The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt & Hearts of Stone DLC

Witcher 3, the newest game in the series and definitely the best one so far. While there were a lot of question marks on the map, indicating points of interest like monster nests or buried treasures, they were completely optional and not at all relevant to the story (though I just had to run to all of them, completionist that I am). The actual quests and sidequests were really well written, each having its own minor story including investigation into what’s happened, usually a lot of dialogue and concluding more often than not with a tougher monster fight. Kudos to CD Projekt RED for making even the smaller side quests feel important!

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The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

So, after completing my Witcher 1 playthrough I jumped straight to The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. I had played it through once before and therefore decided to pick the other path this time (at the end of act 1 you get faced with a choice of which side to side with and the whole of act 2 is built around that choice (different quests, quest hub, questing area, allies etc)). More of that inside the spoiler tag, though I’ve gotta say that it’s quite an interesting approach which adds quite a bit of replay value. Witcher 2 has some nice updates besides the obvious graphical ones; the combat is smoother and you no longer had to jump between stances and using signs is much smoother, you can use them just by clicking their corresponding number key (1-5).

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The Witcher

Back in 2007 when The Witcher first came out I thought it was the greatest game ever. The game had everything and more; a great story with choices that mattered (not just your typical black and white, good and evil), great characters, an interesting new combat system and a open world. I couldn’t find any flaws with the game, it felt like a game as perfect as a game could be. Well, that has changed a bit…

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Witcher, Just Cause 3 & more

It’s been a while since I wrote anything, but wait, I’ve got a good reason. Back in December I started a playthrough of the Witcher series. It was a rather daunting undertaking (especially the third game) and I just finished it mid-March. After that I quickly played through Just Cause 3 (needed something completely brainless) and Telltale’s Game of Thrones (in preparation for the show to start again and it had been on my backlog for too long).

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Travelling in games

During the winter holidays I played through Witcher 1. When it was first released it felt like one of the greatest games ever. This time though, most of my patience was lost in the eternal running back and forth, back and forth and back and forth. And thus the topic of my next blogpost was born. Witcher had a lot of great story, interesting conversations, mediocre combat and lots and lots of loading screen. Every house was a loading screen and the same goes for zone changes. And only in the third chapter some limited fast travel was introduced. This got me thinking of how other games have handled travel.

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