"Evil is evil. Lesser, greater meddling…makes no difference. The degree is arbitrary, the definition…is blurred. If I am to choose between one evil and another…I would rather not choose at all!”
Witchers are witchers. They are just hunters for hire. Serving the common folk, justifying what’s wrong or right is not their job. Is that so? That is the most important message you will get to know while playing Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. You serve people only at a price thus neglecting helpless one’s facing injustice, knowing the fact that you can do something for them…..then you are actually evil. You will realize this while playing the game-“Your choices carry weight”. So, choose wisely. Ladies and gentlemen, CD Projekt RED presents you the perfect story driven classic action-adventure rpg, Witcher 3, that brings you an epic grand finale to the series.
Why epic? Because it is epic! You can’t even decide where to start appreciating the game from! The plot is basically about Geralt on a quest to find Ciri, his beloved daughter-like personality, who is being pursued by the Wild Hunt. Furthermore, Geralt’s reunion with his lost love Yennefer, and his beloved, Triss Mariglod in turn adds some more twist to the plot. This may seem pretty basic as well as simple to you. But don’t be mistaken as this simple plot further gets branched and sub-divided into many quests both small and big that enrich your experience while playing the game. Compared to Witcher 2, this time the degree of variations in the story-line is much more. Sometimes, the choices may seem to be very difficult leaving you in dilemma. Sometimes, you can’t even predict what’s going to happen next if you choose to do something. It may later prove to be good or bad thus affecting your experience drastically. For example, I happened to pull off a fight while protecting a bartender from some brutes. I killed them brutally and the bartender got scared. Later, when I attended a musical performance in a famous inn of a bustling city, the same bartender was present and insulted me as a ‘murderer’ in front of everyone present over there. This in turn led to chaos among the people. Did you notice that? This is the greatness that defines the role-playing experience in Witcher 3. The story has been beautifully carved out, each choice leading to different endings in a mission and sometimes a variety of side-quests too. And yes, you won’t face any difficulties understanding the storyline if you haven’t played the prequels of the game as, the dev team has done the best it could to optimize the plot so that the game can welcome a larger amount of audience to play.
Side-quests play an important role in the game. Sometimes, you will be forced to take them and don’t worry as, you won’t get bored, because they will award you with different tales of common folk, a vibrant gameplay experience, bonus points and some extra coin. This in turn helps you a lot in the main quests, as earing extra xp gives you the advantage of enhancing your traits and abilities. The better your stats are the easier it will be for you to defeat dangerous bosses, survive in ghastly environments and complete main missions. Most of the times, side quests affect the plot of primary missions. Like, for completing an important quest, I had to take a voyage to another city but I needed around ‘1000 bucks’ to pay the Captain of the ship otherwise he was not willing to offer his services. I did not have adequate resources with me to pay him, so I had to earn that much amount of money. Hence, I participated in brawls, card-games and many side-quests that helped me a lot. Not only was I in a position to pay for my voyage but also I earned a lot of experience points that enabled me to upgrade my stats drastically. Further, I got the chance to explore a lot of new things. Therefore, CD Projekt has done a pretty good job, so that players can involve themselves completely and appreciate each and every detail, thus not skipping any relevant as well as irrelevant parts of the game. You won’t even regret for a single moment being involved in the 200hrs of gameplay it has to offer.
The world is so vast that it may be beyond your expectations. Normally it seems very difficult to render tiny bit of detail to each and every element of it. But the dev team has managed to define the world in such a way that sometimes you may be confused whether it feels almost like reality or more than reality? Hats off to CD Projekt for their hard work! The developer has described the elements of various parts of the map perfectly in terms of geography, culture and environment. In other words, if you visit a haunted region or anything like that you will discover elements like fog, horrific sounds, monsters hiding, barren land, wolves feeding on dead-bodies lying on the road, people hanged and much more. You will feel like watching a horror movie and the imagination of being a part of it will definitely give you goose bumps. If you visit a city, the environment has been adjusted in variety of ways to make you feel that you are actually a tourist or a traveler. Folks singing and dancing, people chattering, kids playing, guards on duty, bustling markets, noisy bars, soothing background music etc. make you feel like you are actually there. CD Projekt has completely taken the open-world elements to the ‘highest-level’. You may not find this level of detailed open-world in any other games out there and it is a fact.
But there were some crazy bugs that I discovered while roaming the streets of a city called Novigrad. A person’s head was just floating in mid-air! Not just that, I came to observe the same thing inside a bar where the face of an attendant was missing and instead it was found beautifully suspended in mid-air. Well, creating and implementing so many things in such a vast game, bugs like this are bound to happen. Thankfully, CD Projekt has already taken care of the issue by releasing an official patch that can remove these bugs from the game after it’s applied. Rest assured, there aren’t any issues that I came across with.
This time you will notice a dynamic weather system and a day-night cycle that affects your environment accordingly. I was well aware that the AI of the game was superb. The NPC’s never really gave me a feeling that they were just dummies uttering a few words. Instead what I saw, I couldn’t even imagine. So, I was on an alley of Novigrad. Suddenly, it started raining and rain-drops started splattering everywhere. That did feel realistic. But the real surprise was next, as I saw a man covering his body to protect himself from the rain and when that guy approached me he complained-“Suck!!! It started raining again!!!” And then there was this kid, who was dancing and playing in the rain. I heard him singing- “Poodles of rain….”, in a rhyming voice. I simply could not believe that. That just clearly describes why this is a perfect game to buy unlike most of the titles that create a false hope among the people and finally deliver something that crushes their expectation badly. Witcher 3 is nothing like that. You just get much more than you pay for.
The visuals are very good and you won’t even complain once that a single object or person has not been defined properly. You will rather be lost in a beautiful yet magnificent world where you won’t even find a tiny flaw. Some games just create a ‘mirage’ and try to attract gamers into their fake beauty but after playing Witcher 3 you will just experience the exact opposite. You will instead get ‘Witcher 3-mirages’, in your real life. Sounds funny isn’t it? But it is actually true. In this decade, we have seen some great RPG’s like Skyrim and Mass Effect 3. Add Witcher 3 to the list and if you start comparing then this game simply deserves the title-“RPG of the Decade”, without any doubt. Yes, fellas this game is a ‘Legend’ that will never be forgotten. “Ladies and gentleman!!! A great round of applause for CD-Projekt RED to develop such a realistic and beautiful story-driven-open-world game!”
RPGs are often huge, sprawling endeavours. With limited playtime, we have to choose wisely, so here's the best western RPGs available today.
"I started playing games yesterday" the List... Meh!
How about a few RPGs that deserve some love instead?
1 - Alpha Protocol - Now on GOG
2 - else Heart.Break()
3 - Shadowrun Trilogy
4 - Wasteland 2
5 - UnderRail
6 - Tyranny
7 - Torment: Tides of Numenera
And for a bonus game that flew under the radar:
8 - Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
Not only glorious jank, but the idea that the story can completely change depending on what you do, or say, or side with, makes it one of the most forward thinking games ever. The amount of story permutation is the equivalent of a Hitman level but in Story Form. And it wasn't just that the story changed, no, it was that you met completely new characters, or missed them, depending on your choices. Made Mass Effect feel static in comparison.
Alpha Protocol was absolutely glorious, indeed. And it was, and still is, more Next Gen than most anything out there these days. In this regard at least.
Pity.
Given the medium's wild diversity, this primer of the essential video games everyone should try is a good place to start.
I can't fk with this list. They missed on alot of games probably before the writers times. Also I know people loved some portal but I was never a fan.
Tomb Raider 1
Driver 1
Abe’s Odyssey
FF6
King of Fighters 94
Mortal Kombat OG
LINK 2 the past
Street Fighter 2
Resident Evil 1
Infinite but not the first two games? Witcher 3 but not the first two games?? GTA V but not literally any of the games before it??? Portal 2 but not the first? Also if you're going to play Shadow of The Colossus play the remaster and not the remake. Can't say I disagree with the list but my man it's all over the place.
I mean some sequels are objectively better and you don’t need to play the whole series.
But most of these games have a story to follow, sure you can catch up with a YouTube vid but where's the fun in that?
A list like this isn't telling you not to play the previous games if you want to. It's just giving you legendary games to play.
But tbh, you don't always have to force yourself to play every entry in a franchise to get to the better ones.
- The vast majority of Witcher 3 players never played the first 2 and had a great time. The first 2 games aren't in the same league.
- The GTA games are self-contained with the odd fun reference. You can easily jump into any of them.
- The Shadow Of The Colossus remake looks and controls better than the original (plus it has a 60fps option while the remaster is just 30fps). New players will enjoy it more.
- Portal 2 is a lot better than Portal 1 and takes the concept much further gameplay-wise. Storywise, Portal 1 is fairly light too. Not that you shouldn't play it but realistically ... you'd love Portal 2 whether you play it or not (at lot of Portal 2 players have never played 1).
Bioshock 1 is the only one I agree with you on simply because it's one the best games of all time and arguably better than Infinite. No other setting like Rapture.
Looking at the list, I'd recommend playing Uncharted 1 before 2 but no doubt, 2 is the legendary one you have to play.
I get it, but that's just my opinion on his opinion. I just think that before you play a sequel you should still play what came before it. Maybe it's just me but i find it fascinating playing through the first game in a series and seeing how it has evolved through its sequels. Like I said I don't disagree with the list, other than SoTC which I strongly believe the remaster of the original should be played above the remake.
Awesome list! Hot take on Fear (and it's hard af expansion Persaus Mandate!) Bioshock Infinite is stellar, so is the Witcher 3 and you nailed it by having Ocarina of Time. So many fantastic games! Gotta play 'em all! Next one on my list is Prey after I beat Dead Space 2 and Splinter Cell Conviction.
Wealth of Geeks explores some of the best gaming romances that have stolen our hearts over the years.
Sound only a 7 though? Hey, we all like what we like, not trying to hate. I think the OST from TW3 and both Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine to be some of the greatest music of any modern game. The Witcher series as a whole has had fantastic music throughout. Is your score lower because of sound effects and ambient music? They aren't bad nor are they the best per se but surely good. Oddly enough, I'd rearrange the Gameplay and Sound, however, I'd give the Gameplay 7.5-8.0 and Graphics a 9.5. Other than that, nice review.