Witcher 2

There's a community patch that, according to my friend who has Gothic III, changes a lot and makes the game way better.

 

Yeah, I didn't like the combat in Gothic III either and I hear it's pretty much the same as in the first two so that pretty much turned me off to it. It's one of those things where I can go to dedicated action games and get a much more rewarding experience (like Fallout 3's shooting).

 

Gothic I and II are definitely to be recommended. But it sure as hell isn't easy to get someone to play them these days. A roommate of mine is generally pretty tolerant of old classics, but he couldn't quite stand trying to get the hang of Gothic I. The control scheme is, without doubt, absolutely horrid. After getting used to it I do think it was quite a nice combat system. Hard, but never impossible, not very intuitive, but neither unfair. But, more importantly, the atmosphere, the details of the world etc., that's what I love about Gothic I and II.

Gothic III...I'd avoid that one. I tried it without the community patch, but that just felt unbalanced. With the community patch... the game is a lot harder but actually becomes playable, to a degree. Far worse though is that there's no point in playing the game. It's Far Cry 2 all over again. Your friends have turned into generic idiots without any connection with the player at all, every location offers the same bland and repetitive quests; there's no drive, no point to doing anything, the game just doesn't motivate you; all in all, its just a big sandbox with lots of sand but no buckets.

 

Loved the witcher, im worried about the new party system implemented in The Witcher 2....
Will you have to have a party?
Or can u solo through the game...
I just dont know, i always worry about the sequels of the games i like...
I was mega worried about New Vegas,turned out it was fu**ing amazing
Hope its the same with The Witcher 2

 

"Iron man" mode:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-12-17-witcher-2s-insane-difficulty-revealed

 

"Undead can dig into the ground and get up near the player. So when you run he will dig up in front of you and grab you. It will be harder to just run and avoid the fight."


Oooohooo I see what you did there! Instead of giving enemies better AI or something simply give them a "cheat" command or what ever. A bit exagerated. But I hope its not THAT bad. I dont mind games with hard difficulties. But actually I prefer it was done in Vegas for example with a hardcore mode where simply more factors matter (like weight of amunition or water against dehydration).

Also why not just do it like it was in Witcher 1 where the effect of self made potions has been a lot more important on hard difficulty ~ either against poision, ghosts etc.. Not just higher HP for enemies or some "specal-kill-the-witcher-attack".

 

Watched the video trailer from that eurogamer link.

This looks fucking amazing. I was skeptical about Witcher 2, but now I'm totally stoked for it.

@Forced Battles issue: It's a dangerous choice they're making, forcing random encounter battles on the player can really drag the game down and make it boring (see: early JRPG games). But, as long as they balance it out by limiting the amount and frequency of those encounters, it could actually be to the game's benefit, making the monsters more dangerous and more realistic.

 

about the controls of gothic 1-2

yes they are horrid, but what, if anything, makes action RPG combat good?

I think, they are not bad controls, just different. frustrating to die, sure, but all the more rewarding when you pull it all off. Where is the tension in button mashing an attack button?

A few hours in and you are at least competent, and can easily finish the game.

 

I agree with that, hard battles should be well that ... "hard". But not by simply giving the enemies a "cheat" action. Its hard to explain what I mean.

But for example you could do it with different more subtile actions. Like ghosts for example. IN usual gameplay they should be invisible but become visible during attacks. In "hard" mode they would be always invisible and to see them you should need a special potion for example. That way the gameplay starts to be mor chalanging as its more tactical. Not simply giving the ghost either 1000 more HP or some incredible attack rate. Or even a special move where they grab youwhen you want to run away ... which feels very cheesy to me.

 

You really had to master combat in GI and II and slowly got better at it. When you trained new moves you really had the impression that your char got more powerful. The moment you finally beat a schattenläufer (shadowstalker?) was great. One of the best actionRPG combat mechanics i saw. They toned it down a lot for GIII. There you just had to hit the attack button rhythmically.

GIII is to the Gothic series what FO3 is to FO1 and 2. It was a fuck up of enormous magnitude. Shiny, but oh so fucking boring.

 

Why are we talking about the controls of Gothic games in the Witcher 2 thread?

I don't mind the "undead elevator" combat mechanic... a bit gamey, but that's OK.

"Ironman mode" sounds kind of lame.

 

LOL, Ironman mode! But you can buy your way out!

Well, I can all the little kiddies swarming over that. I got to say, it's a great money maker.

 

actually what I find funny is how many journalists/gamer kidz see that as something "new" while quite a few very old RPGs/action games had that in the past. Mainly niche titles ok, but its not something new. dont remember the name of the games anymore but they would deleate for example the savegames once you died or such things.

 

NetHack is the one I've played the most. First released in 1987.

 

New screenshots:

http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=&article_id=1332243

Looks sublime IMO.

 

That really looks impressive.
All this time it never occurred to me that my computer will (very likely) not be able to support this monster. It seems that my worst fears will come true...

 

Amin.

 

who's that ?

 

I must be the only one, but it doesn't look that great to me...