The Witcher 2 had its share of Muslim controversy when it decided to pull the sajadah from its game, the incident itself being the catalyst for me to buy the game. I have had it sitting on my shelf for a few months due to being on holidays and then Ramadan coming into effect. So after finally spending some time with Geralt, here is some news on sales, first impressions and some not so good news for ATI video card owners.
Geralt - Witcher 2
Gamasutra is reporting that the Witcher 2 game is on track to hit 1 million sales any day now, 200 000 of which were Digital Downloads. Within the financial report it was revealed that during the first week of sales 400 000 units were sold and by the end of the first half of 2011, 940 000 total units were sold. Not too bad at all for a relatively “small” and newish IP. As GOG and CDProjeckt are under the same umbrella, the DRM free digital download that they have offered in the past looks like it’s done a nice job of assisting with sales, though they dont mention how much of the 200 000 sales are over other download services such as Steam. For the first half of 2011, it saw profits of 20.4 million Polish zloty ($7.09 million) and generated 80.3 million Polish zloty ($27.92 million) in revenue.
Witcher-2-Ultra Settings
As for the game itself, with what I have seen so far, I’m impressed. The story line has pulled me in a lot more than the first Witcher game. Usually I just click through a lot of the wall’s of text, but this time round I have actually taken the time to read through and make decisions on gameplay based around the story line. The mini games are good fun and plentiful but I did find that it didn’t introduce a lot of the gameplay elements properly during the introduction. I ended up spending some time online looking to see how certain things are done.
Graphically the game is superb, though speaking with others on the Muslim Gamer Steam Group, it seems as though there are a few out there that have had problems with very low frame rates. They did however mention that they were on a laptop, whereas I have been playing it on a desktop. Running a Crossfire 6950 setup, I would hope there wouldn’t be any problems!
Sparkly Sausages Anyone?
So graphics are great, gameplay is great, storyline is great and CDProjekt were nice enough to remove the sajadah from the game, so whats my gripe with Witcher 2? 2 words, Eyefinity and my new invented word, Halalability.
I was looking forward to playing Witcher 2 at 6020 X 1200, I got my coffee, my snacks setup and loaded up the launcher. Excellent work CDProjekt, my Eyefinity resolutions are there waiting to be selected. Click the Launch game button and what happens? A blank black screen on my left and one on my right with the centre screen being the only one with the game running on it? An error on my behalf I say and double check all the settings. Nope still no eye candy for me, so off to Google to find out some more info. Soon enough I come across what seems to be a widespread problem, though, there also seems to be no solution. The 2 sides to the story are as follows,
According to many out there, as the game is “Nvidia: The Way Its Meant To be Played” approved, there is support for multiple monitors on Nvidia Cards but none on ATI. The rumour is Nvidia is blocking CDProjekt from implementing Eyefinity support.
According to CDProjekt however, Nvidia came forward and assisted with the multiple monitor support, however ATI didn’t and as a result there is no multi monitor support for ATI cards.
I dont know who is telling the truth, but one can only “assume” that with support for Nvidia’s solution and the game having the “The Way its Meant To Be Played” logo in the intro, it would come as no surprise if indeed Nvidia and CDProjekt are blocking Eyefinity. When there are so many games that support Eyefinity and with the Witcher 2 being up to version 1.3, I really cant see why there isn’t support for Eyefinity. I really have lost a lot of respect that I had gained for the studio over this incident and it will make me think twice about purchasing further games from them.
So now to the newly invented word, Halalability. Defined by Muslim Gamer as “While playing a game, how much of the time do you have to cover your eyes or ears to play it?”
Witcher-2-minigame
There is definitely a lot of R rated language in the game. Its not overly done to the point where they are swearing for no reason at all, but its definitely not completely ignorable either. Another “feature” of the game are the ladies and their interactions with Geralt, for he is a man that likes to errrrr, spend time with the ladies. As a result there is a decent amount of nudity in the game, though saying that, it can be avoided in many instances as you are the decision maker and you have the option to either choose to go down one path or another. Saying that, if kids got their hands on the game I can imagine which option they would choose. You cant really blame the developer, its rated properly and if you get the game, you know what you’re getting into, so really its your choice. But due to this, I would have to give it a Halalability warning. Its a great game, but just be aware of what the game entails.
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