Review written by Ryan Lord.
 
CD Projekt has created a PC game based on Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski's popular epic fantasy novels. And the result is one of the best RPGs in recent memory.
 
http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/0 [...] er_review/

The best RPG in this decade?  I don't know about that.

I'm glad to see such a positive review of The Witcher here on Tom's Games as I really enjoyed this game myself and feel like it deserves such credit and exposure.
 
I think the review stressed the good points of The Witcher correctly, that is, in my opinion :
 - A very immersive environment (sound, graphics, but also what I can only describe as mood).
 - The ability to actually make choices that affect the story and thus give you a strong feeling of implication.
 - Sevral different methods to solve an inquiry or a situation that allow you to have your own style as a character.
 - A fantastic story that keeps you waiting for more, and that actually makes you want to know more.
 - Lots of side quest that make the world come alive insted of merely being an intensive for some xp and power items.
 - An adult world with adult considerations that doesn't occult parts of the world just to get the rating and touch a larger public. It doesn't throw them at you like they are the core of the game either, they just are, as it would be in any realistic world.
 
On the other hand, The Witcher might no appeal to every computer RPG fan out there as it doesn't follow some trends that have been growing in the industry (which in my opinion is a good thing), namely :
 - No free roaming 'Oblivion Style', the action is story driven, and you can only move so far from it. Some might see it as a lack of liberty, but I actually think this is much closer to real life situation and to a paper rpg adventure as well.
 - No Power Playing and ultimate character tweaking. This is no Hack and Slash and you don't find magical gear in every barrel. In The Witcher, changing your main weapon or your armor is an event, which is as it should be imo.  
 
All in all, The Witcher might not be a game for everyone, but for me, it certainly was the best RPG I played for a long long time and it reminded me of some of my favourit RPG titles, namely Ultima (7 mostly) and Planescape Torment.
 
On a side note, as far as proeminent fantasy novels are concerned, I think the top english speaking Fantasy author at the moment would definitely be GRR Martin with a Song of Ice and Fire. It pains me to see Harry Poter cited along the Lord of the Ring as emblematic fantasy novels ^^.

I am playing the game now. It is really great. I didn't really enjoy Oblivion much. Oblivion was a great looking game, but aside from that, it failed to grab my attention.  
 
The Witcher is one of those games that you can't wait to play to see how the story will play out. Very good game!

great review of a great game.  even if it doesnt quite reach the status of planescape and kotor,  it still comes quite close imo.  if they're able to squash the crashes and reduce the loading/saving times while maintaining the quality of the storytelling and graphical immersiveness, their next offering will be the shiznit

I will buy this game. Sounds like something I could get sucked into... but... i don't think i read anything about multi player? This is a purely single player game?

Yep, purely single player. It's worth it though!

It's a great game.
 
Mature content might be the horse that saves PC gaming. I can't imagine this material on a console.

 
I think it is the best RPG in this decade.
 
Have you played it? If so , what did you compare it to?

The best RPGs I have played this decade are:
The Witcher
Fable
FFX
 
I didn't like Oblivion much, and I really don't think MMORPGs are in the same class as this.

Yes, i don't think it's fair to compare mmorpgs to the witcher...it's like comparing newspapers to novels, they are just two different things with two different purposes.  
 

I can't tell if the editor is implying that The Witcher can only be played from a top down perspective or if he just prefers it. In any case I would like to point out that The Witcher can be played entirely from an over-the-shoulder perspective. In fact, this is what the game defaults to...

If the game is as good as everyone says it is (and i would like to believe) there will be at least a sequel if not an expansion pack beforehand. I mean, there's more than one book right? If i have to be exposed to at least one bad game for every other book/movie title, then i want to have a good sequal to a good game based on a series of books damn it! haha. :-p anyway, the review was exceptional, Not really any spoilers, which seems to be common, just enough to make me want to play it and that was it. gg.

I liked this title.  Some notes:
 
Hard disk load times are a serious pain in the ass.  
 
If possible, get the European version, There are US to EU patches out there, but I have not tried them.
 
 
 

I, as many here are, am glad to see the good review of The Witcher. It is well deserved. I enjoyed every aspect of this game and in way I guess it is a little under the radar I hope that fact does not prevent a sequel from being made. The Witcher II would be a definite number one on my purchasing list in the years ahead.

I agree that The Witcher is a great game, but the inventory system needs a serious rethinking. Some folks on the official forums are recommending an alchemy bag, which in my opinion is a great idea.
 
While I'm nitpicking I'll mention that the auto-sheathing of your weapon after looting something has to go. It kind of sucks when you're in a pitch-black can't see your hand in front of your face dark dungeon holding a torch and Geralt decides it's too bright...

For any one with crashed dowload the 1.1a or 1.2 patch.  
Mine hasn't crashed since.
Also the load/save time have decreased significantly.
Agreed that this is a great game..combat is miles better than Oblivion which I wasn't too impressed with.
Overall it's a great RPG game and hopefully more games will be like it.

I'm in the third chapter in Vizima now, and it's been crashing quite a lot, mostly in the Trade Quarter. The game is patched to 1.2.
It also seems to be using much more RAM than usual, up to 1.9GB while playing (about 450MB for the system alone). It never took that much RAM before! Sometimes it exceeds the 2GB I have, and then starts writing to pagefile, which causes the game to start stuttering.
I hope this gets resolved in the next patch if there is one, as it's really the best RPG I've played since Fable so far.
I didn't like Oblivion at all, it gave you too much freedom and did not provide enough motivation to stick with the storyline, which wasn't all that good anyway. I got sick of it when I started going through the Oblivion gates, one after the other, which were pretty much the same thing. Plus the combat was really bad.
 

it's a great game..i got sucked in it and even if u don't have allot of free roaming, it's still one of the best RPG's i have played the last 3 years.
 
buy it!
 

Assuming you're on a 32bit OS, you need to increase the application address limitation to 3GB. Run "BCDEdit /set IncreaseUserVA 3072" from the command prompt and restart. That fixed all the crashes for me.

fallout1, fallout2? :|