The Witcher 3

I have waited soooo long for this game. Can't wait until it's released. I really hope it's a humongous smash hit, but I'm afraid new players will come to it expecting Skyrim or Dragon Age - something which the Witcher series is definitely not.

I wonder if people will be put off by the 'attitude' of the game. I mean, in Witcher-games Geralt is not a hero out to save the world, but merely to navigate through a world where life is dirt-cheap, everyone's taking moral short-cuts or worse, and the point, I suppose, is to arrive at the end without having made too many moral compromises. Or something.

mbuhmann said:

Well, if Witcher 3 is anything like Witcher 2, the gamer will know pretty quickly this ain't no Skyrim or Dragon Age.

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That is true. I just don't want to hear any complaints after people pay $60 for it that it's not Skyrim. Or for that matter see reports in the media like we had after GTA 5 that it is ruining children. Witcher is not for children. :

It is absolutely brilliant, so far. I love it to bits. I won't give any spoilers, but there's one sidequest which is so bitter sweet. So bloody typical CDProject Red. Not something you'd normally see in a AAA game like Skyrim or Dragon Age. Every side-quest is so well told that I'm scooping up every one I find. Though, one should keep in mind to keep an eye on the level. I made the mistake of doing a level 11 quest at level 2...

And... it's a beautiful game! Beautiful!

I am a few tens of hours in. This has been one of those games where you on the one hand don't want to believe the hype, and on the other you hope that a dev group which has earned its trust over the years will actually, to use a sports metaphor, hit a home run out of the park.

There are glitches. I've had a horse get stuck in a stable roof. I've had funny endless loop characters running half inside of walls. I've had frame-rate drops, and a couple of hard crashes. But it doesn't matter. Because the game is so good that you don't want to feel ill will toward the developers. Really.

I've always liked CD Project Red. They've always gone against the grain. For instance, just by trying to push a dense and complicated Slavic-based fantasy world onto a world accustomed to low-calorie minimum-impact risk-free content for adolescent boys. Like, when you set a game like Skyrim or Dragon Age Inquisition next to this, it feels like those other games are like cotton candy next to a hearty meal.

Sometimes you don't know what you've missed until you get it. Sometimes you don't know that you'll have an unforgettable meal until you've already eaten it. Sometimes you'll walk into a dingy diner in the middle of nowhere and have the best evening in a decade.

Hyperbole? Perhaps. I don't know. There are glitches. There are issues. There are annoying details. But for the first time I've ever played a computer game, I know I've been to a world, and not to a pretty looking set that's there for the Hero to play his act of tragedy or drama. It is a world; feels like a world, and it feels like it's a world with people. That kind of forgives all the other technical stuff that's bound to crop up in a huge thing like this one.

I'm not sure it is for everyone. I won't pretend that it's for everyone. I just know that this one is for me, and I'll expect to explore every inch of this world. God damn, this is an awesome game.