Review by: Todd Brakke

The Witcher 2 is not your typical game. It's a definitive representation of low fantasy, which itself is rarified air for a computer RPG. It's a dirty, grimy world where bad things happen to everyone and often with great, graphic cruelty. It's loaded with cursing, nudity, depravity, and graphic depictions of violence that earn every bit of its M rating. As a game it's difficult and demanding. The choices you make and how they effect the story's outcome are wildly variable to the point where you can compare notes with someone else who's finished it and have almost completely different paths taken to reach the finale.

The most obvious improvement over the first game is just the sheer beauty of the environments it depicts, though it's hardly the only change. What's most important about these graphical improvements, however, is how CD Projekt has used them to enhance gameplay and bring their version of this world to life. Trees shift with the breeze, as do their shadows on the ground. Residents mill about their daily rituals. Fisherman fish off the peer, taking breaks to eat and to go home at night. Sun bursts through the treeline and firelight reflects gorgeously off just about everything. Soldier types vary wildly; one's a muscular badass with an attitude to match, while another portly fellow falls asleep at his gate post. In the game's first chapter, residents of the town of Flotsam pick berries at the town's forest edge; other citizens stand with crossbows trained at the treeline should the forest's malevolent denizens emerge. It's a world that isn't just set dressing. It functions.

In this game you continue your role as the monster-hunting amnesiac witcher known only as Geralt of Rivia. Although the first game featured a lot gray-area decision making as you tried to walk the line between a brewing civil war between humans and nonhumans (elves and dwarves), you never really learned anything about Geralt's repressed memories or how he had seemingly returned from the dead. If you're hoping for answers to those questions this time around, you won't be disappointed.

What made Geralt such a compelling character in the first game is not lost here in the slightest. Geralt wasn't a prototypical fantasy hero. Not quite an antihero, per se, he's just not in it for the honor or the glory. Monster hunting is his job and he doesn't offer something for nothing. In many ways he's a fantasy Batman, minus a secret identity and personal fortune. Sure he's just a general bad ass in combat, but he's also about discipline and preparation. He's a detective that uses his mind just as much as his brawn to get the job done, a facet of his characterization that is carried over to great effect in this game.

Aside from the obvious beauty and completeness of the world, perhaps the most notable change from the first game is the overhaul of the combat model. It's no longer about clicking rhythmically, using assorted combat styles to dispatch enemies en masse. This new action-oriented system was obviously built with a game controller in mind and it works to excellent effect when played that way, although the mouse and keyboard combination works quite well with the left mouse button functioning as a quick attack, the right a strong attack, and other buttons on the keyboard for blocking, using items, and casting spells. Although playing with the controller is a smoother experience, PC gamers need not worry about this game being oversimplified for a future console release. Despite the plethora of button-mashing action, this is still a challenging, thinking man's combat engine that's impressively enhanced with a boatload of character skills spread across four different, branching skill trees.

On anything but Easy difficulty it's absolutely necessary to master more than just the art of the sword. Magic spells, buffing potions and oils, traps and bombs.... you have to be prepared for battle before it happens and be very careful about your positioning once it commences if you want to survive. This is particularly true with potions, which you can no longer quaff in the heat of battle, but must instead ingest beforehand, while meditating. Combat in this game is a difficult venture, make no mistake. At times, when monsters seem to be crawling out of the woodwork or during a couple of the boss battles, it starts to feel overboard and punitive. Fortunately, you can change difficulty on the fly with even the most challenging encounters a simple affair on Easy difficulty. It would be worth CD Projekt Red's time to add in a difficulty setting between Easy and Normal.