The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings starts off after the first Witcher game ends. The player also gets to play again in the shoes of Geralt of Rivia, this time he starts out under the hire of King Foltest of Temeria. While CD Project maintained their works with keeping the decision making up to the player as far as how to story progresses with the choice/consequence style of gameplay and the world has stayed the same, that’s as far as the similarities go if you compare The Witcher 2 to its predecessor.

CD Project did a total revamp of gameplay and mechanics and even graphics got an overhaul. The inventory system became much more fluid and gave much more space to work with than the annoying limited space that was available in the first Witcher’s inventory system. Controls got much smoother and instead of clicking on the enemy to attack it with timed combos, the combat system got more intelligent. The graphics moved from being OK for its time to pretty fantastic for its time as the world became more colorful and detailed than before.

The leveling system gives you three different paths to follow: Swordsmanship, Alchemy, and Signs. Each path has its own branches and bonuses that come with its branches. Swordsmanship means you’re not afraid to come out swinging and are often a fearsome opponent in close quarters combat. With Alchemy it means you are a patient hunter that prepares traps for the various monsters you have to deal with throughout the game. Signs gives you the power of magic to play with and the more you train with it the more powerful your Signs become.

The storyline follows a prologue and three acts with defining moments in each act that could change the outcome of the entire game. Much like with BioWare’s Mass Effect series you may import the save file from your previous games into the new one’s and continue your Geralt’s story, I did not do this because somehow by some amazing occurrence my first play through of the Witcher 1 I played cannon exactly.

The Witcher 2 is very replayable as there are multiple endings you may have with several variations based on choices made earlier in the game.

Some issues people may have with the game are the fact that CD Project changed the gameplay style enough that getting used to the different controls from the first Witcher is a little awkard. Another problem I noticed people had was that when it cam to drinking potions, you could not do it on the fly, but the only argument I have against that statement, and it’s weak, is if you’ve seen the videos for the Witcher you see Geralt drinking his potions before he enters combat because a Witcher is always prepared with everything he needs for combat before it happens.

Overall, I highly recommend the Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings to any person who finds great enjoyment in dark fantasy worlds, role playing, fantasy-style combat, or just a plain good story.

The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings Enhanced Edition

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Kingdoms of Amalur is a fantasy role playing game published by EA and developed by 38 Studios and Big Huge Games. Perhaps one of the best games released by EA this year. The people involved with its development are well-known for their works of story-writing and game development, names such as R. A. Salvatore, and Ken Rolston. This is one of the best games I’ve played this year, but it still has its problems too.

First, I’ll give you the good news. The story of this game is well written. Your character can be built from 4 playable races, 3 class trees that you can pick and choose from, and various “destinies” that you can unlock as you progress. At the start you are introduced to a world at war and the contenders are mortals on one side and the winter fae on the other. Your character starts out dead, and you are revived via a thing called “The Well of Souls”. However, because you have been brought back to life, you have broken free of your fate and now can manifest and change fate through your actions.

The game gives the player an excellent tutorial starting with movement and picking things up. Then it moves into the various parts of combat: melee, ranged, sneak attacks, and magic. The tutorial ends with you learning one last mechanic on a boss type creature, finishers. You get easily readable messages on the screen telling you which button does what, and that makes it very easy to quickly learn the game’s controls.

The game’s visually very appealing. Characters look good. The environment looks good. Your armor changes as you get new stuff, but certain combinations while they may be the best you have doesn’t always look good together. I have a Wizard that has a light grey-blue robe with green gloves, golden boots, and dark grey pants, but they’re the best pieces of equipment he has, but hey at least his staff looks cool. You also can have the option to hide your character’s helm or head-piece because not everyone likes how they look.

The voice acting for NPCs (non-player characters) is done very well. Voices for each character fits very well, and you can even pick up some feeling in the voice. Sadly, your character remains silent throughout the entirety of the game. Which brings me to the first bad point of the game. After playing several role playing games where your character responds through talking it felt somewhat foreign and intrusive having a character that has conversation choices in-game without actually speaking.

Combat is the majority of the game, so in that case it’s not much different from Dungeon Siege. However, the combat system is very smooth with no noticeable bugs, and enemies have resistances and weaknesses that make sense. There is a dark side to this too, except for bosses and sometimes not even then, combat is easy even if you’re playing the game on “Hard”. My wizard can one or two-shot most everything at his level and getting hit is no problem. I tried a rogue and fighter style of characters and even then combat was a cake walk.

Overall, I do recommend trying this game because it is fun and the story is interesting to follow. I also give it a 7.5/10.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning