Witcher: First thoughts

Given that the pile of shame is starting to dwindle, a search has been in full swing (read; between drinking Dr. Pepper and listening to GFW Radio Podcasts) to find a fun game to play. I had heard about The Witcher for awhile now, and the idea of a fantasy setting not using Dungeons & Dragons or Warcraft lore is a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately for you freebie-hounds the demo doesn't work straight away. Blame Microsoft, however, as it's a DirectX 9 issue. A simple reinstall of DirectX later and the demo was up and running.

How to start a demo must be very tricky for developers; you have 30 seconds to convince me my hour spent downloading wasn't wasted. Atari did a good job by starting you out battling an onslaught of thieves, without having to watch painfully written movies. The combat system is interesting, but might drive you insane after a few gaming session. At least it's different. My experience in the leveling system was cut short, but it looks very forbidding for even moderately skilled PC gamers. Since it's an RPG, my worries may be well founded.

The story is distinctively non-american. In fact, Atari has had to lessen the sexual content of the game in order to avoid the dreaded AO rating by the ESRB. It was rather jarring to hear the leader of the "witchers" call the women mage "babe" repeatedly, I suppose I'm more sheltered than initially suspected. Also in the game, although I haven't found it in the demo, is the option to share more intimate moments with various women in the game. Personally I don't think it's necessary to give me that option; figuring out the dialog trees allowing my digital representation to bed women isn't my idea of fun.