchased copies of the game.

These problems can be usually avoided by uninstalling the TAGES driver with the official installation program and then starting the game (which will automatically install the appropriate driver version).[7]

Requirements check

Upon launching the game it runs a check of the computers specifications (such as virtual memory, graphics memory and processor capabilities) [8] If the requirements are not met the game will not load. This practice contrasts to other games which scan the specifications at the time of install and warn the user if the recommended quantities are not met. Due to this check, a number of people have been left unable to play the game without investing in hardware upgrades[8]. On December 20, patch 1.2 was released, the patch made it possible for the optional flag "-dontForceMinReqs" to be used in order to bypass the system requirement check [9].

Reception

As of December 5, 2007, the game's cumulative score on Game Rankings is 81%[10] and on Metacritic, 81 out of 100 ("Generally favorable reviews").[11]

The Witcher's cinematic intro was nominated for the 2007 VES Awards in the category of Outstanding Pre-Rendered Visuals in a Video Game. The nomination was given to Polish artists Tomasz Bagiński (director), Marcin Kobylecki, Grzegorz Kukus and Maciek Jackiewicz from Platige Image, who worked together with a team of about 20 people for a year on the game cinematic intro.[12]

Enhanced Version

At GDC 2008, CDProjekt announced an enhanced version of the game will be released later this year, with significant changes including new animations, and load times reduced by around 80%. This update will be available to download free for owners of the current version.[13]

Localization variations

All the female portrait cards shown after Geralt's "conquests" were retouched to a more modest standard for the US release version.[14] The in-game Dryad was also reskinned so her hair covered more of her body in this release.[citation needed]

Some dialogue between characters is shortened in the non-Polish language versions. Lead Designer Michal Madej has disputed claims by fans that this was due to the sometimes crude language, but that the decision to edit down dialogue occurred because of production-related concerns in game development. Proofreader Martin Pagan noticed this shortened version during his work and writer Sande Chen confirmed that it was not due to censorship. Fans have theorized that it may have been done for voice acting cost savings, especially since much of the vulgar language has been retained. Such cost savings would normally occur during any shortening of dialogue, even in cases where no major crudity was involved. [15]

Contents of each edition

The following table lists the contents of each edition in addition to the game DVD itself. "CE" means "collector's edition" and "LE" means "limited edition".


Edition Manual Map Soundtrack Bonus DVD Guidebook "The Witcher" Short story Artbook Bestiary Medallion T-Shirt Card game Posters Bonus music Stickers Leather bag Super powers
US/European/Chinese Green tickY Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN
European LE Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Red XN Red XN Green tickY Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN
Polish Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN
Polish CE Red XN Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Red XN Green tickY Red XN Red XN Red XN
Czech Green tickY Green tickY Red XN Red XN Green tickY Green tickY Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN
Czech CE Green tickY Green tickY Red XN Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Red XN Green tickY Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN
Hungarian Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN
Hungarian CE Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Red XN Red XN Green tickY Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN
Russian Red XN Red XN Green tickY Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN
Russian LE Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Green tickY Green tickY Red XN Red XN
Russian CE Red XN Red XN Green tickY Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Red XN Green tickY Green tickY Red XN Green tickY

References

  1. ^ "The Witcher Official Website". Retrieved 2007-10-13.
  2. ^ Aihoshi, Richard (2006-05-24). "The Witcher E3 View". IGN. Retrieved 2006-09-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Park, Andrew (2006-05-16). "The Witcher Impressions - E3 2004". GameSpot. Retrieved 2006-09-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ "The Witcher technical information". GameSpot. Retrieved 2006-09-09.
  5. ^ Ocampo, Jason (2007-07-02). "The Witcher Exclusive Impressions - Combat and Story". GameSpot. Retrieved 2007-11-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. ^ Arulnathan, Justin (2007-08-24). "The Witcher TheGamerGene Preview". TheGamerGene. Retrieved 2007-08-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ ""Missing NPC`s Or am i missing something"".
  8. ^ a b "Petition to CDProject concerning game's system requirements check at start up". 2007-12-19. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) Cite error: The named reference "reqcheck" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  9. ^ "Fix to bypass Minimum system requirement". 2007-12-20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ "Overview over The Witcher reviews". Game Rankings. Retrieved 2007-11-28.
  11. ^ "Overview over The Witcher reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2007-11-28.
  12. ^ Müller, Martijn (2008-01-09). "The Witcher nominated for VES Award". GameLegend. Retrieved 2008-01-09.
  13. ^ IGNPC "The Witcher Enhanced Edition". {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  14. ^ Burnes, Andrew (2007-10-24). "The Witcher Preview". IGN. Retrieved 2007-11-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  15. ^ Breckon, Nick (2007-11-07). "The Witcher Script Heavily Edited for English Audiences, Says The Writer". Shacknews. Retrieved 2007-11-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Witcher_(video_game)&oldid=194492977"