It’s a battle royale!!!!
Hit play and then read this entry: httpa://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q85ZQK0TP0w
There are two major releases out today. One has the marketing power of Rockstar Games behind it, thus it is all over our tvs, bus stops, and the internet. The other, only the second game made by a relatively unknown game developer out of Poland. Place your bets folks, because this is definitely a David vs Goliath scenario. I’m sure both games have their merits, but I am clearly going to be championing The Witcher 2 today. I make no apologies for this, The Witcher is one of the best games I’ve ever played, and it looks like The Witcher 2 will be following suit. Unfortunately my PC gaming career has been plagued with random disasters and a constant lack of minimum system requirements (and really, whose hasn’t). So of course my video card died last week and I’ll be unable to actually PLAY The Witcher 2 today. If you’ve listened to any of our shows, you know just how much I loved the first Witcher.
I simply cannot speak highly enough of The Witcher. It does almost everything right, and you can tell that CD Projekt really cares about this franchise. For those of you that don’t know, the first Witcher was released back in 2007 and was a total mess. The voice acting was atrocious and the game was plagued with bugs. CD Projekt re-released the game with completely new voice overs, updated graphics, updated NPC models and a much more stable, glitch free game a year later in the form of the “Enhanced Edition”. It is pretty ballsy of a developer to realize they made some critical errors and then actually fix them. By the way, they offered this Enhanced version free of charge to people that purchased the game on it’s initial run. Classy stuff.
Oh and by the by, Good Old Games, that digital distribution company that is oh so anti-DRM (yay!) is owned by CD Projekt. These guys are like heroic knights on steeds! They can do no wrong! Except for that little “fake shutdown” fiasco a while back.
I don’t normally game on my PC, but when I do, I choose The Witcher.
You should too.
Then in the other corner we have L.A. Noire. It’s probably not a stretch to say that your 10 month old cousin Macy has heard about this game and has had it on pre-order since last year. Anytime Rockstar is involved you know that dump trucks full of money will be used to market the hell out of a product. But guess what!? It turns out the game is like a super updated, modern take on those old PC point and click adventure games. That’s pretty damn spiffy if you ask me!
There has been a ton of discussion on the internet about developer Team Bondi’s incredible motion capture technology, but it does warrant mention yet again. Normally I’m not one to care much about graphics engines and/or technology, but I really admire the way Team Bondi integrated game play with this new technology. This is their first major release as a studio and L.A Noire sounds like a hell of a way to get things started as a company. I am definitely looking forward to picking it up in the next few weeks as I’m a sucker for a really good film noir styled detective story. But I’m sure you’re probably sitting on your couch right now, playing this game. So keep on enjoying it dear reader!
Oh yeah Fable 3 for the PC comes out today, and so does some Lego game. Cool, I guess…