The Witcher combines spectacular visual effects with a unique and intriguing storyline, whilst also telling the story created by the popular Polish author, Andrzej Sapkowski. Obviously the game shares many features with other role-playing games; caves, witches, monsters, elves, dwarves, undead, necromancers, potions, swords, castles and dark woods, but that doesn't mean it's anything like the older style RPGs. In fact it is far from, The Witcher went as far as reinventing the role-playing wheel and introduced an Over The Shoulder (OTS) camera mode and innovative new combat mechanics.

The developers have undoubtedly released a landmark game that has a whole new take on swords and sorcery that breaks just about every rule in the book. SunsetFinally you get to experience a medieval world so realistic that for a moment you actually feel as if you are there. There is no good or bad side of the questing, just a realistic "decisions and consequences" view. To keep everyone on the same tracks you are forced to play a single character, Geralt, a mutagenic mercenary that can use Signs and consume potions to give him the upper hand in fights, this means you aren't sat around for hours just creating and/or outfitting your character.

The endless left-click bashing has been replaced with a somewhat graceful mouse usage system whereby you actually have to swing your sword in time rather than just smashing your index finger onto the mouse, hoping you can pull off a combo or two. It is still a simple click-and-slash game but to continue an attack sequence you have to click the mouse again when your cursor changes to a flaming sword; beware though, if you click too soon you have to start your sequence from the beginning. SalamandraAs you advance through the attack sequence stages (by clicking at the correct time), your character begins to show off and increase the damage dealt, finishing off with a final attack that has the chance to polish off your opponent.

However, if you don't buy the latest Enhanced Edition or make sure you update your game as soon as you get it then you will fall victim to some of the major bugs that were released with the original game, sometimes rendering it impossible to advance to the next stage of the game. Even worse was the crash-on-save bug that would cause your game to crash while saving your game simply because you had too many save files. This would cause you to lose your entire progress since your last save file.

Moreover: imagine killing a guard in front of a locked door, grabbing a key from his corpse then using it to enter the house, there is nothing but a few containers within, you loot them and think nothing of it. Later on, after not using the key again, you decide sell or discard it to to make room in your inventory. A few levels later and that very same building is part of the main quest line, however, the door has been relocked and the guards are, as you would have thought, still dead. You have no way of entering the building. The only way around it is to load a save point just before you killed the guards (which could be hours of gameplay).

A load of mid-game glitches and bugs that force you to restart a certain quest line or chapter from an earlier save file, simply because an NPC you were expecting to be somewhere never actually spawned is a little disheartening. Admittedly, the game has only just been released, but it does seem like they have rushed to get it released for a specific deadline. BarghestI would have rather waited for the current version (1.4/Enhanced Edition) to be the original version 1.0 than have it released early with bugs that can sometimes make it hard to finish the game.

That's not the only thing either, the difficulty level seems to vary while you play and has not been properly balanced. Parts of the game are extremely easy, like killing a group of Drowners for instance, and others are extremely hard, such as killing a group of Scoia'tael. And what with the torch randomly sheathing itself and Ghouls constantly screaming – which renders you unable to move or attack – while their mates release their fury upon you, it can be near-impossible to search through crypts and caves.

Random changes from medieval language style to modern-day slang is also a little strange. At one point your character exclaims "Abso-fucking-lutely!" and then changes back to a casual RPG-style conversation as if nothing happened. That said, the unique storyline and stunning graphics make up for some of these quirky errors. I mean you can even gather Tarot cards for sleeping with people, which is another thing: this is probably one of the few games that features your character being an impotent sex-driven mutant, who tries to sleep with all the girls in the kingdom and pretty much succeeds just by chatting the right lines.

The game was built using the old Neverwinter Nights Aurora Engine from 2002 and has been revamped and remastered to create a stunning visual experience right infront of you. TrissThe music and audio work perfectly with the gameplay, just like they did in Neverwinter Nights, with an up-beat, adrenaline-filled soundtrack when you are in battle and quiet ambient soundtracks when you are not.

The Witcher reinvents the wheel and gets away with it, hopefully changing the way future RPGs are made as well. I bought the game in-store as a spur of the moment thing from Game simply because I liked what I saw on the back of the box. It turned out to be an RPG masterpiece that is simply breathtaking, even if it does have some strange quirks. The Witcher 2? Maybe. Either way I will definitely be buying future games from the Aurora engine.