Video Games : The Witcher

In association with Amazon.com
  

from: Atari

 : The Witcher
variant image variant image variant image variant image variant image variant image variant image variant image variant image
List Price: $39.99
Amazon.com's Price: $29.99
You Save: $10.00 (25%)
Prices subject to change.



Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
More Information


This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Amazon Maximum Age: 20 years
Amazon Minimum Age: 204 months
Binding: DVD-ROM
Brand: Atari
EAN: 0742725275560
ESRB Age Rating: Mature
Label: Atari
Manufacturer: Atari
Publisher: Atari
Release Date: October 30, 2007
Sales Rank: 483
Studio: Atari

Features:


Accessories: Related Items:

Editorial Review:

Amazon.com:
Reinvigorating the role-playing genre with a fresh and modern approach, The Witcher combines unrivalled story and character development in an original, vibrant world with tactically-deep real-time combat and a challenging view of good and evil that will intrigue RPG players of all levels.

The Witcher

Hunt with Geralt, the White Wolf
Geralt of Rivia

He's not your average monster-hunting mercenary. View larger.
Geralt battle demons

He'll pit blade against beast. View larger.
Test steel blade against magic

Or go mano v. mana. View larger.
The Witcher's elegant and inventive combat system

Explore an elegant and inventive combat system. View larger.
Based on the "Witcher Saga" of books and short stories by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski and built utilizing the powerful Neverwinter Nights engine, The Witcher immerses players in a beautifully vivid, but harsh fantasy world in the role of a Geralt, an adept and feared monster-slayer-for-hire. Brutally trained from birth to be a cold-hearted assassin whose services are available to the highest bidder, yet troubled by a past he can't entirely remember, Geralt is a classic anti-hero. To this most renowned of witchers, a society of mutants born with superhuman strength and reflexes and trained at a high level in magic and alchemy, killing has been and seemingly should remain a strictly commercial affair, but as questions about his past come to the fore, so do doubts surrounding the morality of his trade. And these doubts only grow when bits of his past are revealed as he and you grow in power and acclaim through the progression of the game.

The Thin Line Between Good and Evil
Far from a common black and white treatment of good and evil, the moral attitudes defining the world of The Witcher are as close to that of our own prevalent real world view as you are likely to see in a modern RPG. Set in a time dominated by vanity, greed and prejudice, there is no lack of work for Geralt as the kingdoms of the North forsake old alliances and give in to endless intrigue and purges instead of facing a growing tide of evil. But as despicable as the monsters, non-human enemies and pure human trash you are hired to eliminate may seem and may very well be, pity, mercy and good faith are nearly always a possible option to deadly force and one that can change Geralt's overall destiny. It's this kernel of reality in a universe peopled with fantastic and sometimes frightening beings and creatures against a backdrop of morally challenging scenarios that will keep players coming back for more as they explore the varying consequences of Geralt's choices and the choices forced upon him.

Character Development
A witcher's destiny is preordained at birth, but your goal is to determine Geralt's specific path. Hidden within The Witcher are a startling 250 in-game skills and abilities that allow you to define and in many cases plan the evolution of Geralt's character. Will he rely mainly on his skill with a blade? Develop into an arcane battle mage? Transform into a potent alchemist? Or meld all these skills into a more complicated, but potentially unbeatable combo of all three? Give some thought to your path, but know it will not always be an easy or thoughtful one. Filled with non-linear decision-making opportunities and consequences, expect to be forced into quick decisions, choices between the lesser of two evils and to invariably be stuck with the consequences of your employer's short-sighted plans for your services. It's these consequences that will determine your progression through the game's storyline and lead to the availability of different skills and abilities.

Stunning Real-time Combat
Possessing superior strength, speed and agility makes Geralt quick to draw his blade when conflict arises, but this birthright is not always the right skill to rely on and depending on the enemy, can prove disastrous. To survive in this world of varied threats you will need to put aside the button mashing common to other RPGs and utilize The Witcher's complex yet intuitive combat- based fighting system. You will learn quickly to switch seamlessly between the game's six combat styles, dozens of potions, complex alchemy and magic systems and weapons modification mode, using your mouse alone or mouse with keyboard, to add tactical depth to your combat experience. Once you have mastered these, you will also have time to appreciate the ground-breaking fluidity of the game's 600 in-game combat animations, based on actual medieval sword-fighting techniques and performed by experts at Frankfurt's renowned Metric Minds Studio.

It's only through a combined focus on Geralt's physical and mental capabilities that you can hope to survive the viciously violent world he inhabits and unlock both his true potential as a warrior as well as the secrets hidden in his past.

Complete Game Features:



Product Description:
The Witcher is a pinnacle of storytelling in role-playing games. It shatters the line between good and evil, building a world where moral ambiguity reigns. You'll become your own idea of what a great hero should be, as you control Geralt of Rivia -- a a white-haired "witcher," monster-slayer-for-hire and master swordsman. While trying to regain his lost memory, Geralt unwillingly becomes involved in a world-shaking power struggle. In the process, you'll deal head-on with matters that most fantasy worlds ignore: Racism, political intrigue and genocide, to name a few. The Witcher emphasizes story and character development in a vibrant world, while incorporating tactically-deep real-time combat like no game before it. Incredible tactical depth - Six combat styles, dozens of potions, complex alchemy system, modifiable weapons and powerful magic -- all working together in a fluid real-time experience Inspired by the writings of renowned Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski



Customer Reviews
Average Rating:  out of 5 stars

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Bah.................humbug (Not really.)
OK.
I love this game.
I invested in cutting edge hardware for the 2007 Xmas gaming releases that never happened. Now my hardware is not current. But it's close enough to play the witcher.
I have a 4 drive RAID5 array and an 4GB I-ram set for readyBoost, vista64 ultimate, 4 GB of DDR2, an EVGA 8800GT and a Q6600@ 2.7GHZ quadcore, and never noticed the annoying long load times. Yes, I'm playing with all the settings cranked. Maybe patch 1.3 fixed it, I don't know. Not a concern.
I'm currently looking for a patch to bring it up to UK standards, they caption everything, and they say the right words, but the caption reads 'ARSE' and so on... Also, my friend is polish, and he played it in original polish, and said the dialog is truncated....and lazily censored.
They simply didn't include the hardcore dialog of the original. Like it was made by comittee and they couldn't decide on standards, so they released the watered down version and would (Potentially.) make a patch available for it, restoring it to it's original glory a year or so down the road (If there was public outcry.). I haven't played the UK or polish version.

It installed and detected perfectly, no tweaking needed.
It used my default resolution effortlessly as well. (1920x1200)
I have to say the load screen is pretty cool, I'd like an oil painting of it for my living room. (Witcher medallion.)
It reminds me of Soul Reaver, the vampire masquerade series, and diablo II. It's a little dark, but all my favorite games are.
I happily played it, and would rather commit suicide by eating 'c' batteries than play WOW, everCrack, or FFXI. I suppose that's something.
I would have given it 4.5 stars or even higher, but the system doesn't allow it. It's not a 5 star game.
4.75 stars is more like it.
OK, there's a LOT of running around.
There will be times where you FORGET what combat feels like, and then suddenly, you're thrust into the middle of a HUGE fight with no warning.
You level up fast.
It's also very, very linear, but all RPGs are to a point.
The character is bigger than life, he uses 2 swords, and some basic magic, but it's very powerful, and easy to use. The alchemy system isn't too bad, but it could be better. The potions are pretty cool, as well.
But the game is really about morality, standards, and the hatred of authority, corruption, and the double standard.
There are no black and white rules to the game, it's a very large shade of grey. You will find consequences to your actions, so be forewarned.
It has a very lived-in feeling. It doesn't feel like you're breaking a seal on a new game and playing it. It feels like you're re-living the best parts of the RPGs you've played in the past, with a new storyline in a half-remembered dream. Which is good.
Vote now.











Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - The little things add up.
while this game looks vary nice and has great action movies between game play this game is not the best one I have seen. The movement controls cluncky, and getting to move while in combat is even harder. And sometimes it is vary hard to see things in the game becouse of the camera angles. There seems to be a lot of bugs too. I downloaded three patches for the game and it did only little to fix things. Not only that but when I put the patch on. The screen jumps when ever I would try to move around, all the time it never stopped! And then there is the pop-up menu eveytime you pick something up is has to open this big screen to tell you that you have picked it up, instead of just having text to confirming you have it in your bags. I know what your thinking. This is a bad game. Well normally I might side with that, but in this case this game has all of the right stuff. It just came up short for some reason. I hope they get all the bugs worked out so everyone who did buy this game can have a great time with it. I hope you find this use full.



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - BEST RPG SO FAR!
First the most important - I have an average computer but with 4 Gigs of RAM and the loading times are not an issue!!! Get more RAM!!!
How good is the game? Right after finishing it the first time I started playing again from the beginning! Never did that before!
The game may not be perfect but it is unusual enough and dark enough to become my favourite RPG (I played many- Gothic2, Morrowind, Baldurs Gate). The best thing about this game is that it really is for mature players and the developers are not trying to be politically correct. I am actually playing the european version that has some nudity and even though it doesn't influence the gameplay it just makes it more fun.
Everything that needed to be written about the game has been written in other reviews- the game is simply just a bit better than everything else out there PERIOD!
Now buy it!



Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - PC GAME
GOOD GAME THAT NEEDS SOME FIXES SO IT DOESN'T CRASH SO MUCH IF IT IS EVER FIXED IT WOULD BE WONDERFUL



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Nothing new in this review
I'm just adding my stars basically. The product review is pretty accurate, and the reviews here are pretty well representing of the game. I've really enjoyed it, and despite a few things that took a while to figure out and the game being too easy on normal difficulty, this is one of my top 5 favorite PC RPGs. It really is good, and the story is actually engaging most of the time.

see more


More Information
Browse for similar items by category:

 


HOME

Debt Help - Free Credit Report - Mortgages - Loans - Cheap Flights