Goomb Played! - The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

It's a wonder how a game like The Witcher 2 manages to be gritty and positively beautiful at the same time. Polish developer CD Projekt Red's newest role-playing game is set in a gorgeous fantasy world, lush with details, a strong lore and absolutely amazing characters.

No one is a hero in Geralt's group of acquaintances, including himself. He lost his memories and the only thing he's sure of is that there's trouble brewing and somehow his order, of the witchers, is involved. It all starts when a serial king murderer strikes where Geralt happened to be. Framed for the regicide, he's forced to prove his innocence and avert a global crisis.

For an RPG, The Witcher 2 plays extremely simple. You got three "evolution trees" which you can follow when you level up, in the form of alchemy, sword fighting and magic. Each of them is tied to an aspect of combat but also influence other key abilities, like crafting and the making of potions. Potions work differently and are only used before fights, when you enter Geralt in a meditation state, where not only you can drink these concoctions but also mix them.

The fighting part of the game is very basic and easy to handle. The Witcher 2 turns into more of a hack and slasher, although not as involved as God of War, for instance. Depending on your choice as a 'spec', your prowess with swords, magic or status effects is improved. Fights can quickly turn hairy since enemies swarm you at about every chance they get.

Role-playing is probably the best aspect of Garelt's adventure, thanks to some excellent dialogue and interesting quests. Sidequests are far from the usual fetch and destroy a certain number of enemies and manage to be important to the overall story. Sure, you will run into RPG tropes here and there, like the repeated monster contracts but even those are relatively varied and make use of more than just 'kill kill kill'.

A great presentation isn't the sole reason to jump into any game, although it helps a lot. The Witcher 2 is an absolutely gorgeous game. Environments are colorful and feel alive, even when you're sneaking through a cave. Geralt himself looks rugged, as he should look, like an aged warrior that's been on the wrong side of many blades, with scars to prove.

Music is superb as well. The score manages to be epic at just the right spots in the story or during action scenes and subtle at softer, calmer moments. When a character opens his or her mouth to speak, you're treated with very well performed voice acting. Geralt sounds just as gruff as he looks and dwarves... well, they sound like dwarves. Did I mention dwarves are the kinkiest race on the planet?

They sure are, thanks to how of a more mature tone CD Projekt Red takes in this game. Dialogue more than often turn sexual, with the constant use of the word "plowing", The Witcher 2's version of "frak". You get the drift, right? There's more than one instance of actual sexual situations too. While not nearly as intense as was hyped during this game's development, they are treated in a far less awkward manner than in a game like Mass Effect nor as say, interactive as God of War. They work more as cutscenes than anything though and don't particularly affect the story at all.

It's worth mentioning that this is an open ended game that features more than one path during the story. These forks in the road work a lot better than the usual karma options and they actually show unique facets of the story. The Witcher 2 demands a second playthrough as soon as you set your controller down if you wish to know the full story or see where a different choice in allegiance can take you, for instance.

The Witcher 2 is one hell of an RPG. While the combat can get mindless and cheap at some points, the story and atmosphere are just incredible. It's the type of game that will grip you. Simply put, if you got the machine to run this, you shouldn't miss it. |10

Goombd Watched! - The Walking Dead 'Mid' Season 2

When I think of zombie related fiction, my mind is always drawn to the human struggles. That's probably due to my "formation" in the genre, that comes from watching the George A. Romero school of movies, which for the beginning half were strongly tied to the deterioration of the human mind during a crisis and less of a bloody fest.

Thanks to that and my liking of comics - I'm no collector, but I dabble in them from time to time - it was an easy transition to make when I first discovered and started reading the 'The Walking Dead' book. At that point, the series was already well underway and thanks to the excellent pacing and captivating nature of Robert Kirkman's narrative, it didn't take me long to get up to speed on the story.

It was just as easy to transition to the TV show. Season one had less episodes and the comics' story was somewhat retold in a different manner. Some characters were completely new and the survivor group movement relatively different than what the book told, a big plus in my opinion. Friends were pretty divided, though. Some hated the fact that the show was so slow at points, or the lack of deaths and violence.

That sentiment carried over and grew quite a bit on season two. There were more episodes for the producers to work with and they obviously took their time building up the impending group conflict for the second half of the season, with characters evolving and adapting to the situation in a slower and more deliberate pace and for some viewers, that's just dull.


I'm not torn up about it nor would I go out of my way to try to change their minds. For me, the show is working extremely well, taking bits and pieces from the original source and coming up with its own identity. I never wanted to see frame-to-frame from the comic in film form at any point. That'd be just boring for this show. Sure, I'd love to see some things from the book pop up here and there, especially after the farm setting is done away with (if ever, in season two) but unlike die-hard fans that grope and moan about every single little detail that's changed in a comic book adaptation, I'm happy with what's being done with The Walking Dead.

Will people get what they want in the second half of this season? More guts and gore, tension and deaths? Probably. Would I like to see it done every single episode? Certainly not. This is a show that should go beyond just seeing people getting torn to bits all the time. I'm fine with the concept of grindhouse existing for horror flicks, but those are just that. Flicks. This is a TV show, it spans for much longer and there are only so many ways the same thing can happen before it just becomes dull. And so far, The Walking Dead is anything but that.

February 12th can't come soon enough!