The Witcher

The Witcher is a game that I wish I had played from the outset. I remember listening to the single greatest podcast ever, CGW/GFW Radio, and Jeff Green talked a bit about playing the game, and his impressions instantly made my gamer antennae start to go spastic. A PC RPG that treated the gamer like an...gasp...adult? NO WAY!

Want to know why I shied away from the the Witcher for so long? It's the dumbest fucking reason. It's the same reason that I have such a hard time playing Neverwinter Nights.

You play as a single character. That's it. That's the secret reason I wouldn't play it. I tend to have a MUCH harder time getting into RPGs that feature only a main character. Matter of fact, one of the reasons I'm still a little put off by Jade Empire is that you can only have two characters in the party at a time. For some reason, I gotta have at least three.

Until now. The Witcher has changed much of my perception of what an RPG needs to be. Not only is it a one-character RPG, it's fucking brilliant. It took quite a bit of tweaking to get the control to something manageable, plus I ended up setting it to its native Polish language w/ English subtitles after a while (most of the performances NOW are pretty good, but some of the minor NPCs are terrible in their English-language performance.)

Anyway, it's a fairly different beast from both Bioware RPGs and JRPGs. There is much more choice in the dialogue than in JRPGs, but not nearly as extreme an amount as a standard Bioware RPG. Also, the actual live inputs during combat are sort of like Fable II, but the strategy is much more like Dragon Age (pause, think, tweak, play), and the different stances and weapons and such are more like...hmm...ya know, I'm not sure. This is a really unique experience.

The decision-making in the game is much, much more subtle than in anything else I've played. The decision-making is more akin to real life, in that much of it is reliant on 'going here or going there,' or a simple 'yes or no' in conversation. There are situations where I've accidentally insulted the hell out of characters and they have literally told me to 'fuck off.' The paths you choose in the game seem quite a bit more organic, if fewer, than in other branching RPGs.

Also, this game's main character is pretty well-defined, and a lot of the time you are more steering him than totally controlling him. He'll say shit without any input from you that might surprise you, which can be off-putting, if you are only able to play western RPGs. If you are not a worthless, close-minded fanboy jackass, then you'll come to really enjoy this, as I have. I found it refreshing to have an RPG in which I am tweaking the story, rather than dominating every part of it. I forgot how much I like variety in my RPGs.

This wouldn't be possible if the story weren't really, really interesting, and the world deep as hell. The characters are very fleshed out, with their own personalities and agendas, and act like it, even the main character.

The main dude, Geralt, is very cool. While his story and personality are pretty much set, who he is as a playable character is deeply customizable. How he develops when he levels is entirely up to you. You can allocate XP to different types of combat proficiency, different aspects of combat, magic, alchemy, etc. My dude is very much a fighting alchemist, which is pretty rad. I've made decisions in his leveling that have drastically altered the way that my Geralt interacts with the world around him. If you are smart enough to play this, you'll see.

Interestingly, I keep wanting to refer to Geralt as 'Kaim.' I couldn't figure out why that was, but today, it dawned on me that the two are very, very similar characters. If your taste is not absurdly bad, and you've at least played and loved Lost Odyssey, you'll see what I'm saying when you play the Witcher.

So, why am I going on and on like this?

Well, I've only recently discovered the Witcher, thanks to Tony, and our 'best of' list for the decade is going to be inaccurate because this isn't going to be on it, since neither of us have played through it. I've only played a few hours, but this game, because of its distinct nature, and super-compelling nature, should be on that list.

Granted, there's a lot of shit that should be on that list that's not going to be, like Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright, Indigo Prophecy, Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams, Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and many others, but we can only have 10 games, and while Tony's taste in games is mostly correct, he is misguided in several beliefs.

Thank you for your attention. Now please respond with something intelligent. You have until this weekend, when we decide, live on the podcast, what the best games of the decade for all of (American) humanity, to either correct us, or continue your silent torment, playing the wrong damn games.

Word.

-Blaine

In Defense of Shadow of Destiny

Those early days of the PS2 were a bit like the early days of a new girlfriend. She's hot, she's cool, you like spending time with her, but you haven't yet figured out how best to, ahem, maximize your alone time with her.

Interestingly, in both cases, alcohol helped quite a bit.

Many of us wanted to buy the machine at launch, the few of us that actually worked at game stores back then actually did, and we consoled ourselves with the pretty-good (if disappointingly offline) Timesplitters or the truly excellent SSX or yet another retread of the overrated Tekken franchise or even told ourselves that Smuggler's Run was really, uh, fun. Even the jaggy DOA2 port was kind of a letdown.

Really, though, it was a shitty launch. Console shortages and a lack of killer apps quietly tempered our enthusiasm for the machine. Honestly, mine played almost nothing but Final Fantasy IX, a PS1 game, and DVDs for the first several months. Remind me to tell you about the time Tony and I nearly got busted for watching porn on our store demo unit by the district manager once...

Anyway, it really wasn't until a game called Shadow of Destiny came out early the following year that I really went nuts for my PS2.



Shadow of Destiny is a third person adventure game in which you control the main character through several time periods in the same town, and can very open-endedly avert your own death. There are multiple endings, and the more of them you complete, the fuller the story becomes. Little nudges in history here and there change things later, and it's through the manipulation of time and people that our hero, Eike Kusch, is able to continue living past a certain point.

Several things really make it stand apart for me.

First of all, the color scheme for each time period is very distinct. The oldest, if I recall, is a kind of sepia tone, and others each have a cool look, as well. I believe that the modern day scenes are full-color, and one of the middle time periods is a more white & blue color set. It's really been a while. This helps make each iteration of the town feel fresh and separate from other incarnations, and serves to convey a feeling for what's going on in each time period.

Second, there is literally no combat. None. This is, frankly, a bit jarring at first, but at the time, it was quite a revelation for me. The game just never needs any combat, as every choice is related to exploration, reasoning, and emotion. The player survives by their understanding of the game mechanics, the area and people around them, and their sheer ability to reason things out. Those who many regard as 'retarded' will roll their eyes at this, probably call it 'gay,' and never move beyond button mashing in their games and drooling on themselves as they watch reality television programs and '24.'

Third, the story and plot were, at the time, something new for 3D adventure gaming. Investigating one's own murder and having that lead to a much larger story that spans hundreds of years was something that hadn't really been seen too much outside of the old text adventures and point & click fare of the early 90s. It really made your brain work to grasp temporal implications as you maneuvered, sometimes through trial & error, to stave off you murder by using plans-within-plans hundreds of years before.

I'll be honest, though. I'm not sure that this is a game that stands the test of time. A lot has happened in regards to storytelling in 3D games, as developers like Bioware, Valve, Bethesda, Mistwalker, Feelplus, & Squenix have moved the medium forward tremendously over the last ten years, and I'm curious to go back and replay this game to see how I feel about it now. Since I'm not willing to pay $110 for the PS2 version, I'm going to preorder the forthcoming PSP port, due out 1/26, alongside Mass Effect 2. That costs only $30, and I believe it'll be available in both UMD & digital format (not sure which way I'll get it, though.)

Actually, I wonder if downloadable PSP games can be downloaded and played on PS3. Hmm...

Anyway, this was a great game at the time, and if you haven't played it, I urge you to give it a spin.

As Tony has indicated, we'll be talking on here a lot about the games that nearly made our "top 10 of the decade" list for the rest of this year, then we'll be shifting to 2010 games once the calendar rolls over.

Actually, that's a dirty fucking lie. While we will be talking about new and upcoming games, I also want this blog to be a place that talks about old games, too, just for the hell of it. Tony and I straddle the age of 30 (he's just shy of it, and I'm just past it), which means we're kinda old, at least according to target demographics. So, yeah, as I said at the beginning, this blog is about games, be they new or old, good games or crap like Tekken & Halo, RPGs or action RPGs (or the occasional racing game, apparently). This is your repository for all things gaming, so long as it fits into our narrow spectrum of awesome.

Whatever.

So, back to the topic at hand!

Did you cats play Shadow of Destiny? What did you think? If not, what was the first game to really rock your mind on PS2? Any special memories of the PS2 launch?

NOW COMMENT!

-Blaine