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The Witcher


The Witcher - hands-on

Broom, broom, shake shake the room...

As we quickly try to learn, in order to properly dispatch the enemy you must accurately click on them and time your attacks if you want to queue up impressive combos of thrusts and sweeps. Lose the rhythm - which is easily done as enemy strikes throw the timing somewhat - and a battle can quickly go awry.

Thankfully, there are all sorts of complementary abilities to help sway the tide in your favor, with special moves, spells (not too dissimilar to the Jedi powers of the Knights Of The Old Republic games), potions and weapons upgrades. Despite initial frustrations with the combat system, the method shows promise, even if there’s still a way to go before total control nirvana.    

During our playtime, one obvious difference between The Witcher and its RPG contemporaries is that loot is not in the kind of abundance you’d expect. If you like to slice up creatures and find they’re carrying more worthless items than an inner-city flea market, you may be disappointed to hear that we didn’t find gold, bread, arrows or rusty weapons in one corpse, barrel or cupboard. There will be a few items about the place come release time, but not to the degree most RPG gamers are accustomed to.

The justification for the lack of litter is that since The Witcher is a master swordsman, he really wouldn’t be going through the game upgrading slowly from a rusty spoon.


 
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The Knowledge
The Witcher
The Witcher

Genre: Role Playing
Release date: Oct 30, 2007
Published by: Atari
Developed by: CD Projekt
Multiplayer Modes:
Offline
1 player SOLO
9 AWESOME
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