5583

Multi-tasking while playing GWENT? Shame on you! :P

5584

You guys are so understanding! I normally get a lot of guff for not being more purist, and implications that I’m what’s wrong with gaming today.

5585

What really, around here? Most of us are old farts with kids, multitasking is the rule of the day I would have thought.

5586

We were just reacting to the Giant Bomb crew not wanting to play casually while consuming other media, assuming that the game required a bit more attention. But you and others have shown that’s not necessarily true.

Basically, Giant Bomb is dumb and The Witcher 3 is awesome.

5587

I’ve been strongly considering jumping back into this and doing a new game +, maybe getting the new expansion.

I’ve rarely been into playing games more than once though. But this game was so awesome, that I want to play it again… But at the same time, I feel like it might not have the same magic now that I’ve already seen so much of it.

Are there any things I can do to improve a second run through it?

5588

I don’t know why you wouldn’t get the expansion. Unless you’re waiting for the next one :)

5589

Well, I beat it, and then was like… Ok, I’m done. The story was over, and while I could still run around and do stuff, I found it hard to still be into it.

Maybe the expansion could open it up again though, and maybe going through the story again, and doing it differently, would still be cool.

It was just SO awesome the first time.

5590

I just started up again with a view to doing the expansion, but instead have wandered round the quests I hadn’t finished… still very nice, and heading to the expansion content now. That appeals more to me than trying the whole thing again. Although it might be nice to go to White Orchard with a clue what you’re doing…

5591

The expansion is cool in that it feels like another day in Geralt’s life on the Path. So you can take it as taking place post-ending, with Yennefer in Vengerberg, Ciri on her Path (or in Nilfgaard), Triss in Kovir, and Geralt just doing again what he does.

5592

Witcher 3: Gwent Edition
One side effect of playing so many hours of Gwent: I’ve got that fair music that plays during Gwent-play stuck in my head since this morning.

It’s interesting how some Gwent quests were possible and others were impossible. For example, playing Innkeeps asks you to play the Innkeep at Crossroads, who disappeared from there pretty early in the game’s story. And yet, unlike other characters like the Baron and Lambert, he didn’t leave a Gwent card behind. It’s just a quest that’s stuck in my quest log, unable to be completed. Damn that hurts my OCD side a bit. Luckily my OCD side is easily ignorable.

Another one that’s seemingly impossible right now is to play Dijkstra (or however you spell his name). The game doesn’t want to acknowledge that the guy is angry with me and totally done with me and refuses to unlock his door so I can even see him.

I’m still undecided on whether I want the expansion right now. I imagine I’ll be reluctant to return to Witcher 3 after I’m done with the main story, like Timex above, so maybe buying and going through the expansion right now would be the perfect time to do so.

Pure Gameplay

Changing topics slightly, playing the game solely for gameplay purposes for the last few days did get me thinking about just the gameplay outside my appreciation for the story and dialog and writing. Doing Gwent, horse racing, Witcher contracts, treasure hunts and such let me concentrate on just the core gameplay for the last four days or so.

It is a mixed bag, isn’t it? The horse racing is so… awkward at times. It’s just not a well done portion of the game. Gwent is actually pretty well done, and I like the nuances of each deck being so different from one another. The detective mode and tracking footsteps and smells is okay, I guess. Nothing great, nothing horrible. But I do like the way they sometimes get you to a particular location and then do a good job of hiding the treasure chest so that you do feel a sense of accomplishment at actually finding it. Sometimes it involves some ackward environmental navigation, but they did a good enough job with Geralt’s movement and climbing abilities that it doesn’t feel too janky. In fact, I find the climbing and exploration to be more enjoyable than in the Uncharted games where it feels so canned. It’s obviously not in the league of Assassin’s Creed for climbing and smoothness of animation and all that, but it’s good enough to be enjoyable.

Which finally gets us to combat. It’s pretty amazing how 100+ hours has finally gotten me to the point where I never imagined I’d be when I started. When Vizimer was training me at Kaer Morhen at the start of the game, it seemed so overwhelming to learn to use all these 5 different Signs as well as fast attacks, strong attacks, defending, counterattacking, potion-drinking, all in real time. But I’m doing all that as well as using adrenaline-based skills to my advantage too. It’s a really enjoyable combat system. If I mess up, I can die really fast, but if I’m careful and do everything correctly, I’m a killing machine.

5593

Horse racing is a bit underdeveloped, but I still had fun with it, particularly after they improved it a bit and Roach wasn’t stopping randomly at the least convenient times…although as infuriating as it was, it was kinda cute how it just had a mind of its own :p

5594

He still does that to me at random times. Not stopping, but refusing to turn left and right and just going straight instead. WTF Roach?

One thought that’s been percolating in my mind for the last month or two: I think I’ll want to play Witcher 2 once I’m done with Witcher 3. Perhaps working backwards through these games won’t be that bad like it is in most game series, since the biggest strength here seems to be writing.

5595

I still absolutely hate underwater swimming. The horse races aren’t great, but none of it was essential. The couple of times it comes up in the main story, you can lose the race and the quest continues. Swimming? Ugh. The only thing that makes it bearable is the fact that the crossbow is usually an insta-kill underwater for whatever reason.

5596

I don’t recall having to swim very much in the game. The only time I had to swim for extended periods was the Path of the Warrior test in Skellige. That’s the big one that comes to mind where I had to swim underwater for almost my complete breath meter even with the Whale potion consumed.

5597

Swimming has been perfectly fine for me. It was a bit annoying in version 1.0 but they patched it pretty quickly and now I don’t understand how anyone can have a problem with it.

Oh and you should definitely play Witcher 2. It is also fantastic. Witcher 1 is a bit more oldschool and the writing is spottier, but I love the game regardless. The atmosphere was just so good, that music…

5598

That thing where the horse just stops running after bumping into who knows what? It’s like that for me underwater. Geralt sometimes just randomly (at least it seems so to me) just stop moving. Or he’ll dive. Or, more infuriatingly, he’ll 180 and start swimming back towards my screen. Crazy stuff.

5599

I…don’t recall that happening, frankly. Really weird.

5600

It’s funny you mention the horse along with Assassin’s Creed, because horse navigation always seemed like something where a AAA publisher would use a massive amount of testers until they smoothed out every little bump and glitch in the navigation channels. The fence placer guy didn’t get together with the horse riding guy.

5601

I’ve literally never seen any of that underwater weirdness. I’m not convinced I’ve seen any real horsie problems either.

5602

I’ve occasionally had the same issues with the swimming as Telefrog whilst playing it on PC. I’ve also seen my girlfriend struggle with the swimming on the PS4, like when you press dive but don’t hold it long enough maybe? Geralt will just do a 180 and pop back out of the water. Little things like that. Going from GTA 5 straight to the Witcher is when I noticed how janky it is, as the swimming in GTA 5 was pretty good. My sister, who is visiting us from Ireland, has also had a few issues with the swimming but the game is so good I can easily overlook small things like that.

I actually think it might be the best game I’ve ever played to be honest, I just loved it from start to finish and put over 200 hours into it. I loved it so much that I’ve now bought it 3 times, for myself obviously, one for my gf (on PlayStation) and one for a workmate on his birthday (Steam) I also pre ordered both expansions when they were announced. All this because of how much I enjoyed The Witcher 2, I really wanted to support the developer and they pretty much exceeded my expectations with W3, such a great great game.