
I love role-playing games. During high school I put in countless hours playing World of Warcraft. I also enjoyed the releases of role-playing games like Fallout 3, Dragon Age Origins, and Mass Effect 1. Nevertheless, one role-playing game that took me completely by surprise was The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings. This role-playing game came out in 2011 but I did not play it until a year later. As I played through The Witcher 2, I realized there were three reasons that made me crave the new sequel.
1. Graphics
The Witcher 2 surprised me right away because my computer was not able to run the game at all. My graphics card at the time was some basic factory graphics card that could barely run Windows. I had to go out and buy an expensive graphics card in order to play this game. It was worth every penny because I was blown away by the impressive graphics of this game. There was a level of detail I have never seen before in a game.
I could see that the armor of my character looked realistic. The foliage in the forests looked like something right of the Amazon. The blood in combat looked like it was real. Every graphic detail in the game looked realistic and it helped add to the role-playing game experience.
I know that you might think I am one of those guys who only cares about graphics in a video game. You are right because I think it is a very important for a game to have great graphics. If a role-playing game has bad graphics it takes away from the immersion experience. Nothing kills immersion like seeing some bad graphic armor set on your character.
Thankfully the Witcher 2 set the bar for how games should look and run with amazing graphics. Its disappointing that many games released today cannot compare to the graphics of The Witcher 2 which was released three years ago. I want the developers to constantly strive to make the most aesthetic game possible because I believe one day we can enter a virtual reality.
2. Combat
I used to put many hours into the Assassins Creed video game series because of the combat. I enjoyed being able to parry, dodge, and roll to evade attacks from enemies. I especially liked the difficult combat system in Assassins Creed 1 and the freedom to do whatever I wanted. I found out quickly that The Witcher 2 had a combat system that was similar to Assassins Creed. However, The Witcher 2 combat system was harder than I ever expected.
I was quickly punished for being terrible in fights. I would take three hits max which would result in my character dying and I would have to repeat entire sections of the game all over again. I grew frustrated that my health bar would not regenerate in combat. I hated that my armor did nothing to help me in combat. It was all on me to get better at dodging attacks in order to be successful in the game.
Slowly over time I improved. As I improved I no longer hated the combat system and over time I began to love it. The combat system challenged me to become a better player and I appreciated that.
I am hyped for the combat system in The Witcher 3 because I hope the combat is even harder. I like being punished for being bad in a game. I like being stressed out when I am in combat and this is a experience I do not get in other games besides The Witcher 2. I hope they don’t make the game casual by making the combat easier—it needs to be hard.
3. Romance
I am a sucker for romance options in a role-playing video games. I think this is a result from watching too many Disney movies when I was a child. At this point I am socially conditioned to seek out female companionship whenever I am fighting dragons in a video game. The Witcher 2 is a video game that delivered on the romance options in ways I never expected.
I will not spoil any of the romance options but lets just say it is hook-up culture the video game. Because your character is so masculine, women throw themselves at you in the game. Also, the romance scenes in The Witcher 2 are so detailed it blows any other romance scene in a video game right out of the water. The romance scenes are so realistic and it can remind you of other naughty videos you can see on the internet.
You also don’t have to give the women any gifts, perform any tasks, or achieve any great feat. All you have to do is just show up while also being a bad ass and women will want you in this game. I remember having to give women gifts in the Dragon Age series in order to develop the romance. Even if I gave them gifts and said the right thing, it was not guaranteed that the relationship would advance in the Dragon Age video game.
The Witcher 2 threw the concept of giving gifts right out of the window because you don’t need to do that or say the right thing to develop the romance. I hope The Witcher 3 has many more romance options for the hero to explore because it is an amazing feature of the game when it is done right.
In conclusion, The Witcher 3 will probably have amazing graphics, awesome combat, and many romance options for me to look forward to. I really hope they do not make the game casual by pandering to a casual fan base. The game is best on the computer and computer players in general are hard core gamers who can handle hard combat. They need to focus on satisfying the hardcore gamers first. I am tired of playing terrible sequels that were ruined to satisfy the casual gamer.
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