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The Witcher 3 | Review Thread

B

Bluenoser

Member
I thought MS had the marketing for this game (or is it just a bundle and that's it?) so it's a bit strange that only PS4 versions went out for review.

IGN review mentions the frame rate issues, but Gamestop doesn't. Even in the footage from IGN you can see Geralt randomly freeze for a half a second occasionally. Not a good sign- hopefully it's because it's an unpatched version.

I pre-ordered through PSN. IF (big IF) I decided I wanted a refund, can I still get one after it launches (assuming I didn't play the game), or would I have to cancel the preorder?
 
J

jim2point0

Banned
Dog Problems said:
This right here is turning me off from the game. I might wait and see what people on here have to say about it.
Click to expand...

Would be awesome if teh game allowed you to just go off and be a monster hunter for 50 hours if the main quest didn't do it for ya. I'm really hoping that aspect of the game is more fleshed out than the previous two.
 
Infinite_Daremo

Infinite_Daremo

Member
boskee said:
You can turn it all off one by one.
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I know that. I just wanted to know if i'd be clueless from turning it off.

His Majesty said:
For example in the Precious Cargo quest the questgiver tells you his cart got off the road and wheeled into the swamps. Without a quest marker, your first instinct should be to search the road nearby for cart tracks, eventually using witcher senses.

The same goes for the quest where you have to find a creature called Johnny. The questgives gives a general location of where he was last seen and using Witcher senses you can stumble upon his tracks which lead into his cave. So I am confident that most, if not all quests, can be resolved this way.
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From the videos I saw nearly all quests involved this which is very nice to see.

Apoleptica said:
This is one thing of the reasons I enjoyed the compass in oblivion and skyrim so much, just points you in a general direction and allows you to figure the rest out on your own if you choose.
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I actually hated that about Skyrim. I preferred Morrowinds system of giving directions and clues which were along the lines of take the boat to X. Travel north along the road until you see Y. Take a left here and follow this road until you see a peninsula, here you will find the cave.... with no Draugrs.
 
W

WordsintheWater

Member
Vire said:
Thanks Daniel. I think the point of confusion is that Jeff from Giant Bomb said that "The review disc they sent over was said to already have the Day 1 patch applied".

How did you find the framerate personally?
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He gave it a 9.8 overall, he mentioned the framerate issues in his review though, saying that there are choppy framerates in demanding areas such as the bogs, but it doesn't really detract from the wonder of the overall experience.
 
B

Bloodworth

Member
Vire said:
Thanks Daniel. I think the point of confusion is that Jeff from Giant Bomb said that "The review disc they sent over was said to already have the Day 1 patch applied".

How did you find the framerate personally?
Click to expand...

As I mentioned in my review, it can vary based on location, kind of like how everyone knows that the framerate takes a dive in Blight Town in Dark Souls. You can go a long time without being an issue then see it drop when a storm rolls in, etc. Definitely hope they get it running better, but I remember having similar troubles with Witcher 2 when it first came out, and that got cleaned up really well.
 
S

SmoothRunningGun

Member
PsychoWARD23 said:
I'm wondering why this is scoring so high when almost every review says there are loads of fetch quests, the combat isn't great, the framerate is struggling and there are a lot of bugs on PS4?
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Same thing happened with bloodborne. Lots of technical issues, still scored high. I don't get it. I won't be suckered into buying without renting first this time.
 
B

boskee

Member
Infinite_Daremo said:
I know that. I just wanted to know if i'd be clueless from turning it off.
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Apologies, I misunderstood your question and I don't know definite answer to that, but I believe that there are enough audiovisual clues, hidden tracks (that can be discovered in witcher sense mode) and info given by the NPCs (or journal) that it will be enough to navigate. Don't take my word for it tho.
 
S

Steve Youngblood

Member
I don't know what I can do aside from the title edit that occurred hours ago to get people to stop talking about Jeff Gerstmann and Giant Bomb. This is a reviews thread and that outlet hasn't even reviewed the game yet.
 
F

foxtrot3d

Banned
Skyzard said:
That is refreshing, I was worried more about the choices not panning out in satisfying ways.

I've seen that video before I think, subscribed to the guy and don't remember watching anything else of his, I'm in the mood for it so I'll rewatch it though.



Nice that's reassuring, I got a good impression from some of the scenes in gameplay previews too. That's a cool draw for the game. The story and npc interaction does seem like it would be decent and engaging.
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Yeah, MrBToungue is great you should watch all his videos, now if only he would release videos more regularly. But yeah, TW series is all about ambiguity some choices you know what the consequences will be others you'll have to wait and find out. For example, a minor choice occurs early on in TW2 that actually has major consequences not long after.

As part of your investigation you team up briefly with Iorveth, the local elven Scoiatel commander who many rightly consider a terrorist. With Iorveth's aid you confront Letho, the Witcher/Assassin you are tracking, yet soon after the local human forces raid the spot you are meeting to kill the Scoiatel like Iorveth and you are given the choice to hand Iorveth a sword to help him defend himself or punch him. If you hand him his sword he is able to cut a path through the local forces and escapes. However, because he escapes this leads the de facto leader of the town to stir up non-human hatred and basically causes the citizens and local forces to start massacring non-humans and burning their houses down.

If you instead punch Iorveth I believe he gets captured (or maybe he escapes anyway) but the massacre is avoided. By the way this decision is on a timer so you have to choose whether or not to give Iorveth a sword in like 10 seconds. So what seems like a very small decision ends up having grave consequences.
 
I

ironcreed

Banned
Elios83 said:
Great reviews, people should be happy instead of constantly bitching.No game can be perfect, you judge the whole package, a few issues will be fixed as much as they can with patches.
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Indeed. Find me another open world game as ambitious and gorgeous as this without some quirks and niggles. You can't.
 
P

| Praxis |

Banned
TharpDaddy said:
Wasn't too hot on the previous Witcher games and some of the stuff in the reviews sounds like it could be concerning (story, combat, fetch quests). I'll wait for the release hype to die down and see what the general consensus is before I pick it up.
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I'm in exactly the same boat. This game wasn't on the radar for me after not liking the original games. Then, due to the immense hype, I watched a few videos. I thought that maybe I'll pick it up when the price goes down. Now I'm in a couldn't really care either way frame of mind again. Just going to ignore everything about it for a month or two, wait for the level headed criticisms, and then make my mind up.
 
B

Bluenoser

Member
I watched the Gamespot one, but found myself having to turn my head and just listen to what he was saying because the footage was way too spoilery. I'd avoid them and just read the review,

EDIT that being said, Gamespot does tag the video as possible spoilers before it starts, so watch at your own risk.
 
Vire

Vire

Member
Bloodworth said:
As I mentioned in my review, it can vary based on location, kind of like how everyone knows that the framerate takes a dive in Blight Town in Dark Souls. You can go a long time without being an issue then see it drop when a storm rolls in, etc. Definitely hope they get it running better, but I remember having similar troubles with Witcher 2 when it first came out, and that got cleaned up really well.
Click to expand...

Qué lástima

I know that framerate affects some people worse than others, but for me it is literally my number one pet peeve when it comes to technical issues. Above screen tearing, resolution, jaggies or anything like that.

It's not even because I am ultra picky or something, I just get a headache after a while with games that dip below 30 frequently. Glad to hear the game itself is quite good at least. Even though this game launches on my birthday (May 19th!) I guess I'm going to wait and see how the patches shake out before I buy it. I almost always finish games that I purchase, but I have still yet to complete Unity due to the technical shortcomings involving the framerate.
 
A

Anton Sugar

Member
kenjigreat said:
CAN SOMEONE link a video review that has very few Spoilers.

Much Appreciated.
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Both the Gametrailers and Gamespot review are solid and I don't think it has many spoilers...but realistically, how should I know? There certainly weren't any "kill main character" scenes shown or anything like that.
 
G

Gormenghast

Member
PsychoWARD23 said:
I'm wondering why this is scoring so high when almost every review says there are loads of fetch quests, the combat isn't great, the framerate is struggling and there are a lot of bugs on PS4?
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For a very simple reason: giving a low score to a HUGELY hyped game means directly upsetting a very large fanbase and make their pitchforks rise against you.

This means actively destroying your business, since that business is built on that same fanbase you are going to upset.

Going forward we'll see less and less critical reviews of AAA titles, especially when the dev company isn't coming from Ubisoft, EA or Konami (that are already seen as "evil" and so criticism is allowed).
 
M

Messofanego

Banned
Steve Youngblood said:
I don't know what I can do aside from the title edit that occurred hours ago to get people to stop talking about Jeff Gerstmann and Giant Bomb. This is a reviews thread and that outlet hasn't even reviewed the game yet.
Click to expand...
Change to "BAN on talk about Gerstmann or GB" until their quick look shows up?
 
N

Netherscourge

Banned
I want to see more straight-up combat videos.

Combat is huge for me and seems the reviews don't all agree on how good/clunky it is.

Also - are the "fatalities" totally random? Do you have any control over which ones occur? Or are they just randomly selected when you strike a killing blow, like in Skyrim?
 
JeffG

JeffG

Member
Gormenghast said:
For a very simple reason: giving a low score to a HUGELY hyped game means directly upsetting a very large fanbase and make their pitchforks rise against you.

This means actively destroying your business, since that business is built on that same fanbase you are going to upset.

Going forward we'll see less and less critical reviews of AAA titles, especially when the dev company isn't coming from Ubisoft, EA or Konami (that are already seen as "evil" and so criticism is allowed).
Click to expand...

or maybe it is because there is no such thing as a perfect game. All game have their warts. Still doesn't mean you can't enjoy yourself.
 
D

Dog Problems

Banned
jim2point0 said:
Would be awesome if teh game allowed you to just go off and be a monster hunter for 50 hours if the main quest didn't do it for ya. I'm really hoping that aspect of the game is more fleshed out than the previous two.
Click to expand...

Yeah, if the stuff in between main quests is interesting and fun enough then that can make up for a dull campaign.
 
drotahorror

drotahorror

Member
astroturfing said:
fucking sweet, summer of great RPG adventuring for me. only barely scratched the surface in Bloodborne and when i'm done with that it's straight to Witcher 3 (which will hopefully be patched a few times by then :p).
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I'm lovin this gen. Just a steady of flow of dope games all year round. It's been like that for a while for me. Never go more than a couple weeks or 3 w/o having something worth playing.
 
cripterion

cripterion

Member
frizby said:
Eh. All of that is trumped by CDPR's freedom to send out the version that they feel best represents their game at the time it's being reviewed. To most non-enthusiasts, the version being reviewed is of no consequence whatsoever.
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Well if that were truly the case here, it woudln't inspire confidence in the other versions.

It's just strange that around 2 months ago we get Gamestar preview saying the game runs smoothly at 60 FPS on Ultra settings with Hairworks on, a month later Youtubers still playing on ultra, game has few bugs but it's still fine, meanwhile devs keep telling us we won't see ultra settings until release date, and here we are a week away from release and no pc copies sent to reviewers because the need for a day 1 patch...

In any case, as long as the game runs fine on all platforms come release day it'll all be dandy.
 
G

GoonerTRON

Banned
Bluenoser said:
I thought MS had the marketing for this game (or is it just a bundle and that's it?) so it's a bit strange that only PS4 versions went out for review.

IGN review mentions the frame rate issues, but Gamestop doesn't. Even in the footage from IGN you can see Geralt randomly freeze for a half a second occasionally. Not a good sign- hopefully it's because it's an unpatched version.

I pre-ordered through PSN. IF (big IF) I decided I wanted a refund, can I still get one after it launches (assuming I didn't play the game), or would I have to cancel the preorder?
Click to expand...

Marketing deal or not, they should send out the best copy of the game. I think it's more something to do with MS Ninjas helping with the XB1 version and the DX12 patch for PC.
 
S

SmoothRunningGun

Member
Navy Bean said:
Game looks great, but I'm going to wait to hear some impressions on here about the combat. I stopped playing TW2 about 15/20 hours in because I hated the combat.
Click to expand...

Same. The combat felt floaty and disconnected from the character. I didn't like bloodborne for other reasons but the combat in that game felt good.
 
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