The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Preview (Xbox 360)

“Do the tutorial” is one of the first things Namco’s Hollie Bennett says upon entering the preview room for The Witcher 2 on Xbox 360. Normally in this situation, where there’s a time limit, the tutorial is the last place one wants to head to, but so earnest is Hollie’s advice that I duly oblige.

It’s a good job I did…

Before I continue though, a bit of history is in order. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was released on the PC around this time last year. An RPG played from the third person perspective, it saw you take control of Geralt, a Witcher, in a story spanning several chapters with multiple endings. It was met with a great critical reception, as well a truck-load of awards.

[drop2]Needless to say I’ve been extremely jealous of PC owners, which hasn’t been helped by the almost constant mocking from a PC owning friend. Can the upcoming Xbox version do the game justice? Well, I played through the game’s prologue to find out for myself.

The first thing you’ll notice when starting the game is just how nice everything looks. No, it won’t hold a candle to the PC version running on a decent spec machine, but at no point was my enjoyment interrupted by ugly textures or pop-up. It can easily hold its own with the likes of Mass Effect 3. One of my main concerns was if the Xbox 360 could handle the game without slowing to a crawl, and initial signs are positive. Some of the battles in the prologue are fairly large, but everything was as smooth as silk. So far so good.

It’s the control scheme that’ll take some getting used to, and is the reason why playing through the tutorial is so important. Every single button on the controller is not only taken up, but is also frequently used. Geralt has two types of sword, depending on whether he’s fighting a monster or human, and these have both strong and quick attacks.

Then there’s a parry and riposte system, which deals with deflecting melee attacks and countering quickly. To add to that is the magic wheel, where the player can choose what signs (spells) to cast, although one of these can be assigned to the Y button for quick use. You also gain access to various traps and throwing weapons and these can be linked to a certain button too.

[drop] All of this and we haven’t even gotten around to meditation, potions and enhancing weapons with various oils. If you’re after a game that’s going to consume your life, this is it. The code I played through also had access to parts of the upgrade system, where you can improve Geralt in a number of ways. 95% of it was locked out, but it was easy enough to see that there’s a lot that can be upgraded.

I’ll be honest, after the initial “oh my God I don’t know what I’m doing”, I fell in love with the combat system. Hacking and slashing might get you so far, but soon you’ll need to mix things up by combining physical attacks with signs, of which there are plenty. The satisfaction felt when luring an enemy into an exploding trap, and then blasting them backwards is brilliant.

In terms of the story, the prologue didn’t feature any of the game changing decisions that I know can be made further on. In fact, after about three hours I had barely even scratched the surface of what’s on offer. However, what I did see left me dying to find out more – so much so that when it was my time to leave I almost trudged sadly away.

I’m going to keep this preview brief; after all the full game is out in a couple of weeks. This is really just to say that, from what I’ve seen, CD Projekt has done an impressive job of adapting The Witcher 2 for the Xbox 360, so if you were considering laying down a pre-order but were sceptical, worry not. I can’t wait to get my hands on the full game, although you might not see me again for quite a long time.