The Witcher, One More Step Into Reality

As I walked back from getting my media badge at the Los-Angeles Convention Center last week, I ran across a really tall guy that seemed familiar. I mean it's not every day that you see a 7-foot-tall foreigner right beside you even if this is L.A. With a brief moment we both recognized each other as we had met about a year ago pretty much at the same place while he was doing the same thing back then: handing out pamphlets about a game called The Witcher.

It's always fun to have some of the people you meet at E3 to recognize you so you can keep up with them. While talking I got to learn that this year they had a nice booth situated in Kentia Hall which was an improvement since last year we had to go outside of the convention center to meet with them for the presentation. I was really impressed by The Witcher last year so I was eager to see the improvements made to it in the past year. For those of you who don't know what this game is about you can read it up on my article last year here or go to www.thewitcher.com.

At our appointment, Erik and I sat on a very comfortable couch to enjoy an introduction movie of the game. You just have to love those guys. Appointments in a little closed room with a nice couch to sit on and air conditioner is one of those few things you get to enjoy over at E3. Unfortunately this only lasted for a few minutes as we had to step outside to the loudness of the convention center to see some in-game action.

Three stations were on display to show different aspects of the game. I won't go on about all the details I've covered before and that is currently known so I'll stick with what was new this year. The first one we got to see was the combat system. They did a really good job as to animate the moves and add some visual effects to each different swing Geralt would make. That was made so it is easier to time and understand which attack is being used to form chains. Basically what was new is that effect, the lock on target system which lets you stay locked on a single enemy and walk sideways to try and either flank it or evade its attacks. Remember that this game is pretty much all mouse controlled so it is a nice feather as you will have to hide your back from enemies to take less damage. Enemy AI is pretty well built as well. They will try to surround you and attack at the same time to take you down, as archers see you they will try to get to higher ground to have better range and chances to hit you and little details like that. Unfortunately, very few of the skills were shown this year so there's not much to add to combat.

Next stop was the decision system which was talked about last year. Basically when you have a choice to decide upon, impacts will occur in a near or late future. We were shown that if you decided to save someone right now in a specific quest, it will result in the death of a really special girl friend of Geralt. But if he kills that first one then she will live but someone else will die. Those are only examples of what could happen and will be effective on every single decision you make which will give a lot more depth and game replay to this game.