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fandomele · 3 years

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by the way I also wish people who ship Geraskier instead of Yenralt would just say ‘I prefer this type of dynamic’ and leave it at that or ‘I don’t like Yennefer much’, instead of saying that they can’t ship Yenralt because it was too rushed and there was too little development, then still ship him with Jaskier?

Do I think the writers f*cked up in s1 with Yen and G, and went too fast when it comes to their love? Yes, absolutely, I was under the impression they had seen each other for like... two weeks after their first meeting and before the dragon episode, not years, I have no idea of why they are so in love even if I can headcanon most of it from their initial attraction (emotional attraction too), I wanted more episodes with them bickering and bonding.

So I can see why people who don’t like relationships that they haven’t seen develop fully (or don’t like their type of dynamic much and therefore having even less time to get used to it didn’t get attached in the slightest) wouldn’t ship it. That’s fine. In fact it’s fine not to ship something for whatever reason.

But don’t tell me there is more relationship to see with Jaskier considering he had less focus, less interactions with Geralt, less everything than Yen, don’t make comparisons. Having not read books nor played games I had no idea I was supposed to see them as friends if not for tumblr saying so (actually tumblr convinced me they were super close and in love before I watched the show), and during the episodes I thought they were two men who were going to become friends but at the moment were still working on it, I was shocked at the end of season 1 when I realized that was it. Even in season 2 I’d have thought Jaskier was a secondary character, not a main one, because he was barely there. Lots of depth but still not a main.

The show shows us crumbles of every relationship and we headcanon the rest, it’s like that for EVERYBODY. 80% of the show is each character’s story (or at least Geralt, Yen and Ciri in s1) then very brief interactions, time jumps and references to unseen development between them. S2 isn’t much better. I LIKE Jaskier, mind you, the little I saw, and I can see why Geraskier’s dynamic can lead to a type of ship people enjoy, obviously, just like for other people the Yenralt’s one can. They are two different types of relationships, different tropes, to each their own. But I will never agree that Jaskier and Geralt have a more developed relationship?? It seems objectively untrue to me. If anything, while I like him I don’t like their friendship much, I don’t like that Jaskier clearly gets his feelings hurt by Geralt being Geralt all the time or that Geralt is genuinely annoyed by his presence very often, it lacks of balance for me, of nice moments to make up for all the cold, and reading of people criticizing the underdevelopment of YenGer while explaining why it’s ‘easier’ to ship the Geraskier, just makes me notice even more the underdevelopment of the ship. Exactly like all the praise for their amazing relationship makes me dislike it even more because it’s like tumblr is doing a ‘tell, don’t show’ more than the actual show did. I re-liked them once I rewatched the show and then I started like them less again once I saw tumblr posts that overdid it. At least with Yennefer we are getting to know her so well, with all the episodes and scenes dedicated to her, that I can easily imagine what she and Geralt are like together, what they like about each other.

#I don't know what to tag this #the witcher #anti-geraskier #antigeraskier #yenralt

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hotphilosophy · 3 years

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Witcher Season 2 critic+rant

SPOILER

Let‘s start with the basic stuff.

Apparently Henry Cavill saying „I encourage them staying true to the source material“ meant „the writers haven‘t read the books once“

The music was okay - closer to the game but I was missing some epic chorus. Jaskiers songs were great though (especially Burn Witcher Burn)

The cast was great: I loved Graham McTavish as Dijkstra.

Writing: I didn‘t mind the 4th wall break they did with the timeline comment. The dialogs in episode 1 were so consistent and well put, in the end they just turned normal.

Costumes were good: I liked the roman touch of Geralts armor. And finally! they gave Yennefer a no-make-up look instead of making her look like she‘s gone clubbing. Sometimes I felt as if some background character wore colours too bright.

Now to the story and characters.

The pacing was off, in some parts too slow in others too fast. Ciri is a child, how can she be so tough all the time? That‘s why I like the scene were she got frightened in her mind with Triss. I liked Ciris character much more this season. I wish they had more episodes in Kaer Morhen.

Regarding Kaer Morhen: It is a nightmare! In the game and the books the castle was lonely till Ciri brought back life. And now she is entering a frat party? How did they even get the prostitutes up this remote mountain? And why is it not bothering Vesemir that there are strangers roaming in the castle?

And can someone explain why Geralt and Vesemir are the only two actually looking like witchers? Where are the armours, the golden eyes, an aura of well witchery? Lambert looks like a crazy homeless person. You would also never think that they are a tight knit family they way they are acting.

Eskel and Lambert changes personalities. I do not like Netflix-Eskel: He is a hot head, died because ???, and was just an unlikeable character. Nothing like the calm, magically skilled Eskel who was Geralts brother. Same for Lambert, he was just a bully. And Vesemir was just an old crazy man. Let them be bigoted against Ciri at first, but then you get a plot and see how they all become one family. Also some tree killed your brother and friend and nobody hunts it down?

The screenwriters had literally 1000 of pages with material they BOUGHT. So why make a completely new story?

Henry Cavill outdid himself this season. This Geralt now is super close to book geralt with a profound sense of humour. I also like his relationship with Ciri.

Ciri and Yennefers relationship? Non existent. Too slowly paced.

Cahir and Yennefer? Me like. Enemys to friends for a short while at least.

Yennefer and Jaskier? I like that too.

Jaskier and Geralt? Well I like them! But the reunion, what was that? Geralt just barging in and they exchange a few sentences and all is well? Jaskier went Olivia Rodriquez for you, Geralt, how about you treat him like a friend? In the book he actually talks about his feelings to Jaskier and tells him that he would never leave him.

Jaskier was just a comic relief - sadly. Geralt asked for his help because…..well what did Jaskier do? Nothing. Do we have any plot about Jaskier himself? No. I. Am. Disappointed.

What is up with the fire fucker? He just appears in Kaer Morhen (how does he know where that is? And how go get there?) and then searches for Ciri, knocking Vesemir out and leaves? That makes no sense. And even less sense makes that the other witchers are afterwards sitting in peace of mind at the table as if no evil mage invaded their super secret bat cave.

The story with Francesca was interesting, I liked it but it took too much room.

I also loved Nenneke.

Episode 1 was a banger! Best one of the season because it makes up what the season is generally lacking: Time for details and relationship developement.

What I want for the next season:

Give Jaskier a purpose, a story, a background

Make the witchers great again

Get Geralt better contacts

Give me some badass Philippa action

Less pointless fights and more fights with reason like in Ep. 201

Why only 8 episodes if they are too stuffed?

#witcher season 2 #film critic #spoilers #witcher #sorry for the rant #twn critical

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warsofasoiaf · 4 years

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I've got a video game suggestion-you've mentioned that your favorite quest in Witcher 3 is Reason of State, and I would like to hear your analysis of that quest.

This is truly a god-tier quest, a very good example of well-done quest design, that culminates a world’s worth of quest-building and features some exceptional character work. Since we’re going to be up to our necks in spoilers, there’s a cut here.

Reason of State might be the grand climax and resolution of the quest arc, but context in this is critical and that goes. The northern wars between Nilfgaard and the Northern Kingdoms is all over the games. Nilfgaard’s plan to assassinate Northern kings using Letho of Gulet is the entire plot of Witcher 2, and the war between Radovid and Emhyr forms the backdrop for Witcher 3. The Northern Kingdoms are almost all broken by the time of the Witcher 3. Temeria is occupied, Foltest was murdered in the Witcher 2. Natalis missing from the Witcher 3, and Vernon Roche forced to fight a guerilla war in caves. Velen is a broken land thanks to this war and under the absentee rule of the Bloody Baron. Aedirn is a non-entity, Stennis is absent no matter what happened in Witcher 2. Kaedwyn is gone, Henselt either being killed by Roche or Radovid and forcibly integrated into Redania. Only Redania remains, forcibly integrating Kaedwyn, but it is run by Radovid V. By the third game, Radovid is a cruel, psychotic king, but has a solid understanding of tactics enough to fight the Nilfgaardians to a stalemate (and he will win, without player intervention). Nilfgaard is responsible for a lot of Northern disorder, their campaign to use Letho to kill Northern kings successfully rid themselves of Demavend III and Foltest, the first of whom was able to successfully predict Emhyr’s movements while the latter is the leader of the most powerful kingdom and successfully defeats Nilfgaard’s invasion. But it’s not all Nilfgaard, Philipa Eilhart murdered King Vizimir II, Radovid’s father and one of the chief architects of the First Northern War victory, largely out of a bid for personal power. This paragraph shows that things are bad all around. Emhyr is a blatant expansionist responsible for a great deal of suffering, and the only man capable of resisting him is an open sadist relentlessly persecuting mages, which might be the only hope for the North to remain independent (it won’t be, but you have no way of knowing that at present)

When the player begins to be introduced to the characters, they’re framed as desperate men on the fringe. Roche is waging a crusade with his Blue Stripes, but the Nilfgaardian advance has been stymied largely by Redania and the two sides attempting to compete for the fleets and treasures of Novigrad. He’s forced to working with Radovid, who he openly doesn’t like, out of a practical need to do something. Ves is even throwing herself into suicide missions against Mulbrydale, out of a desire to do something worthwhile, a far cry from the man who was such a major mover of the plot in Witcher 2. King Radovid does not present well, acting psychotic in his introductory scene with the chessmen, and acting poorly toward Geralt, the player character and thus the vector for exploring the game world even if he is an established character (it’s worth noting that one of the best ways to get a player to dislike a character is to have them be rude to the PC, no matter how justified it may be in-universe). His mage hunts are also not likely to endear themselves to the player; the two primary love interests to Geralt and friends to Ciri are mages, and the witch hunters attempt to bilk Geralt of his reward by demanding the megascope crystal in Redania’s Most Wanted. Djikstra is helpful enough to Geralt during his hunt for Dandelion, but the two end on a bad note which isn’t entirely Djikstra’s fault since Geralt did lie to him; he’s notably nicer if you secure him his vault key, but that requires botching a quest and ends up causing Triss to commit torture to progress the storyline. The player character inclined to be friendly to Roche, if only because he tends to be straight and polite with you. Sure enough, Roche and Ves help out during the climatic fight in Kaer Morhen. Radovid isn’t even an option (and will kill Kiera Metz, further engendering hatred from the player since she’s another character Geralt can shack up with and Kiera’s absence means fellow Wolf School witcher Lambert dies). Djikstra doesn’t help you at all if you don’t get his key back, and if you do he gives you gold, which isn’t likely to be very significant since you’re likely swimming in coin by that point in the game.

One of the things I like in this questline is that this is a big and monumental quest, but you will lose it if you don’t take the time to get in good with the plotters, you’ll simply miss this quest. If you don’t get in good with the plotters, they won’t trust you. And if you beat down Djikstra instead of giving him information, he despises you and won’t bring you in on the plot, Geralt’s effectiveness as a Witcher and as a protagonist be damned. That’s something that more games need to be doing, rewarding players for investing themselves in the game with content. A lot of Triple-A games these days are so scared of players missing or cutting themselves out of content that they refuse to do this, which makes a lot of RPG’s feel far more shallow. I’m sympathetic to a point to game developers, content is expensive. Graphics and voice acting are expensive and losing content means spending money on content that’s not going to hit 100% of the audience. Thing is though, the same argument can be made for sidequests, or even for alternative conversation paths, so I don’t consider it a good enough excuse on its own. Avoiding this is as brainless as it is lazy.

When the game circles back after the Isle of the Mists, things are clearly reaching a breaking point. Djikstra has recruited like-minded conspirators to his cause to kill Radovid, each of whom have their own reasons. Djikstra, who worked with Radovid’s father, finds him a poor king unlikely to continue Vizimir’s great reign. Gregor the Redanian guard sees the devastation wrought by Radovid’s lynchings and persecutions and despises it, his loyalty to his country is too high to desert but he feels he needs to do something. Thaler and Roche are devoted to the idea of a free Temeria that they’re willing to back Djikstra’s play to bring an end to the Third Northern War. The player is likely to support the conspirators, Radovid’s support of the witch hunters has led to the deaths of non-humans since you need to complete Now or Never and save the mages; pogroms aren’t a great way to endear a player character to Radovid, especially since Zoltan the dwarf has been nothing but a straight-up pal to Geralt. This is a good tactic in RPG quest design, by making the least appealing result the default, it encourages the player to do the quests. As any GM can tell you, you have to make your players want to do the quests, otherwise they’ll do something else. Games are not able to just make up a new quest off the cuff like an improvisational tabletop GM can (this was one of my strengths as a GM, if you trust my players’ judgment), so they must heavily rely on getting the player to do quests. Some are mechanical, do this quest for XP and loot that makes you better at the game. The Witcher excelled though, at getting people invested in characters.

The conspirators’ play won’t work though, not without help from Phillipa; the hated mage is the bait that they need for the trap to work (and coincidentally, it won’t work without Geralt as well both because Phillipa won’t give her ring to any of the other plotters and by virtue of Geralt as the protagonist in the RPG). The trap is laid for Radovid, and if the player goes through with it, Radovid is executed by Phillipa, who flies off into the night having murdered yet another Redanian king.

Then, after the conspirators escape, the stage is set for Geralt to make a moral choice when Djikstra betrays the conspiracy. It’s a wonderfully set and acted scene, from Djikstra quoting a Macbeth stand-in to the patriots’ giddy excitement at the future. Then, the shoe drops and the conspiracy falls apart. Djikstra plans to become the next Vizimir, taking Radovid’s consolidated northern kingdom of Redania and Kaedwyn and fighting Emhyr to a standstill. Temeria would be subsumed into that, ceasing to exist. Naturally, this enrages the Temerian patriots, who refuse to go along with that scheme. It leaves Geralt with a choice, leave and allow Djikstra to murder Roche, Ves, and Thaler, or stay and defend them, resulting in a fight that will end in Djisktra’s death. This is often the case in partisan movements throughout history, where a power struggle over the shape of the victory to come causes disunity and strife, ending with one faction murdering the other ones, so points for historical and thematic elements being on point for the gritty fantasy. Similarly, by making the choice being the resolution of a conspiracy, it threads the needle between the protagonist doing everything and solely resolving the ending for one faction, which often feels shallow, and giving the player no agency which robs investment in the ending. By allowing the conspirators their machinations and taking advantage of others already in place, it allows the player to feel a meaningful impact that has wide implications. Fallout’s ending slides could be hit or miss, though the small scale of post-apocalyptica does make it more relevant. It hits a nice sweet spot, where it’s probably a bit too much to be realistic in a straight history but works just nicely for the scope of fantasy fiction. By forcing the player to do the quests for these people, not only does it meet the threshold of believability by explaining why they would bring Geralt on the quest save that he’s the protagonist, but it invests the player in the characters. Of course, this can only be done because the game did such wonders with its character work. Even if you don’t play Witcher 2, you see Roche love his country, you see Ves try to defend Mulbrydale, and they both can contribute meaningfully in the Battle at Kaer Morhen. Djikstra does influence the main plot and he can be funny with his sarcastic quips delivered by excellent voice acting. Thaler is less of a presence, but he’s also side-splittingly hilarious when he taught the trolls to swear, the player likes these characters and so likes the quest they’re in, and picking between them does actually cut deep in a way that Telltale Games “pick which character you want” drama can only hope to achieve in its wildest dreams. It’s political game storytelling at it’s best, using character work which is easier for players to identify with as I mentioned in my geopolitics essay.

Backing Djikstra is tough in the short run, because you lose three characters that you probably like. Roche and Ves, after all, did join you in Kaer Morhen and it seems cold for them to help and then betray them, unless of course, you didn’t ask for their help. Djikstra rules and reforms the North on a program of modernization, often contrary to the wishes of his subjects. Plenty might think that to be a path of success for the North, since Djikstra will build a military that will defend them and ensure a general level of prosperity. You just have to turn a blind eye to the Temerian patriots being slaughtered by Djikstra.

The alternative, backing Roche and Thaler isn’t a pure win either. Temeria becomes a province of Nilfgaard, but Emhyr gets Aedirn and Lyria. Emhyr finally wins his war and isn’t likely to stop his expansionist ways unless Ciri becomes Empress. Even then, he’s a senior statesman and can exert influence if he wants, Ciri even says so. We can get Roche’s perspective, and we like Roche. After all, he (probably) helps us out in the grand fight at Kaer Morhen, but he’s not an unbiased observer. He’s a Temerian partisan happy to sell out the other Northern Realms for a dubious pretense at some internal autonomy for Temeria alone. In plenty of ways, the Roche path is a collaborationist success story, selling out the North for Temeria alone.

The choice is yours to take and to make what you will. Plenty of folks might hope for a change in direction if they put Ciri on the Nilfgaardian Throne, but they might instead desire for her to adventure on her own as a de facto Witcher. In that case, Emhyr fails, is killed, and who knows what happens next? Could more provinces break away, might there be further wars in Nilfgaard, or power struggles, or something else. It could go a lot of different ways and it’s up to the player to decide. In a way, that’s amazing in its own right, because it’s actually what the real world is like. The absence of a golden ending is standard fare for grimdark, but that so much is left open shows a level of restraint and trust in the player that I admire in a developer.

Thanks for the question, Anon. Hope you liked it.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#witcher #witcher 3 #video game reviews

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cheekasgamingreviews-blog · 6 years

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The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt Review #1

About the Game

The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt is a 2015 action adventure RPG developed by CD Projekt Red out of Poland. As the name implies, the game is the third installment in the Witcher game franchise, that is in turn, a successor to the Witcher book series by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. The Witcher series is what CD Projekt Red is most well-known for since the release of the first game in the franchise back in 2007. The Witcher 3 has been met with critical acclaim and praise, becoming one of the most awarded games of all time.

The Story

The story follows one Geralt of Rivia through a thirteenth century inspired fantasy world. Geralt is a monster hunter for hire, also known as a Witcher. Witchers like Geralt are trained from a young age to fight monsters of all types, their bodies are mutated through magic to enhance their physical attributes like strength, stamina, and resistance to poisons or toxins.

The Witcher 3 begins shortly after the end of The Witcher 2 with Geralt on a quest to find a young woman named Ciri who is being chased by a band of mythical riders known as the Wild Hunt. Although Ciri’s real father is the King of an empire called Nilfgaard, Geralt and Ciri have become close enough through their trials for Ciri to consider Geralt more of a father figure than the emperor. The reason for the pursuit, both by the Wild Hunt and by the Emperor is that Ciri is a descendant of what is known as the Elder Blood, and it is prophesied to possess a great magical power.

From this point the story can play out in several ways depending on the decisions the player (you) makes throughout the game. The player controls what choices Geralt will make through his journey. Weather Geralt is honest or dishonest, kind or spiteful, just or unjust, the player decides how Geralt reacts to the situations that are presented to him, and these decisions will determine how the story plays out.

The game also features a huge number of random encounters and side quests with strange and interesting characters throughout the game world. Side quest in most role-playing games are typically shallower and sometimes tacked on, however the side quests in the Witcher 3 are nearly as engrossing as the main storyline. Almost every character you meet has their own problems, personalities, conundrums, and dilemmas that they will need your help with.

Gameplay

The gameplay mainly consists of third-person action. The player controls all of Geralt’s movements from an ‘over the shoulder’ perspective weather he’s running, jumping, swimming, climbing, or riding a horse. I played the game on a PC, but I found it much easier to use a controller as opposed to a mouse and keyboard. Combat mechanics are smooth, fluid, and much more precise with a controller in this game. Geralt can carry with him an immense variety of weapons and armor. Typically, he is armed with two swords that have become synonymous with Witchers. One silver sword for monsters and mythical adversaries, and one steel for human adversaries. Geralt also carries a crossbow, as well as a slew of potions oils and magic bombs, all of which have differing effects on different enemy types.

The player will need to be resourceful in their travels across a massive map that is roughly equivalent to 52 square miles in size and full of multiple environments ranging from swamps, to rolling hills and farmlands, to snowcapped mountains.

Graphics

Speaking of the environments, CD Projekt Red has made one of the most believable worlds ever designed in a video game. The graphics are simply gorgeous. Every environment incredibly detailed with ultra-realistic lighting and textures that adapt to different times of the integrated day and night cycle. Every other hill, mountain top or clearing looks like a post card from southern France. The urban areas are equally as detailed with high resolution textures on nearly every surface. Even on my laptop that’s a few years older than the game itself, I could still play the game on medium-high graphics settings with a consistent frame rate at around 50 frames per second.

Soundtrack

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the only thing more beautiful than the graphics, which is the score composed by Marcin Przybyłowicz, and is easily one of my favorite soundtracks put to a game. The way Przybyłowicz uses atmospheric melodies to build suspense, convey emotion, and enhance action builds upon the world and makes the gaming experience incredibly immersive and enjoyable.

Conclusion

The Witcher 3 is easily one of the best games I’ve played in years. All the components work seamlessly together to create an immensely entertaining experience that is able to be played and replayed in countless ways for a different outcome every time. Since the success of The Witcher 3, Netflix has gained the rights to the franchise and has an original series set to come out some time in 2019. I look forward, to seeing how well Netflix can adapt the franchise to a television format and add to the story of the world I and many others have come to love.

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jacksonhenry297 · 4 years

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The Witcher Prequel Series is Currently in the Works

A prequel to the original Henry Cavill starrer popular show on Netflix will be coming soon on the same OTT platform.

Whether the plot of the prequel series is still under development, or it has already been scripted and is unknown as of now. What is known is the time frame of the prequel. It will be 1200 years before the events of season 1.

The popular fantasy action story was released in December in which the Man of Steel actor played the character “Geralt of Rivia” who belonged to a group of bounty hunters commonly known as “The Witcher” in the show’s universe. It became highly popular because of Cavill’s fan appeal, soundtracks, cinematography, and brilliantly ensembled cast.

Anya Chalotra, who played Yennefer and Freya Allan, who played Ciri, were highly praised for their roles.

The point to be duly noted is that the character that captured the hearts of the fans more than the rest of the cast members was Joey Batey, who impressed many with his music and comic reliefs. “Toss A Coin to Your Witcher” by Batey from the show quickly struck a chord with the fans.

Although it has received mixed reviews from the critics, the Witcher was already renewed for the second season even before the first season came out. The production for The Witcher season 2 was suspended in March when disease outbreak peaked, and a pandemic swept across the world. The resumption of the production is expected to occur in the month of August by ensuring all the precautions.

The prequel, however, is named “The Witcher: Blood Origin” and is expected to follow the story of the swordmaster more than a thousand years before Henry Cavil’s character came into existence.

Season 1 dealt with the relationship between Geralt of Rivia and Ciri and how their destiny brings them together. The fate of Yennefer remained unknown in the final scene. However, Anya Chalotra has been re-casted for season 2, so most likely, Yennefer did survive the final battle of season 1.

The final song of the show- “Song of the White Wolf,” was directly borrowed from the game of the same name.

The Witcher story is actually from the book series by Andrzej Sapkowski. The events in season 1 were inspired by The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny saga. Netflix has publicly stated that it sees high potential in the story and it will hopefully become a highly successful franchise.

Source-Witcher Prequel Series is Currently in the Works

#Witcher PrequelNetflix

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smokeybrandreviews · 5 years

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Smokey brand Reviews: Coin Toss

In my ongoing effort to avoid watching actual, award winning cinema that takes a massive amount of my attention to critique, i’ve decided to re-watch The Witcher on Netflix. Now, i’ve never read the books. At all. I’ve played the games though so i’m aware of the world and i’ve been balls deep in the wiki, so i’m aware of the lore. Being aware of the lore is not the same as understanding the nuance of plot, however, so i’m approaching this as a superficial fan of the series but a well versed critic of cinema. I’d say this is a waste of time but, seeing as how it’s the most popular show in Netflix history, already has a second season ready to begin production, an anime movie adaption in the works, and the actually creator making nice with CD Project Red so we might get a fourth Witcher game, it’s maybe not SO much a waste of time to revisit.

The Best

Yenner. F*cking Yennefer of Vengerberg! Yo, she is easily the best thing about this show. Seriously, it’s called The Witcher but it is basically Yenner’s story from the second she appears onscreen in the second episode. She has the most development, appears in the dopest set pieces, and has the highest stakes among all principal characters. For them to nail the character so perfectly, one needs to have a brilliant performer to embody that spirit, and Anya Chalotra stepped into that responsibility perfectly. Chalotra’s Yennerfer is gorgeous, powerful, brilliant, broken, strong, and vulnerable at the same time. It takes very real talent to convey all of that nuance so effortlessly.

The Good

I was hesitant when they announced Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia and then put off by the production shots with that terrible wig, but dude IS Geralt. I mean, again, i only know the character from the games and what little information i was able to glean from the wiki, but, from what i’ve learned, dude is perfect in the role. He has a presence onscreen that demands your attention, only outshined by Chalotra’s Yennefer. Learning that Cavill, himself, is a massive Witcher nerd, which makes a ton of sense. Superman bailed on being The Man of Steel, specifically to have input on this project so they wouldn’t f*ck up the adaption. I love that passion, man!

I hear that the Jaskier character is completely different in the source material but i wouldn’t know anything about that. All i know is the Jaskier presented in this show and he is absolutely delightful! Portrayed by Joey Batey, Jaskier shows up, sings a diddy, and steals all of the scenes. His chemistry with both Geralt and Yennerfer is palpable and i look forward to where they take this character. Toss a goddamn coin to your Witcher!

I remember reading, way back during the casting call, that hey were trying to Race bend Ciri. Having no real connection to the characters outside of the games, i thought it might be dope to see a brown lead. I, apparently, was in the minority. The fanboys hated that idea. There was this big stink between geeks and SJWs. It exhausted me so i stopped caring. Imagine my surprise when Freya Allen appeared onscreen for the first time in the role. I was mad confused because i was looking for a caramel colored lady or something, not this snow white faye. It took a few episodes for me to understand that this WAS Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon but, by then, i was in love with Allan’s portrayal. I could see the beginnings of the badass the Ciri i knew from the games in her performance and, indeed, by the end of the season, she was well on her way to being that b*tch. More than anything, i’m looking forward to season two specifically to see where her arc goes.

Surprisingly, in a show with such, great, principal performances, MyAnna Buring as Tissaia de Vries, came with the heat. I was thoroughly surprised by how cold, how calculating, yet, how loving she was as a character. I was actually stunned with her portrayal. I’m a little perturbed by where the show ended up taking the character, but i still enjoyed what she did with the material given to her.

Now, i have to be clear, Yennerfer is my favorite character in this show. She’s my favorite character in the entire franchise but Netflix’s version of Calanthe Fiona Riannon, can give my darling Quadroon a run for her money in that regard. My, goodness, “Lioness of Citra”, indeed! Jodhi May killed this role. I was absolutely enthralled with her portrayal, so much so, i mourned her passing when she kicked the bucket. I was left wanting so much more of her. We’ll see how that work out going forward.

The world, itself, is kind of wondrous. The y way they built these sets and created such a palpable, tangible, reality for such a hard fantasy series, is kind of amazing. The only other show in this genre to even come close to these levels of production was Game of Thrones. I’ve heard Witcher compared to GoT in articles and it’s a relatively apt juxtaposition. The world and lore created by Netflix so far, is a quiet miracle unto itself.

The writing is pretty okay. Considering the source material and type of genre wherein the show takes place, i’m surprised by how natural the dialogue feels in this thing. I mean, who doesn’t love a particularly punctuating “F*ck.”

The overall vision of this show, the grandness of the tale being told, is fantastic. I love that ambition. I love the fact that the challenge of The Witcher, is being taken on with a true reverence of love for the source material. In a world with such terrible Starr Wars films made by Disney and the worst kind of capeflicks coming out of WB, getting such a dope adaption is a breath of fresh air.

The Bad

This show feels cheap as sh*t. I understand you want to capture the “pests” as they’re called, in all that horrid glory but that CG, man, it’s just poor. I gushed about the sets and what they were trying to do, the loving scope of production, but the end product fell just sort of that vision. The Witcher is not a cheap show to produce properly and it feels like Netflix was a little gun-shy to give it what it needed to be properly great.

The way the narrative is told can be wildly confusing. It took me a few episodes to understand that there were multiple points in time being shown and that we were bouncing between them. One of the major complaints i’ve heard is how the show didn’t make any sense and i am more than certain it’s this aspect of the presentation that people were talking about. Once you understand that there are literally three timeless being presented to you at once, there re guides on line, all of a sudden, this show becomes so much easier to digest.

There are certain character that were given such a criminally short amount of screentime. Triss Marigold immediately comes to mind but i’m speaking more about Renri. That sh*t was Refrigerator Syndrome in the clearest sense and it’s the worst. I’m not going to get into the whole politics of what that means because it’s exhausting but, seriously, to just tease us with such amazing characters only to have them relegated to nothing is just cruel.

The Verdict

Overall, The Witcher is a decent show. It’s by no means perfect, there are other, much better shows out there, a few even on Netlfix, but i understand why this one is so popular. There is a ton of potential here and i want to find my way back into this world as soon as possible, but i hope it has a bit more polished on the second outing. At the end of the day, even as cheap as this thing looks at ties, The Witcher is a brilliant, fantasy adventure, with strong set pieces and even stronger characters. The writing is solid, if a little cliche at times, but Yennefer’s journey, alone, is enough to make watching this thing worth. If you’re a fan of fantasy narratives or fantastic characterization, The Witcher will not disappoint.

#Smokey brand Reviews #The Witcher #Geralt of Rivia

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smokeybrand · 5 years

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Smokey brand Reviews: Coin Toss

The Best

The Good

The Bad

The Verdict

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juushika · 8 years

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This is my list of the best media that I consumed for the first time (but was probably not published) in 2016.

Books

I read 128 books in 2016 and, unusually for me, almost all of them were new. It was also, independently, a great reading year. As such, this list is particularly long.

Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie. This was as good as the hype, but not always for the reasons I was lead to expect; the genre and setting is far-future space opera, but plot and investment are character-driven, and it was the ancillary experience and Lieutenant Tisarwat's violet eyes that really kept me engaged. This series is satisfying on the levels I value most.

Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein. This isn't the first fantasy-which-is-actually-sci-fi genre crossover I've encountered, but it's by far the best. The genre-bending is fundamental to the narrative, but also to the protagonist’s PoV, as she uses and creates the scientific method, applying it to a reality which exceeds her comprehension--and which bleeds over into plot twists which exceed the reader’s expectations. I haven’t been this impressed by a book series in a long time.

Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre. Something like a sibling to the Steerswoman books, with a similar worldbuilding premise but a smaller focus--it's less about redefining knowledge of the world, and more about fostering knowledge in order to improve life on the local, private scale. It’s soothing and valuable.

Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski. In particular, Blood of Elves--but this series entire lives on this list because of Ciri. The Witcher franchise is problematic, from its sexism-as-worldbuilding to its flawed balance of politics to plot. But while I rarely become attached to book characters, I am inordinately attached to Ciri, and to her family and those motivated by her. She's central. The books forget, sometimes, that that’s all I care about (and the games sometimes forget it entirely), but when the pieces align to star her I am in love.

The complete works of Octavia Butler. This isn’t the year that I began reading Butler, but is the year that I read most of and finished her work. I rarely find myself in such active conversation with an author, and as much as I’ve critiqued her for her style and occasional limitations, I’m blown away by what she achieved, and by the fact that her work is so compelling and complicated, so ambitious and successful in precisely the ways that matter.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette). This is the most feel-good that a novel has been while still leaving an impression on me--because it’s not frivolous or simplistic, but rather is about the stubborn effort to do good creating real good in the world: a particularly cathartic, empowering variety of wish-fulfillment

Hild by Nicola Griffith. This is half a story, and a laboriously intimate one at that--a gradual coming of age, dealing with issues of gender and faith and identity, the private and political; it took me a little to warm into it, but having done so I loved it--Hild’s PoV is incredibly immersive.

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson. What an experience! This is yet another SF/F mashup (it was a good year for those), but this is a particularly tropey one brought alive by the vivid and powerful use of dialect. This is a novella that feels bigger than that, that feels more distinct and dynamic than its page count.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. I don't think the plot in this was entirely successful--but I love the premise so unreservedly as to recommend it on that basis alone. This is portal fantasy meta, looking at the afters and in-betweens of those who visit other worlds (and paralleling the reader experience of existing within/without fantasy), conjuring a bittersweet longing unlike anything I've experienced. I've always loved this genre, but didn't have a framework for my feelings about it until reading this book and:

Fairyland series by Catherynne M. Valente. I am of mixed opinions of this work, too. I love the first book beyond reason, but I don't know what the series as a whole lives up to it--the travelogue aspects grow stylistically repetitive, and on a technical level these come to feel rushed. But all the books have something charming to offer, and there's something sincerely valuable about the relationship between September, Halloween, Maud, Mallow, and the Marquess. Their dynamic is subtextual and complicated, and in ongoing conversation about portal fantasy, identity, and self-determination.

Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente. My favorite of Valente's novella so far. I'm surprised by how well her mythological and fairy tale imagery builds upon an AI premise, and by how concrete the AI is. There's a lot of depth in this little space, and it's particularly evocative, even for Valente.

Honorable mentions in books

Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip. This isn't the best or most important McKillip, but I love its tropes to pieces (especially the way that the interpersonal dramas resolve) and it’s probably my favorite of the McKillip novels I've read so far.

The Pattern Scars by Caitlin Sweet. I was sincerely impressed by this book, by its intimately-integrated magic system and the unforgiving, unsettling complexity of the interpersonal dynamics.

Multiple novels by CJ Cherryh. I'm continuing to read a lot of Cherryh, and I've yet to be disappointed by any of her work; her combination of deceptively terse writing style, intimate relationship dynamics, and worldbuilding concepts consistently hits on tropes that I adore.

Black Iris by Leah Raeder (Elliot Wake). New Adult isn't a genre I thought I would ever care about, but I care a lot about Wake's contributions to it, and Black Iris is the novel which has spoken to me strongest so far because its angry, intimate depiction of mental illness is cathartic and sincere while meshing well with the heightened passions which are a marker of the genre.

Video Games

Neko Atsume. I came late to this bandwagon, but it was worth the wait; what a charming, pure experience, and somehow even cuter than I expected. There's not really a lot to say about Neko Atsume, but I love it.

Deemo. Far and above the best rhythm game I've ever played, in song quality, aesthetic, narrative, and gameplay--the latter in particular is so natural, genuinely like playing a piano. I love this game to pieces and listen to the soundtrack all the time, yet I've never heard anyone talk about it. Please give it a try.

Overwatch. Is this art, no; but I have been playing 90min/day since launch, so that's something. I appreciate the changes Overwatch has brought to the genre and the active role Blizzard has taken in expanding and balancing it. It wouldn't be my pick for game of the year, but it’s important enough to earn that.

Pokémon Moon. This, frankly, would be my pick for game of the year. It benefits from the engine development of Gen VI, while continuing the narrative trends from Gen V--it looks fantastic, the UI and battle mechanics are great, but most importantly I cried three (three!) times while playing SuMo. The narrative has leveled up, the character development is phenomenal, and I treasure it.

Stardew Valley. This is a love letter to the farming and life simulator games that it draws from, and it almost exceeds them--I admire the depth and refinement of this game, and it's such a satisfying, soothing experience, exactly as it's meant to be.

Dark Souls III. The micro-level of this release, the cinder construct, isn't my series favorite, although I love the characters in this game; but on the macro-level, drawing the cycles of each installment together and to a close, Dark Souls III is incredibly fulfilling. I also appreciate the reintroduction of more varied enemy types and refinements to the combat system.

Honorable mentions in video games

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. This is as beautiful as I wanted it to be, but not quite as weird as it needed to be--I miss the push-pull of the body horror in Human Revolution. But what a fantastic graphic engine, and the characters and plotting live up to series standard.

Visual Media

Critical Role. This monster of a show has without exaggeration been a life-changer. It's a huge investment of time and such an unassuming medium, but the payoff is intense. The live creative process has an innate energy, and the cast's obvious investment in character and narrative is contagious. It ate me alive this year, and I regret nothing.

Stranger Things. I wanted Stranger Things to be a smidge less neat (plotwise, especially the ending), but in all other ways adore it, from the conversation between genres to the unexpected but indulgent aesthetic to the character acting. I've rarely been so utterly consumed by a show, to the point where coming up for air between episodes made the real world feel surreal.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I expected to like this, but was surprised by how sincerely I enjoyed it; the character archetypes combining to develop complexity and depth translates well to a miniseries, and despite TV-quality effects this is an aesthetic and speculative delight.

Black Mirror "San Junipero". I can give or take Black Mirror on the whole, but I treasure this particular episode, both because I think it's one of the better realized of the series in terms of plot delivery and because victorious WLW was balm to my soul, especially in the face of so many dead queer women in television.

Penny Dreadful. The series takes a definite downturn by the third season, but the overall experience was worth it, in part of the surprisingly robust gothic retelling, delightful aesthetic, and found family tropes, but mostly because of Vanessa Ives and Eva Green, without which this would be half a show. The intimate depiction of her vulnerability, intelligence, competency, and honesty was particularly valuable to me; this is one of the few supernatural metaphors for mental illness which I've found successful.

Star Trek: The Original Series, and movies 1-5. I grew up with every Star Trek except this one, and had a cultural impression that TOS was corny and misogynistic--and it is, a little, but it holds up much better than I was expecting and has fundamental charm and value, both as franchise starter and in its own right.

Red vs Blue. I never believed I could be so consumed by a machinima comedy series, but the humor works and the eventual scale of Red vs Blue--its convoluted plot, surprisingly well-developed characters, strong pacing, and fantastic animation--is incredible.

Honorable mentions in visual media

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. I had never watched the original Cosmos; this remake has some redundancy/direction issues in the middle but is on the whole all I wanted, vast and terrifying and beautiful, but also accessible, even personable.

Ravenous. The gayest narrative about cannibals that isn't Hannibal-related, and so delightful--and it only improves on repeat viewing, where the tonal shifts can be anticipated. Great imagery, fun acting, and such explicit cannibalism-as-metaphor violence-as-romance; it's become one of my favorite films.

The Falling. I love quiet little movies about gender, female experience, coming of age, and illness; this was my favorite of those that I watched this year (but see also: The Silenced), perhaps because it's the most convincing: an intimate, vaguely idealized, unsettling portrait of British girls's schools and female adolescence.

#Juu reads #Juu plays #Juu watches #reference #too many to tag #brief mentions of: sexism tw // homophobia tw // character death tw // mental illness tw //#long post // like such a long but I can't really apologize for too many good media to recommend; 2016 was shit but I had a lot of escapism

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casualarsonist · 7 years

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The Witcher 3 review

The Witcher 3 is the best game I have ever played.

This doesn’t mean it’s a perfect game, an entirely complete game, or above being frustrating at times.

But in a world of cookie-cutter copy-and-paste busywork-rammed factory-made conveyor-belt-production-line open-world games, The Witcher 3, in my opinion, stands heads and shoulders about the rest.

Now it’s worth a mention as I start that this is the second time I’ve reviewed The Witcher 3 and my first take on the game was not quite so flattering. I was bothered by a few things, namely the baffling exclusivity of the narrative that failed to fill us in on the back stories of characters that were old friends to Geralt and strangers to anyone that hadn’t read the novels, as well as the sheer exhaustive amount of content on offer (‘what’s that?!’ I hear you cry, ‘you were critical of it for the level of content?!’ Not critical, as such, just, as I said, exhausted.) I wrote an enormous paragraph about how I wasn’t able to be invested in a story that relied on me knowing the histories of the key characters in order to understand their function on a practical and a personal level. I felt particularly slighted given TW2 followed on directly from TW1 in such a way as the only requirement for the player’s full investment in the story was to have finished the first game, but even then it was enough of its own product that it could be reliably enjoyed autonomously. I was also quite simply fatigued by it all. The numerous maps are sprawling, packed with locations and people and missions. Your quest list becomes absolutely rammed with things to do, and factor in all the travelling and searching and listening and reading…well, it’s a bit investment, and something you need to be prepared to pay attention to in order to fully enjoy, and I fully admit that I wasn’t mentally prepared to forsake everything else and focus simply on letting myself be a part of this world for as long as it took to finish the game, and without that dedication, without giving yourself permission to be sucked into the living, breathing empire of the Northern Kingdoms it can feel a little overwhelming. It was the first of The Witcher games that I had failed to complete in one go, which in retrospect is both paradoxically shocking and yet unsurprising as it’s clearly the best of the series by a mile, but it’s also the most grand. So, after some time had passed and the game had had a few updates I went back, and I found that somethings had changed, others had not, but most importantly, with fresh eyes I found the greatest open-world game ever made.

If you know nothing of The Witcher series then I won’t be able to cover everything for you, but in short, TW3 is the continuing story of Geralt of Rivia – a Witcher, or beast-slayer for hire. The Northern Realms have been invaded by the Nilfgaardian Empire from the south, and are losing the war. Geralt has been contacted by his former lover Yennifer of Vengeberg, and attempts to track her down whilst doing his best to dodge the affairs of the various armies, but whereas TW2 went full-on Game Of Thrones with complex political dealings and many choices to be made by the player character that affected the world at large, TW3 is a much more personal story. After finally coming into contact with Yennifer, with whom Geralt seems indelibly connected despite the fact that neither is particularly good for one another, she informs him that she’s working for the Nilfgaardian emperor, who has summoned Geralt for a meeting. In the meeting, Geralt is informed that the emperor’s daughter, Ciri, has gone missing. Ciri trained as a Witcher under Geralt, and as such he has a deep paternal connection to her. Ciri is also the last of the bloodline of an ancient elven race and has the ability to manipulate time and space, and is fleeing the Wild Hunt – a group of malicious elves determined to use her powers for destruction and control.

It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? And it isn’t helped by the fact that the major players – Yennifer, Ciri, the Nilfgaardian emperor, and the Wild Hunt all have a rich history with Geralt that is referenced, but not elaborated upon or explained in-game for the player, and this is a huge problem if you’re supposed to be relating to the feelings felt between Geralt and Yennifer, but you don’t know who Yennifer is and have no reason to care for her, for instance. At its worst it’s crippling, devastating to the player’s ability to connect with the main plot of the game. There are ever-expanding character bios that give you summaries, but if you want to understand many of the references the characters make throughout your time playing, if you want to understand why Ciri, for instance, is so important, and why the Wild Hunt are to be feared, you’re just going to have to read the books (or the wiki, I guess). This is my single greatest point of contention with TW3, and given that it was the main focus of my last review, I felt it handy to address it upfront here. And perhaps it’s that I devoted more attention to the what is said and written the second time round, perhaps it’s that I was passing over a story with which I now had a familiarity, or perhaps I’m just an idiot and was too thick to get it the first time round, but my second playthrough was a little easier to understand than my first. I still don’t quite get the big deal about Ciri, and I still didn’t connect to Yennifer and had no problem making decisions that worked against her, so I would still label the exclusivity of the plot and its reliance on lore outside of the games as a bad choice by the writers, but it was easier. Seriously though, the fact that it’s called ‘The Witcher 3’ gives the consumer a reasonable expectation that playing the Witchers 1 and 2 is enough required material for following the story, so given that this is almost an entirely new and separate entity with dozens of characters established in the books but never before appearing in the video games, I still feel that it’s hugely problematic that they introduced so many elements foreign to any of the games. This isn’t to say that the whole game is like that – once you learn who the characters and enemies are, the story is gripping and well-written; the DLC especially so as the characters there are ‘discovered’ by Geralt as they are the player. But as I said, this is my main gripe, and while I have one or two big problems with the game, they’re almost alone in this sense of importance.

But what of the game itself? Well, here’s the real treat. Story issues aside, The Witcher 3 is absolutely glorious. The game is incredibly well-optimised, and you ought to be able to find a configuration of settings that will have it playing well on almost any type of rig.

While there were a number of sometimes-fatal glitches upon release, these were more-or-less non-existent upon my returning playthrough. Some of the gameplay systems have been streamlined – the controls are smoother and tighter than they used to be and there’s an alternate control scheme on offer that feels much better when playing with a controller.

Moving away from the Arkham style of glorified quicktime combat that had flooded the market of open world fighting games, TW3’s system of combat is far more skill-based. Things are skewed against you as a newcomer, and there are certain areas that you won’t be able to venture into and certain enemies you won’t be able to defeat for a while after you begin, but the game quickly forces you into learning the virtues of dodging, blocking, effectively parrying, and using your signs (magic powers, basically) to control bands of incoming enemies and gain the upper hand. That is, the more you play it, the better you get. The fighting is wonderfully gory as well, and lopping off heads or slicing people entirely in two never gets old.

The skill tree is vast and allows for a number of different play-styles, although some skills are clearly more useful than others and there’s a good chance that many will go untouched by you forever. Given that the game only lets you use a certain number of upgraded skills at once, there also comes a point when you are simply wasting points on upgrades that you can’t or won’t use. This, along with some elements of the menu interface remain clunky and wasteful in their design, but for a series that is notable for its often frustrating design choices, this is a minor quibble if anything at all.

Traversing the world is a pleasure, and whether on-foot or on Geralt’s horse, Roach, you will cross grassy meadows and snow-capped peaks, stony shores and misty marshes, through populous cobbled cities and small rural villages. Geralt can run and jump, swim or pilot a boat. Roach can navigate the landscape fairly well, and will navigate roads automatically. The developers haven’t quite got the technology down pat in terms of his AI steering and it feels like he takes the wrong fork in the road four out of five times, as well as occasionally stopping dead for no reason or simply refusing to ride down certain slopes, although I suppose you could say that this perfectly mimics the stubborn flightiness of horses.

Compared to the previous games, your actions don’t seem to make as much of an impact here, but acknowledging the fact that this story is a more personal one, I suppose it makes sense that you’re no-longer changing the course of history for entire countries. This is at odds with two things, however; the first being that there are seemingly world-ending consequences to losing Ciri, which sets the stakes enormously high for a game that won’t let you play with the fates of kings and men as the previous game did. Secondly, it’s exactly because your actions had such wide-reaching consequences previously that it feels so incongruent that your actions suddenly have less of an over-all visible impact in this game - Geralt goes from being a pivotal piece in the puzzle to a mere pawn. On the whole, the way they tried to give you a degree of choice just feels a little undercooked, and there’s little to convince the player that we’re doing something other than being marched irrevocably onwards towards one single final point, regardless of what path we choose to take.

Visually, the game is…incredible. This word - ‘incredible’ - feels flaccid because it simply doesn’t do it justice; TW3 has to be seen to be believed. The emotional weight of the narrative is helped immensely by the quality of the facial animations, and every single main character is animated impeccably. The day/night cycle is spectacularly realised, and whether you’re seeing the sun set over calm fields or rise over the blue ocean, you might find yourself frequently stopping to stare and take a screenshot, as I did.

The voice work is also top notch, and it’s hard to find a flaw in any of the performances. Doug Cockle brings his gravelly best to Geralt, and frankly, I can’t imagine anyone else in the role. The role of Geralt disappears with Doug Cockle, in my mind. Denise Gough, a fantastic actor, portrays Yennifer with such strength and biting contrariness that one can’t help but see in her exactly the kind of dangerous hot-headedness but complex humanity that Geralt sees. A massive special mention to James Clyde who plays The Bloody Baron – one of the Northern Kingdom’s lords, a drunk and unprincipled bastard if ever there was one, but not a Nilfgaardian (importantly) and (more importantly) the axis upon which one of the best stories in the game hinges.

His performance and the writing of his character typifies one of the game’s greatest strengths – the fact that the game favours quality side content, an almost unheard-of feature as of late. The main quest mission concerning the Baron is a trifle, but it’s the extended side plot involving him that is truly interesting and echoes with a deep emotional resonance. In this, his character blossoms into one with a wonderful sense of light and shade, a maturity that gamers have long been trained not to expect. Remember how I mentioned cookie-cutter busywork-rammed open-world games? TW3 is the antithesis of these, the antigen to the cancerous Ubisoft model of open-world gaming. Every side mission, every activity, every thing you do in TW3 has context; there is a clear reason for doing them, a clear motivation that is understood by the player and Geralt alike. You feel compelled to finish them not out of an obsessive completionism, but out of a genuine desire to see where they lead. Sometimes you’re investigating interesting new places, sometimes you’re wooed by the character’s stories, sometimes you must make choices that will change the fates of the individuals involved; in most cases you will find yourself invested in what you are doing. Almost never will you be required to go somewhere and collect something for the sake of collecting it, or kill something just for the sake of killing it. Even the simple Witcher contracts (beast-killing bounties) are jazzed up, because the game will often undermine your expectations and deliver a twist or conclusion that you didn’t expect, and this keeps things interesting. There’s a great variety in the amount of activities available as well - many towns will have a noticeboard that will offer you quests and bounties. By the end of the game these have numbered in the hundreds, but as most will lead to a story in and of itself, it’s rare to feel bored by these.

And this is why I was wrong about The Witcher 3 the first time around. This is why I needed to rewrite my review. I initially claimed that it wasn’t the ‘great leap forward’ that so many had predicted, but I was incorrect, because the developer’s dedication to maintaining the quality of the little things and mastery of the technology behind the big things turned it into something bigger than the latest Assassin’s Creed photocopy; something bigger than the soulless Fallout 4. The prevailing opinion these days seems to be that players want more features and more systems. But The Witcher 3 rejects the ‘sandbox’ style of gameplay in which a developer gives the player a set of boundaries and bunch of toys thrown haphazardly about and tells them to make their own fun. They remembered that a single player game is one that relies on narrative; the single player experience is one in which the player is asking to be entertained. So they didn’t settle for a ‘box’, and instead made a series of crafted landscapes, and they rejected the assumption that a pile of toys was enough, instead giving us stories and context. Yes, it still has some bizarre design choices that seem endemic to the series as a whole, but The Witcher 3 is a long way from the clunkiness of the first game. And yes, the established interpersonal relationships can seem impenetrable, but these gripes are outweighed by the importance of everything the game got right. The developers weren’t happy to deliver a sandbox game. They wanted to deliver an open world, a real world with people interacting and feeling and doing and saying and affecting each other, and in turn, affecting us. And by god, they did it.

9.5/10

(Very) Outstanding

#witcher #three #3 #game #review #video #pc #cd projekt red

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symbianosgames · 7 years

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Video Game Deep Cuts: Hitman vs. Edith Finch - Go!

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include Hitman level design, What Remains of Edith Finch, and much, much more.

As I battle jetlag after my return from Asia to a sunny California spring, I've been thinking a lot this week about discoverability for games again. Shouldn't there be more niche game subscription services out there for those looking to support underappreciated/'different' titles? I love Humble Monthly, but some of the more mainstream subscribers seem to get grumpy about the quirkier indie titles in it at times - much like PS4 players litter indie YouTube trailer comments with fist-shaking.

And how about adding context to the games in a subscription with dev interview videos, 'Let's Play'-style playthoughs, or even analysis videos? Would any of you sign up for something like this? Curious...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

Passing Through Ghosts in Pac-Man (John Harris / Gamasutra Blogs) "This is an excerpt from my book Bug Voyage: A Tour of Classic Game Glitches, available in the current Rogue Souls Storybundle [SIMON'S NOTE: which I curated!]. The book also contains information on pseudorandom number generation, doing low-level math in binary and decimal, and how you can crash any Galaga machine without even putting money in."

Writing Indie Games Is Like Being a Musician. In the Bad Way. (Jeff Vogel / The Bottom Feeder) "Over the last couple years, I've gotten a fair amount of attention for my articles about the Indie Bubble and the Indie Glut. (And even a GDC talk.) At last, I can complete the trilogy of articles. Now we can look around and see where we've ended up, a phase which I suspect will be permanent. [SIMON'S NOTE: Please read this.]"

Legendary Game Maker Peter Molyneux Talks Regrets and What's Next (Chris Suellentrop / Glixel) "That enthusiasm for the unknown is the hallmark of 57-year-old Molyneux's long career. He stopped by the Glixel offices in March to talk – barely – about his next game, Legacy, as well as to speak at length about everything from No Man's Sky and Pokémon Go to his aborted Kinect experiment, Milo."

toco toco ep.49, Yoko Taro, Game Creator (toco toco TV / YouTube) "In this episode, we spend the day in Osaka with Yoko Taro, director of the famous Drakengard and NieR series. Our first stop will be at PlatinumGames, the studio that was in charge of developing Yoko’s most recent title: NieR: Automata."

How Hitman’s Hokkaido level was made (Alex Wiltshire / RockPaperShotgun) "The latest Hitman['s]... levels are a jetset tour of places you believe could exist, but these aren’t just credible environments, they’re also machines for killing in. And the first season of Hitman closed with one of its best. Hokkaido is at once compact and expansive, melodramatic and credible, and I talked to IO about how it was designed."

Game Over, Uwe Boll (Darryn King / Vanity Fair) "The man known as the world’s worst director is now retired and running a Vancouver restaurant. But he’s still not done waiting for the world to give him his due. [SIMON'S NOTE: you really should read this one, if only for Boll's random Chris Kohler diss, haha.]"

Inside the Resilient ‘Team Fortress 2’ Community on the PlayStation 3 (Aron Garst / Motherboard) "To say that PS3 players got a raw deal is one hell of an understatement. But they've managed, and made friends along the way."

THOTH, And How I Talk About Games (Errant Signal / YouTube) "Just a little thing I made at the end of last month while fighting off some sickness. [SIMON'S NOTE: an interesting - if a bit self-doubt-y - meta-analysis from one of the better YouTube game analysis folks on how you should approach mechanics-led games in terms of commentary.]"

Valve has cut Dota 2 royalties, and workshop creators are crying foul (Arthur Gies / Polygon) "There’s unrest in Dota 2’s community this week, as several artists responsible for many of the free-to-play game’s popular cosmetic items allege that Steam owner and Dota 2 developer Valve Software has systematically reduced their earnings and may be permanently damaging the long-term viability of Dota 2’s business model."

Magic: The Gathering's Head Designer Has A Damn Hard Job (JR Goldberg / Kotaku) "“Magic is secretly, not really … it’s not one game,” head Magic: The Gathering designer Mark Rosewater told me. “It is actually a bunch of different games that all have a shared rule system. Every time I make a card set, I’m making the game for everybody, but for each person, it’s a different game to them.”"

Roam free: A history of open-world gaming (Richard Moss / Ars Technica) "Open-world video games bear the impossible promise—offering compelling, enjoyable open-endedness and freedom within the constraints of what is, by necessity of the medium, an extremely limited set of possible actions. These games provide a list of (predominantly violent) verbs that's minuscule in comparison to the options you would face in identical real-life situations. Yet, we can't get enough of them."

Tom Clancy's Inherent Silliness: Why Ghost Recon Wildlands Couldn't Escape Its Fate (Cameron Kunzelman / Paste) "Ghost Recon Wildlands is a silly game. One might be tempted to think that it’s an intentionally silly game bordering on satire. I mean, after all, it’s almost a parody of games in its genre: it’s a third-person shooter game where four operatives, a handler, and some almost-Communist rebels take on and fully dismantle the infrastructure of a country that’s been fully taken over by a drug cartel."

The Game Beat Weekly: The pressure to stay in line (Kyle Orland / TinyLetter) "These apologetic quotes both get at a truth that's rarely explicitly acknowledged in the world of game criticism: being out of step with the critical or fan consensus on a big-name game or franchise is often not an easy thing to do. At best, having a contrary opinion about a big game these days means being subject to a huge stream of nasty comments, tweets, and e-mails about your view."

The Last Game I Make Before I Die: The Crashlands Postmortem (Sam Coster / GDC / YouTube) "Crashlands was developed by a team of three brothers in response to one of them being diagnosed with late stage cancer. In this 2017 session, Butterscotch Shenanigans' Samuel Coster tells the parallel stories of one family's battle with cancer and the creation of a cross-platform crafting RPG, and find yourself inspired to continue your great work no matter what life throws at you."

The Growing Indie Game Development Scene of South Africa (Lena LeRay / IndieGames.com) "South Africa's video game development scene has been through a lot of ups and downs since it got started in the mid-90s. The indie scene in particular got its first big break in 2010, with the entry of Desktop Dungeons on the world stage."

Destiny's meta shifts are fascinating (Cole Tomashot / Zam) "A meta shift is usually the result of a content release, player discovery, or patch. What makes these meta shifts interesting, is that while they are occurring a push and pull relationship between developers and players reveals itself as both parties play a role in a game’s meta."

Meeting Andrzej Sapkowski, the writer who created The Witcher (Robert Purchese / Eurogamer) "Andrzej Sapkowski has something of a reputation. To start with, he's a big deal. He invented Geralt, witchers, Triss, Ciri, the whole thing - it all came out of his head. He has won awards and his work is revered, especially in Poland. More than once I've heard him described as the Polish Tolkien. But I've also heard he can be difficult - and I'm on my way to meet him."

The sound of SID: 35 years of chiptune’s influence on electronic music (James Newman / The Conversation) "Fortunately, Yannes did know something about music, as well as semiconductors and designing chips. And so in 1981 he began work on what would arguably become the most important milestone in videogame music and one whose influence still resonates to this day: the MOS Technology 6581, also known as the Sound Interface Device, but much better known as the SID. [SIMON'S NOTE: quite a few game soundtracks analyzed in this neat piece!]"

Balancing Cards in Clash Royale (Stefan Engblom / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, Stefan Engblom, game designer on the Clash Royale team, talks about the philosophies and principles used for balancing cards and gameplay in Supercell's Clash Royale."

The Ten Most Important Early Computer and Video Games (Jaz Rignall / USGamer) "Today's gaming industry is a massive, multibillion dollar entertainment juggernaut. But what are its roots? I thought I'd take a trip back to the very dawn of gaming history and take a look at the devices, inventions, and innovations that gave rise to our favorite pastime."

Mike Tyson's Punch Out NES Nintendo 30th Anniversary (Gajillionaire / YouTube) "30 years ago on March 31, 1987, Little Mac defeated the Super Macho Man for the W.V.B.A. World Heavyweight Title. We look back with YouTube personalities from all over and remember back to that epic night. Then, sit back and watch the original “broadcast” of the classic Championship title fight!"

Three reasons streaming is replacing the Let’s Play industry (Michael Sawyer / Polygon) "YouTube personalities recording themselves playing games is big business, and it seems to be the dominant way for gaming influencers to make money on the platform. The art form is known as “Let’s Play,” although that term doesn’t have much in the way of a set definition. But why does it seem like so many personalities on YouTube are moving to livestreams?"

Jonathan Coulton - All This Time (Official Video) (Jonathan Coulton / YouTube) "From his new album Solid State, out April 28. The album has a companion graphic novel written by Matt Fraction and drawn by Albert Monteys. It's a science fiction story about the internet, the future, artificial intelligence, and how probably only love will save us. [SIMON'S NOTE: this song is wonderful, but the music video is what permits its inclusion in this roundup, heh.]"

Why Video Game Guns 'Feel Good' (Emmanuel Maiberg / Motherboard) "Six out of the top 10 bestselling video games in February heavily featured guns and shooting. The same was true in January and all of 2016. Like it or hate it, video games and guns have gone hand-in-hand for decades and there's no reason to assume that this will change in the near future. [SIMON'S NOTE: part of a series - also see Veteran Developers Remember the Weirdest Guns in Gaming, heh.]"

The sublime horror of the unknown: Ian Dallas and What Remains of Edith Finch (Kris Ligman / Zam) "Director Ian Dallas, as it turns out, was more than willing to discuss the artistic and literary influences behind What Remains of Edith Finch with me -- as well as chat about a few paths the game did not end up going down."

The Game Archaeologist: How DIKUMUD Shaped Modern MMOs (Justin Olivetti / Massively Overpowered) "Even though there are hundreds and thousands of MMOs spanning several decades, only a small handful were so incredibly influential that they changed the course of development for games from then on out. DikuMUD is one of these games, and it is responsible for more of what you experience in your current MMOs than you even know."

The art and joy of video game photography (Simon Parkin / Eurogamer) "Now, when facing up against a Hyrulian monstrosity, my first thought is not, 'Which sword should I use', but rather, 'To which spot should I lure the beast to make the best use of the light?' In 2017, in my game at least, more Links have died taking compendium shots than in encounters with sharks (and not only because the sharks in Hyrule are talkative, handsome and kind)."

Classic Game Postmortem: Maniac Mansion (Ron Gilbert / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2011 Classic Game Postmortem, Maniac Mansion developer Ron Gilbert revisits the classic adventure game and recounts tales from the game's development process. "

Strange Beasts, a sci-fi short about an augmented reality game (Jason Kottke / Magali Barbé / Kottke.org) "Magali Barbé wrote and directed this short sci-fi video about an imaginary augmented reality game called Strange Beasts. It starts off with a “hey, yeah, cool, augemented reality games are going to be fun to play” vibe but gradually veers down the same dystopian path as a lot of augmented reality fictions (like Keiichi Matsuda’s Hyper-Reality)."

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symbianosgames · 7 years

Link

Video Game Deep Cuts: Hitman vs. Edith Finch - Go!

- Simon, curator.]

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#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

symbianosgames · 7 years

Link

Video Game Deep Cuts: Hitman vs. Edith Finch - Go!

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

symbianosgames · 7 years

Link

Video Game Deep Cuts: Hitman vs. Edith Finch - Go!

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

symbianosgames · 7 years

Link

Video Game Deep Cuts: Hitman vs. Edith Finch - Go!

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes