I'm currently playing Witcher 2 even though I really don't have the time since I should be focusing on my studies, still I couldn't help dedicating a few hours this Friday and Saturday to the game. I'm currently in Act I (three acts total) and so far the game has been superb. It's a lot more polished than the first game and the graphics have been insane - and I'm not just talking about graphics but the amount of detail in character models and environments can at times be staggering. It's such an immersive world because of how the graphics are used to push the beautiful artstyle as you can see in the screenshot I took above and I'm not even maxing the game graphically because it's a beast, but I'm still very satisfied in the visual results I've been getting.
Otherwise the story so far has been really interesting and I like how politically loaded it feels, it adds an edge to it because everything feels grey and I find it very hard to decide who to trust and believe in at times. The decisions so far have been few but I'm glad they seem to go the route where I'll have to take the consequences much further into the game. When it comes to the gameplay I feel that the fighting system is greatly improved since the first game but it does feel a bit awkward in the beginning before you get into it. The quests so far have been good and I appreciate that they let you be a badass in even the simplest side quest missions and going on routine monster killing missions can turn into something extra because of the powerful graphics engine - like when I wandered around the forest of Flotsam and night fell and it felt almost like a horror movie running around killing monsters in a forest during the night.
If I have any complaints so far it's that the game is noticeably developed by a small somewhat inexperienced team with not the greatest budget behind them - there are sections that don't quite have the polish that they deserve such as the voice and lip synch, the audio in general could have been better mixed, some clipping issues that can really get annoying in combat when your sword doesn't always connect with enemy, and lots of small annoyances in the design such as not being able to go from inventory to character screen but having to exit back to the game and into a new screen. These small blemishes detract from the game but the greatness that has been achieved here still keeps me glued to further explore this beautiful world and intriguing story.
