I'm more or less in agreement with jim-jam, as usual, but I do want to say I have enjoyed my time with the game. I certainly never found it deep or involving - it's more like a sampler of many different tasty dishes. It's not a piece of crap by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not making my head tingle like some of the better "immersive sims". It is what it is.
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Famitsu gives Skyrim 40/40 ALL HAIL SKYRIM, MOSES OF VIDEO GAMES
- Thread starter LiK
- Start date
Actually if you played enough to review it, chances are you put more than 10hours into it (and if the game is as good as the reviewer gushing about it I certainly hope he went farther than the title screen).
Games are certainly the only medium were reviewers can make a critic of a product without actually understanding anything and even just browsing through it.
I certainly hope that people who review War & Peace actually read it extensively enough to make a proper critic or people getting critical of the DVD releasee of the Lord of the Rings complete collection actually saw everything and didn't just go by the back of the box.
In short considering how widespread the problem seems looking at the reaction here, there's ZERO chance that if the reviewers did their job no one fell upon some technical problem.
I was under the impression we were discussing Skyrim getting a 40/40 on Famitsu, did it turn into a GotY thread while I wasn't looking?
Just browsing the ps3 technical thread there were some horror stories about data corruption on some fellow ps3 users I may be misremembering things though.
e: my point is not that the game is shitty or what have you, I don't actually care enough to put money to get this game as Xmas comes and I tend to offer present to people instead of my selfish self, but my point was that gamebreaking/performance shitting bugs in Elder Scrolls are not the old SFX of Dragon Quest that Enix don't want to get rid off and it's disingenious to equate the 2 (as one should never be ok with the former to begin with).
Phonomezer
Banned
Indeed. 30 hours in and I'm still in awe of the game every time I fire it up. I haven't been this impressed with a video game for a very long time.
Haunted
Member
Witcher 2 doesn't have the same scale or openness.
Great graphics, though!
Thinking of direct comparisons, the combat systems are clunky in both, but I'm not sure which alchemy system I prefer.
Haunted
Member
videogames WORDS videogames WORDS videogames WORDS
look bro. i can pretty much tell you striaght up that NIN90 has a terrible taste in videogames because he buys BF3/MW3/homefront and all those sorts of games. i can't remember what you buy but i'm pretty sure i've seen you lingering around anime threads on gaf so yeah.
don't talk to me about videogames on the internet bro.
Blue Ninja
Member
The game's not perfect, but dammit, it's close enough.
Haunted
Member
I would be depressed that you had pegged me so incorrectly but I'll just chalk it up to your tiny duck brain not being able to process all that information.
Witcher 2 is awesome and almost as good as Dark Souls. But Skyrim... man Chinner, Skyrim.
Skyrim may be more open, but I actually feel TW2 is a more accomplished, creative, polished and ambitious title. Skyrim in many ways is essentially a copy and paste of past games with very little of the fundamentals (that were in dire need of change) actually truly developed. They basically just went for a visual upgrade with some 'cool' additions, namely the dragons.
TW2 on the other hand just feels fresher to me. Dialogue, narrative, consequences of choice, the combat (evades, counters, parries etc all make for a more dynamic and frenetic pace of combat) etc. The general pacing and diversity in the game, all better imo. Skyrim for me never breaks that barrier of believability despite offering so much freedom and (oft false) choice. I think it's the characters themselves, the animations, the robotic dreary nature of it all. Sometimes it kind of just trodds along with a sense of repetition that TW2 is less guilty of. TW2 just always felt all the more mature and realistic too. The banter, the language, the mood.
I also love how decisions made in the game can have such fundamental impact on the occurrences to follow. In reality, TW2 is almost two different games dependant on which story branch you choose early on in the game. But there are many other points where there's actually more choice or freedom in how things unfold than in Skyrim, despite the differences in scale.
I'm massively enjoying both, but for me personally, TW2 had a bit more magic.
TW2 on the other hand just feels fresher to me. Dialogue, narrative, consequences of choice, the combat (evades, counters, parries etc all make for a more dynamic and frenetic pace of combat) etc. The general pacing and diversity in the game, all better imo. Skyrim for me never breaks that barrier of believability despite offering so much freedom and (oft false) choice. I think it's the characters themselves, the animations, the robotic dreary nature of it all. Sometimes it kind of just trodds along with a sense of repetition that TW2 is less guilty of. TW2 just always felt all the more mature and realistic too. The banter, the language, the mood.
I also love how decisions made in the game can have such fundamental impact on the occurrences to follow. In reality, TW2 is almost two different games dependant on which story branch you choose early on in the game. But there are many other points where there's actually more choice or freedom in how things unfold than in Skyrim, despite the differences in scale.
I'm massively enjoying both, but for me personally, TW2 had a bit more magic.
Haunted
Member
I guess this is the point where I concede that I have only played halfway through Chapter 2 in W2 - then Skyrim Sword hit and I've been playing those two almost constantly and haven't found the time to return to the Witcher 2 yet.
Though I suppose that fact in itself says as much about my preferences.
This is how I feel so far, but I'll return for a fuller analysis when I've completed all three - sometime in 2012 judging by their combined length. >_>
Though I suppose that fact in itself says as much about my preferences.
This is how I feel so far, but I'll return for a fuller analysis when I've completed all three - sometime in 2012 judging by their combined length. >_>
TW2 definitely starts off a bit weak imo (throws you in the deep end too, at least prior to the tutorial patches anyway). It's a teeny bit of a slow burner, but give it just an hour or two more and you'll be hooked.
Isn't he more than halfway into the game?
This isn't true. Played a bit of Oblivion today, and after playing Skyrim it is clear how much of an evolution Skyrim is for the series (and Oblivion plays completely different to Morrowind itself..). The combat is much more refined and the world is a lot more unqiuely designed (more distinctive regions, enemy placement, city design).
depends at what point at chapter 2 he's at, but he's may be approaching the half way point if he's only just started it. then again, chapter 2 plays out completely differently depending on prior choices so you could say he's experienced less than half of the game.
Haunted
Member
I know Chapter 1 is supposed to be the largest, but I don't think I'm more than halfway through. Went with Roche at the end of chapter 1 and played the prologue and a few side quests in the Camp area now.
Anyway, this year has been pretty fucking great for RPGs, at least we can all agree on that. I'll leave The Witcher's Skyrim Sword Souls GOTY discussions for the GOTY awards.
Phonomezer
Banned
No, I have to wait until the 360 version releases, looking forward to it though.
I don't know for sure, I had just heard the same; chapter 1 being the longest, and chapter 3 being the shortest.
Been a great year for RPGs though that is certain. Almost as good as last year! ;P
flyinpiranha
Member
I got about 10 hours into it. Never looked back. It was great for what it was but after the "new game" feel wore off I didn't real want to continue and never went back to it. I plan to restart it with all the new patches though during the summer drought.
Skyrim I have started playing and am now 80+ hours into it and I don't feel like I've put that much time into it at all. I'll find myself just doing random things for hours.
The Witcher 1 I enjoyed but couldn't finish, waiting for Witcher 2 to be on a super Steam sale but the linearity complaints worry me as that is the exact opposite I like in RPG's, save that for Mass Effect IMO which has the universe and story I actually want to follow.
I'm surprised people say Skyrim has no depth. Some of the quests are a lot of fun and just as interesting in almost anything I played in The Witcher and TW2 ... but to each his own I guess.
I also laugh at people saying that the characters are 1 dimensional and say the same stuff over and over ... they do that in EVERY RPG I know ...
Haunted
Member
Last year had Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIV. That automatically disqualifies it from being a good year for RPGs. ;p
Witcher doesn't feel very open, feels more like a corridor RPG.
Yes I played it but get bored extremely quickly. Witcher doesn't have the immersion or the atmosphere of Skyrim.
Yeah, but it also had New Vegas, which is pretty much the best. It's a tough thing, since Dungeons of Dredmor is this year too.
My fundamental problem with The Witcher is I don't want to play as Geralt. Generally I don't want to play as a static character with a significant history/background. It doesn't help that I don't like the way he looks or acts either. Objectively I can see what they do well and what they do poorly but I'll never actually enjoy playing them.
I do find it somewhat amusing that Skyrim gets so much shit for its combat by Witcher 2 fans (of which I am one), even though that game's combat was absolutely raked over the coals in the first few weeks of release. 
Mostly by nublets, of course.
I never had much issue with Witcher 2's combat even pre-patch, and I appreciated the obvious influences from Demon's Souls and Arkham Asylum. I beat the game before the patch came out so I never tried it with the "fixed" controls.
Mostly by nublets, of course. I never had much issue with Witcher 2's combat even pre-patch, and I appreciated the obvious influences from Demon's Souls and Arkham Asylum. I beat the game before the patch came out so I never tried it with the "fixed" controls.
I wasn't really that impressed by The Witcher 2, (didn't care for the storyline or combat engine, hated the music... but nice graphics and sidequest design!) by that logic should I even bother with Skyrim?
It kind of was really. The crafting system was useless and you could finish the game with your first set of equipment if you wanted to and if you went sword path you were unstoppable before act 2 was over. It had choices that actually matter but that's really it. And quests I guess, but everything has quests today.
Can definitely agree with that. I just couldn't immerse myself because I felt so detached to the character. The best RPGs is when you feel like, it's YOUR character that is part of the world. Playing as someone with a massive backstory you hardly know ( in most cases ) and a character you don't really like, then you really distance yourself.
I don't think they're really comparable. Witcher 2 is heavily story and character focused with a pretty tightly woven drama. It's also gorgeous, less buggy and considerably more linear.
Skyrim is far more unfocused and free-roaming allowing the player to do what he or she wants at will, with a lot more content but less structure and intricacy. You're not going to remember a lot of characters from Skyrim, but you'll always remember Roche or Geralt from TW2.
Both games are good depending on what you're after.
Both games also have iffy inventory management.
Understandable, but do people really block out entire games because they want to play their own digital hero? Many excellent games don't allow this. Creating your own hero works OK in Skyrim, but would be disastrous in the Witcher or Deus Ex. Visceral created an iconic hero out of Issac Clarke and his suit. Everyone knows who Travis Touchdown is. Etc, etc. If you don't like Geralt, that's a matter of personal taste, though I don't really see what's objectionable about the guy.
If the fiction is good enough, I'd rather play as the dev's vision instead of a generic nobody that my own hobbled brain came up with.
Crafting in Witcher 2 was certainly not useless, especially with Alchemy. Unless you're one of those people who thinks it was horribly nerfed because you can no longer spam countless health pots in combat.
Comparing Skyrim with TW2 is like comparing Skyrim with Zelda. They really aren't the same type of game at all, even though they loosely reside under the same 'RPG' banner.
I actually really enjoy that with The Witcher series. Most often in these RPGs you're playing as a character you're fashioning up, so it's neat to play as once who's already largely set, but one you still have a great deal of control over through important in-game decisions you make.
I would actually argue that Geralt gives you more control as a player than most other nondescript protagonists, because of the game's great forms of choice & consequence. So while it may be harder to buy Geralt as "you" if you're that sort of player, the game's C&C still allows the decisions that you make to stand out, which is uncommon.
I don't disagree; seems pointless to compare it to a game that attempts such different things. Where I would compare these games is in limited and specific fashion, i.e. the feeling of weight and tactical possibility with Dark Souls' melee combat versus Witcher 2 and Skyrim. Beyond that, comparisons seem superfluous.
I wasn't really comparing it to Skyrim just talking about that game in general. It's not like Skyrim's crafting is a ton better.
Crafting in Witcher 2 was certainly not useless, especially with Alchemy. Unless you're one of those people who thinks it was horribly nerfed because you can no longer spam countless health pots in combat.
Well in my head I was thinking about item crafting when I said that but on normal difficulty I didn't have to use a lot of potions either, especially once I hit that unstoppable threshold in the middle of Act 2. I probably used around 3 health potions the entire game and just abused Quen instead since most of the signs were rather useless in comparison. Everything died quickly.
Skyrim and The Witcher 2 are pretty damn similar games in every way except for the scale and scope of the game world. That's not such a fundamental difference that it makes comparisons between the two invalid.
Regulus Tera
Romanes Eunt Domus
Empty praise is at least less embarrassing than the 40 they gave to Bayonetta because they wanted to help Platinum Games.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
I disagree. I think The Witcher 2 has an awesome intro. It's unfortunate that so many people out there require hand-holding and pop-up tutorials throughout the first few hours of the game for it to be playable. Sure, the first part of TW2 is challenging if it's your first time playing, but you learn how to fight pretty damn quickly.