The Witcher

The Witcher is a Single Player Role-Playing Game set in the world of some Polack writer called Andrzej Sapkowski. Every night, when Sapkowski came home from his job of cleaning Belgian houses, he wrote a few pages, completing his novel after five days and becoming a celebrity in Poland for being the only person to be able to read and write. A few Polish people who could do basic math picked up the franchise and made a game out of it, letting the player become an albino swordsman who kills monsters for a living.

This game prides itself on its non-linearity, the ability of the player to make decisions which influence the storyline, its foul language and its agonizingly long load times. As well, officials have praised the games accurate portrayal of women as being only good for boobs and sechs. Because of this game, it is now OK to punch RL women in the face that turn you down for sex after you've given them a piece of food or a ring.

The Game

The tl;dr Plot

Geralt of Rivia is a white-haired swordsman trained by a secret school of Witchers. Witchers are professional monster-hunters who are rigorously trained and genetically modified to provide them with superhuman skill to battle monsters, and to have sex with every woman on the planet.

The game begins as Geralt is being carried on a cart by his co-worker Witchers. Apparently Geralt tried to fight a monster and got his ass handed to him. Like every RPG hero at the start of every RPG ever, he is affected by amnesia, giving the developers an excuse to have your supposedly experienced character start out weak as a kitten. When the Witchers arrive at Kaer Morhen, they are greeted by Triss, who has the hots for Geralt, just like every other female in the game, despite his gruff and intolerable behavior (hint hint). Right after their return, an evil gang attacks the band of Witchers, and steals their secrets. Before this endeavor, he has sex with Triss.

Geralt travels to Vizima to find out more clues, but before he can even enter the city, he must do battle with a big shiny dog, originally called The Beast. He also encounters the Scoia'Tael, a bunch of nonhuman terrorists who hate the evil hyoomans for oppressing them. During this endeavor, he has sex with the witch, some random peasant girl, and some stupid barmaid in the windmill.

One inside the city, Geralt appears to be restricted to the Temple Quarter, and he begins his investigation, assisted by a Private Detective called Raymond Maarloeve. After pointlessly interrogating people who couldn't have done it anyway, he finds out, through sheer coincidence, that the bad guy has actually taken on the appearance of Maarloeve and was impersonating the Detective all along! Holy shit that is some original storywriting! During this endeavor, Geralt has sex with his long-time friend Shani, some random Half-Elf, some random townswoman, a Dryad, and a prostitute (but Geralt, of course, doesn't have to pay!).

For some strange reason, discovering the true identity of Maarloeve opens up the gate to the Trade Quarter, where Geralt meets Triss again. He continues to investigate the bad guys and tries to find out more about the mysterious powers of Alvin, the child he rescued in Act I. During these endeavors, he has sex with some girl looking for her lute, a prostitute, another prostitute, the Vampiric Queen of Prostitutes (!), a noblewoman, a town clerk, either Triss or Shani again, and even the god damn Princess herself! Geralt sure can hit it.

In the next Act, Geralt finds himself washed ashore on the coast of Temeria, and he must somehow get back to Vizima, with Alvin attached to his leg like a ball-and-chain. He meets the Lady of the Lake, who throws him a sword after he kills the evil entity known as Dagon. This is definitely not a rip-off of Lovecraft and the Excalibur myth. He also has to choose to support either the humans or the black person, against the other side. During the fracas, Alvin catapults himself back in time. Eventually Geralt manages to get back to Vizima, and during this endeavor he has sex with a jealous sister, some random Elf, some random peasant girl, and of course the Lady of the Lake herself. Go Geralt!

The final Act (not really since the epilogue isn't an epilogue at all) has Geralt returning to Old Vizima and fighting in the war between the human Order and the nonhuman Scoia'Tael. During this endeavor, he has sex with either a butch one-armed lesbian (Order Path), the Elven Queen Bitch (Squirrel-Tail Path) or a threesome with slutty bisexual nurse's (Neutral Path).

The final final Act has Geralt confronting the Grand Master of the Order, who needs to get kicked in the dick no matter which path you choose. Eventually he takes Geralt into the far-away future to show him what will become of humanity if the Grand Master doesn't intervene with his nasty plan, thus justifying his actions. Geralt will have none of it though, and he proceeds to permaban the Grand Master, after a witty exchange. After pwning the Grand Master, Geralt notices that he was wearing the same amulet Geralt once gave to Alvin. Holy shit Alvin went back in time and became the Grand Master! During this endeavor the Grand Master wants man sex with him, but Geralt's too cool for that.

Gameplay

The Witcher's combat system is the best system ever: it involves the player clicking on a bad guy, and then clicking again until the bad guy dies. This premise is the same in the three combat styles, aptly named the Strong Style, the Fast Style and the Group style. Clicking at the right time creates a combo, but seeing as those are just more of the same hits chained together, with the enemy still able to hit back, there's no real reason to put in the effort of actually clicking at the right time. The game will, however, kindly notify you when you clicked at the wrong time by scrolling "Too Fast!" over the screen. Thank God for that.

Geralt also has magic and alchemy at his disposal, the only decent magical signs are the first two, Aard and Igni, and alchemy is lame. There are over 40 alchemy recipies, only three of these should be made more than once.

Every step you take is followed by a cutscene and this is wonderful, because many cutscenes take place before a big fight, meaning you can't save until after the fight. If you get killed, you have to sit through the ridiculously long load time and then watch the cutscene all over again. This adds longevity to the game, and that's always a good thing.

Opening any door or moving from one zone into the next is a joyful occasion, allowing you to spend five minutes (ten if the intrepid gamer is particularly lucky) examining all the intricacies of the load screen. What makes this fact even more awesome is that most of the magnificently exciting FedEx quests require the player to traverse several zones and enter a myriad of buildings, turning a quick, dull fetch quest into a loading screen-filled extravaganza, which in turn, makes the useless rewards seem like game-winning items because you had to wait for them for such a long time.

Criticism

Ornery bastards criticize that the Witcher is fraught with obscene language, sometimes even with deliberate intent to throw dirty words at the impressionable minds of young gamers. Sample tasteful quotes include:

	“	Your momma sucks dwarf cock.	„
	—A drunk who knows the score.

	“	I fucked a she-Elf once.	„
	—A villager shares his experiences.

	“	Abso-fuckin-lutely beautiful.	„
	—Geralt, inventing new words.

Previous Quote | Next Quote

This, and the occasional painted boobie in the game, were enough to slap an 18+ warning on the game. If Geralt were to explode his opponents in a grotesque shower of gibs, but the boobies and naughty words had been absent, it probably would have gotten a 12+ rating. Because we all know horrible violence and mutilations are nothing compared to a naked tit. Especially for Americunts, however, the boobies were covered and even the texture for the Dryad model was changed so that her hair covered her vagina. Something her pubes were already doing anyway.

Sample of dialogue.

Also, Geralt's frequent consumption of alcohol, sometimes even in drinking contests (oh noes!), and his reliance on alchemy, i.e. drugs, is the cause for much worrying among good Catholic homemakers.

Some also argue that the vaunted decision-consequence system is bullshit since the only consequences of your decisions turns out to be that in the next generic fight, you'll be fighting three monsters instead of two.

Yet other whiners bitch about the fact that The Witcher is PC-only, thus depriving the mothers of console-fags of dwarf cock to suck on.

Which is a perfectly sensible gripe, really, seeing as how the game was designed to be completely impossible to play without every single key on your keyboard and every single button on your mouse at once.