The Witcher 2

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a gift, gilded with moments that stay with you even after the curtains close on its dark tale of uncertain pasts and uncertain futures. Like the rare Roses of Remembrance you might find growing in this role-playing game's lush fields, these moments are carefully cultivated. Some bugs, combat quirks, and other foibles prove bothersome, but they don't greatly diminish the impact of exploring a dungeon whose walls ooze the agony you've just witnessed. This superb role-playing sequel offers a bold world woven together by tenuous alliances and closely guarded secrets.

The Witcher 2's phenomenal visual design isn't its defining characteristic, but it's an effective lure and makes for an immediate connection with the game's provocative tone. In The Witcher 2, sights like these communicate so much. The delicate lace of a sorceress's collar gives her a regal air, yet dark makeup and dark brown eyes speak to mysteries beneath the surface. Walls, cliffs, and meadows aren't just repeated textures. The superlative art is rendered by equally superlative technology that ensures you can admire the rips on a mercenary's trousers, a harpy's individual feathers, and the buckles and seams on Geralt's clothing. Yet The Witcher 2 is as much about grand gestures as it is textural detail. Pungent colors, roaring flames, and shafts of glowing light make mainstay environments like sewers and caves a wonder to explore. The game is nevertheless demanding of your hardware, though it is attractive even at lower settings. A few imperfections stand out amidst all the graphical wizardry, such as mechanical facial animations, characters that pop in during cutscenes, and the occasional frame rate dip. But such quibbles are easily tolerated in this luxuriant digital world.

And what a world it is, alive with activity yet tinged with violence and sorrow. The opening moments ready you for the game's brutal overtones, showing a captive Geralt of Rivia whipped and taunted by his jailers. Geralt's defaced flesh is not an easy sight to take in, but it's thematically relevant: The witcher is scarred by his past. Geralt, once thought dead, is still piecing together his memories of a savage battle and a beauty called Yennefer. The story takes its cue from these lost memories, juxtaposing violence and sex. It also presents both as inevitable and natural results of the human (and nonhuman) condition. You can still bed various women in The Witcher 2, as you could in the original game, though you no longer collect sex cards. Lovemaking (or ploughing, as so many characters call it) is a frequent subject of conversation, and it's one of Geralt's favorite pastimes. You can bed a few different women, and the game hardly shies from nudity, handily earning its mature rating. Geralt seeks clues to his past, as well as the royal assassin that ended the life of King Foltest at the conclusion of TheWitcher. Geralt is blamed for Foltest's murder, but as he gets closer to the true killer, he becomes more and more involved in the region's power struggles. Characters new and old both assist and hinder Geralt's quest. These include the flamboyant bard Dandelion and the earthy Zoltan, a foul-mouthed dwarf who, like most of The Witcher 2's dwarves, loves women and drink. Dwarves are a rich source of humor in most role-playing games, and The Witcher 2's are no exception. It's initially funny to learn that teetotaling dwarves are outcasts. You might admire a bearded character's enthusiasm for heading to battle for the first time, but when pressed, he admits his misgivings. Aside from the occasional expository speech, most of the dialogue sounds natural, including the asides spoken by random citizens. The Witcher 2 is not an open-world game in the way of The Elder Scrolls games; each area is relatively contained though expansive enough to encourage exploration. The characters at your side, the enemies you face, the dialogue--they all differ based on a series of decisions that the game never forgets. And these aren't "good" or "bad" choices: these are ambiguous circumstances with ambiguous results, which is just as well. Geralt is not interested in heroism or villainy. He navigates turbulent waters seeking neither justice nor injustice, only answers
A number of stupendous moments punctuate your choices. Typically, the events you most fondly recall from RPGs are story related: the characters, the plot twists, the losses, the finales. By contrast, The Witcher 2 etches gameplay events into your imagination. This moment is recalled several times later yet retains its power due to its otherworldly ambience, sense of scale, and fun combat.

If you played the original Witcher, then forget what you learned from its combat mechanics. The Witcher 2 abandons that rhythmic system for a more traditional and challenging one. You initiate standard attacks with your mouse, and you block and cast signs (Geralt's magic spells) with the keyboard. Your first encounter during the prologue/tutorial makes for a punishing introduction: Expect to die a few times as you learn just what the game expects of you. Eventually you grasp the rhythm, which is similar to that of the PlayStation 3 game Demon's Souls. You must position yourself well and pay close attention to your supply of vigor, which is required to block, as well as cast signs; get in a few choice hits; and then block or tumble into a safer position. There's a great sense of weight in every swing. Geralt might somersault toward his victim and slash him with a steel sword or use a flaming staff pilfered from a succubus to land slower, heavier blows. As you level up and spend skill points in four different skill paths (witcher training, swordsmanship, magic, alchemy), combat becomes more manageable, and you begin to feel more powerful. And yet, the action never becomes a cakewalk, and it always retains a sense of urgency.

And so death is inescapable, but The Witcher 2 allows you to properly prepare before trying to conquer the wilds. Meditation is a returning mechanic, though you no longer have to find a campfire as in the first game. Potions are toxic to Geralt; thus, the number you can drink is limited. When the story snatches you up into a series of battles and cutscenes, you may never be allowed to meditate and, thus, never reap the benefits potions may have granted. It's a neat way of taking a game-y function and making it seem more natural. Other interface quirks are less understandable. Not so minor are the few quest bugs that can aggravate your travels. The only solution to these circumstances is to hope you accidentally stumble upon the next phase of the story or reload a previous game save. These are disappointing errors in a well-made game with an otherwise stellar presentation.

Combat is central to The Witcher 2, but it's not the only way to pass the time. You can trade blows with certain locals, though you may cringe when you first learn that doing so entails quick-time key presses--the kind associated more with console action games than computer RPGs. (Such quick-time events crop up in various boss fights and other scripted sequences as well.) Like many ambitious games, The Witcher 2 requires you to shoulder some minor burdens; in this case, it's a finale without bite and some unfortunate bugs. This distinguished game makes an important statement: Visual beauty, challenging action, and game-changing decisions can coexist in a modern RPG. In one beauteous stroke, The Witcher 2 has raised the stakes. No longer need we accept that role-playing games must sacrifice the quality of one element in favor of another.