Erkki

( http://notch.tumblr.com/post/5861083562/minecraft-beta-1-6 )Oh great, I'm going to have to start swinging my arm now?

Steam is downloading the patch... 9 GB! Biggest 1.1 patch ever? Also, I noticed some empty folders named x360 among the game folders. Think there will be a console version? They are going to announce something at E3, probably a console version of Witcher 2?

You know what one of the best weapons is in the Prologue (at least before the prison escape)? A FUCKING SHOVEL! BTW. I started a new game at Normal difficulty and the combat seems pretty easy now. I've only needed to cast Quen a few times, mostly doing it without signs or potions.

Does anyone know what the default Witcher 1 choices are when you begin a new game? I'll start my second playthrough after the patch has come out, but I accidentally deleted my latest Witcher 1 save games. It didn't seem that the choices affected the game much, though. [edit]oh, actually I guess I had the Raven armor and Aerondight + D'yaebl swords thanks to my save game.

I've read some reviews of the game and at least two mention an awesome ending to Chapter 2. In my case, it didn't seem so awesome, so if anyone can give hints as to what choices lead to this incredible chapter ending, please do (in spoiler tags). (chapter 2 ending spoiler, at least with the Iorveth path)

Hehe... didn't quite make that exact connection, but yes

Damn, missed that. Well there you go. Ok, maybe a slight indication of questgivers, even just on the minimap would be ok.

This may be a matter of preference, but I'd say you're doing it wrong. You can't play this game as a completionist anyway because by making choices you will close some doors and open others. Thus I'd never bother trying to find every side quest. Most of them seem to be the kind that pretty much find you, anyway. I quite enjoyed thinking that I could probably knock on all these doors and maybe some of those people have jobs for me, but I don't really want to or feel that other things take precedence.

BTW. According to Steam, it took me almost 40 hours to finish it, though maybe it was more like 35 as I left the game running for a few hours. So it can be longer than 25, which was what some reviews said. And I left quite a few side quests for a second playthrough.

Also, what's with the ploughing pop culture references? Don't think there were any in the first game. I think most of them are in the achievements, which i just looked at for the first time, but ... South Park, Fight Club, Lady Gaga, LOTR,... come on...

Finished it. The third chapter and epilogue were a bit disappointing. Warning: somewhat spoils the ending. But on the whole, the game was awesome. It's a huge improvement over the original in production quality. The visuals are just gorgeous, at a level people don't even expect from RPGs, really. Sound is good, and writing, dialogue and voices are a huge improvement over the first game. I like the combat, but I think as the PC Gamer or Eurogamer reviews put it, the combat system has lots of potential, but it's execution in this game leaves something to be desired. I agree, I enjoyed it most of the time, but it could have been put to better and perhaps more tactical use. The amount of choices and different outcomes seems staggering. I'm not sure where the other choices would lead, but I think they would put you on the opposite side of .. ahem.. things in Chpater 2? Anyway, really good stuff. There are still some flaws, though. The first being uneven difficulty. It's especially stupid to make the very beginning of the game so hard. Beyond that, I had to switch from Hard to Easy in many boss fights, otherwise they would have just become chores. And then there were some problems with quests, such as some failing due to other quests with no or little warning, but that's forgivable since there are so many choices and room for replaying. I will definitely be playing through it the second time very soon. The third flaw in my opinion is unwanted epicness and less focus on witchering. I'd prefer if we got a witcher game that took place at a time of peace, or at least one where Geralt wouldn't be involved in a war or high politics. Well, he'd probably always be involved in politics some way (haven't read the books though), but more of that medieval detective/monster hunter stuff, please. The politics could be a background theme, like they were for most of the first game. And now, I'll probably go back to the Witcher 1 and finish those additional stories from the Enhanced Edition.

uh. what?

Oh, and one more thing. Does anyone else find it annoying that when you fight someone and then leave a certain range they will just leave you be. You can go back and forth on the border of that range and they'll just react with a binary switch: attack/fall back. I guess it makes sense that if you attack some bandits or monster, they won't follow you across the map and leave their 'nests', but the range seems way small and it should be a bit less binary than that.

Oh, and by the way, did anyone find the fight with totally impossible? I had to switch from hard to easy for that. It didn't help at all that the game stripped all the fucking potion effects I still had on before that fight.

I might buy this. Maybe not immediately, but if I ever get bored and need another game to play (which seems unlikely this year with all them DeusExes and Skyrims coming out).

Brought my second 22" widescreen monitor from work home for the weekend. Much better on this, though there are still narrow black borders, I guess because it's 16:10 and not 16:9. Had to turn the video options from Ultra to High, though. I just made it to Chapter 2, having skipped a few quests in Flotsam. I like the monsters a lot better than in Witcher 1, as there doesn't seem to be something like the mass of drowners in this game. Sure, there are the Nekkers, until you do the contract and are rid of most of them. The Witcher contracts make a lot more sense, instead of 'kill N fuckers, nevermind that twice as many will come back' you have 'get rid of all the fuckers on the edge of town'. Every contract seems to end with a boss fight and the area being mostly cleaned. I think this is how it should be. I'm missing those trophy quests though. Now trophies are just something that give you stats upgrade while you wear them. And they sell for really little coin. I've noticed some things that are kind of better, but kind of worse compared to Witcher 1: no longer those annoying pauses when talking to merchants or other people, but talking to merchants is now an entirely quiet affair (sometimes). Neither geralt or the merchant says anything, you just pick the dialogue options.

Man, fighting the Kayran was tough in Hard mode. Every hit could kill me unless I had Quen shield and it was very timing-sensitive occasionally. Preparing for the fight payed off though, but still took about 15 attempts. Even a drowner can kill me in two blows if it's lucky (probably from behind). But since it supposedly gets easier later, I'll endure.

Having played a bit in Flotsam now, I think I prefer the original game's focus on witchering and UI. There are so many tangential details here that it's more of a regular RPG than The Witcher. All these crafting materials, weapons and other junk you pick up distracts from the alchemy and witcherly stuff. On the other hand, all the extra stuff makes the world feel more detailed and reminds you that maybe you don't quite need to pick up everything, except I'm not sure why bandits carry timber on their person. The menus and UI have all this small text and are harder to navigate. The original game's UI where entering any UI screen would take you to pause mode from which you could easily navigate to other screens, was much better. Still, the other stuff like the beauty of the world and good looking characters and better voice acting and even more meaningful choices (it seems) and the combat changes make up for that.

"Your momma sucks dwarf cock!" - ign.com

The Minecraft soundtrack is pretty sweet. I've probably mentioned Outcast many times already.

I agree that the targeting is the weakest thing about the combat. Directional would be better. Can you retarget when the quick menu /slomo is open? I guess not. That would help as well. PS. I haven't actually used the space bar at all in combat. Does it vault over enemies as well? I've only used the double-directional-key thing for dodges, and a bit annoyed that it doesn't have vaulting like in the first game -- no quick getaways when you are completely surrounded.

I usually use left-right-left-right until I need to block. But actually the difficulty seems to be in not getting surrounded. In the first game you could pretty much swing your sword around in the middle of a bunch of enemies and survive, in this one, not so much. I'll give it some more time, but I think the Hard difficulty is actually HARD. Might switch back to normal soon.

Is game awesome? YES! Ok, so I've only just completed those four interrogation sections, but man. It's better than I expected. And I think I expected a lot. The animations seem precise, the game is gorgeous (and runs bearably with Ultra settings, but I might turn something off to get a bit better framerate). The tutorial completely sucks of course, and I don't like the menus besides the quick menu. Combat is way too hard in the beginning, but I love it! I'm playing on Hard, at first I got killed a lot in the first solo fight (near ballista) until I realized you have to play really tactically and not just run into the middle of a group of enemies. I still haven't figured out how to deal with a group in close quarters without dying a few times (the tower fight was a pain in the ass), but I guess the character skills you get later will help. And seriously, I did not expect it to look this good. Even too detailed, hard to find the loot I'll bring my widescreen work monitor home for the weekend, should be even better then. If the rest of the game is as good*, BioWare can suck dwarf cock. * actually should be better when it opens up

I had to run Steam as Administrator for this to work. Thanks NeoGAF

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/568517 I suck as a spike trap. How about you?