BeWitcher-ing

I have lately been playing The Witcher, a game i picked up with a number of others recently. It's a role playing game that's apparently based on a book series. You play as a character named Geralt. He's a witcher, a diminishing group of monster hunters possessed of minor magical abilities.

The game is pretty standard for an RPG, lots of quests and tasks. On average most RPGs are simply animated shopping lists, "collect 5 of this flower", "I need the tongues of 10 zombies", etc. With that in mind, you may ask me why I play them, the best answer I can give is that the storyline must be engaging to be worthwhile. Without a decent storyline RPGs can be a very tedious experience, which is why I no longer play Hellgate: London. The storyline (so far) in Witcher seems decent enough that it's still playable. The theme is very adult orientated, which in a lot of ways is gimmicky without being over the top. The sexual content is an obvious ploy to hook the adolescent gamers, but fortunately these can be skipped and aren't necessary for the storyline to progress. I just wish the voice acting didn't range from decent to "dear god shut up." Again, fortunately the dialogue can be skipped without missing too much thanks to the subtitles.

Gameplay is simple point-and-click, much like Diablo or Dungeon Siege. You click where you want to go, and the monsters/enemies you wish to attack. There are combos, but it's extremely simplistic. To execute a combo attack you must click, wait, then click at the correct time to further your attack. It's not always as easy as it sounds though, a slightly mistimed click can lead to defeat surprisingly fast. Gaining and spending experience is pretty standard, though the interface screen is intuitive and works fairly well.

Bottom line, it's an average RPG with a decent storyline (again, so far). Plus, it's not often you can kill a cockatrice and cock-a-tramp all in the same game...