Publisher: Warner Brothers Games
Developer: CD Projekt Red
Platform: Xbox 360
Year: 2012
Players: Solo
Rating: M (for Mature)
Genre: Realistic Fantasy RPG
Retail Price: $59.99
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was an obvious choice for last year’s best role-playing game – an exciting and captivating story, a rich universe (maybe stuck in fantasy’s typical archetype but still…) managing to differ from the norm. Add to the mix strong writing, amazing characters, loads of DLC (at no charge), and stellar visuals that made your jaw drop – assuming you had the rig to handle the specs and you have a winner.
And then along came Skyrim and The Witcher 2 was almost forgotten. Understandably so considering how immense and depth oriented Skyrim is – I alone have spent nearly 100 hours playing the Bethesda release and still have unfinished side quests.
It’s been almost a year since The Witcher 2’s PC release and the developers at CD Projekt Red have certainly not been sitting on their respective hands. The title has been updated, enhanced and expanded; most recently with the 2.0 patch, which introduced a new arena-game type, adjusted the difficulty, adding a tutorial to introduce players to the most important game play aspects both inside and outside of battle which fixes one of the main issues the title originally upon release.
Xbox 360 owners also benefit from all of these additions and enhancements meaning this console release is a more refined one than the PC version last year. Those tweaks don’t equate to the “Enhanced Edition” subtitle alone as CD Projekt Red had graphic artists, designers and writers working the past year to offer unique content. The result is a beautiful pre-rendered intro that sets the mood and more importantly, many additional side quests, which add roughly four hours of game play to the titles already considerable length. Otherwise, most of the original content has survived the conversion to Xbox 360 intact. We still play as Geralt of Rivia, the Witcher, an almost superhuman monster hunter with an edge.
Geralt is accused of a royal murder he didn’t commit and sets out to find the real killer, prove his innocence, show the assassin plans to spill more royal blood and (because the assassin is also a Witcher) possibly illuminating parts of Geralt’s past he has yet to recall.
Environments are still as unwelcoming and full of rage as ever. The non-human races such as elves and dwarves are deeply oppressed, with some waging an open hit & run style war with the humans. Danger and intrigue are ever present while you will need to watch what you say and to whom. The story branches to such an extent, depending on your choices, you’ll probably miss a good chunk of content on your first full play through.
If you already have the PC version of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, then there’s little reason to buy the Xbox 360 edition, especially since all current owners of the PC version will get a free update that’ll include all the new additions found in the console’s “Enhanced” release.
If you enjoy the genre and have yet to play Witcher 2, this is a no brainer to pick up. One of last year’s best role-playing games has become a tad better and The Witcher 2 is “virtually” as stunning via the Xbox 360 as it was on a powerhouse PC. If you haven’t played the title you NEED to enter the world of The Witcher 2! Truly Dragon Age meets Skyrim with a hint of Underworld. Or in other words…
Trust me, it works!
