1st one ? Not much :D While I really tried to finish Witcher 1, it had so many glitches and gameplay issues I didn't like, I never managed to do it.
Witcher 2 is a whole different story though. Amazing graphics, both in cinematics and in game, a fun combat system that requires some skill (quite a lot actually, but you get to learn) to get it right, if you just mash the buttons you will die. It's constantly being patched and updated, there's a huge free patch coming in march that should deliver up to 4 additional hours of gameplay. It's not a dlc, everybody that owns the game will get it at no charge.
But, the most amazing thing about the game is how mature it is. With a few exceptions, the fantasy rpg genre consists mostly of very cliche and naive stories and characters, you go around in a shining armor, decapitate bad guys and rescue the princess. In Witcher 2 you get to make a lot of mature choices and they rarely are black and white, and most of the time there are no good guys, just the slightly less bad ones.
In the 1st village you reach, Flotsam, at some point you're faced with a choice of who to ally with - Iorweth, an ******* elf terrorist that slaughters people without hesitation while throwing around accusations of racism and Vernon Roche - an elf hunter of sorts, leader of the Redania secret police (you get to meet the guy in their dungeon while they're interrogating you). And depending on what you do, consequences can be brutal - on my 1st playthrough I sided with a different guy and completely missed this scene, but on the 2nd one, at one point I found myself in the middle of a pogrom, with elves and dwarfs being the targets.
The game is mature not because you get to see a tit or two (great sex scenes btw, a lot better than in Mass effect or witcher 1), not because of the rampant swearing (though I play in Polish so don't know what "western" censors did to the dialogs) but because of the plot and a "actions have consequences" approach. This is not a game where you seemingly have a ton of options only to find out they all lead to the same conclusion - here there are multiple endings and depending on the choices you make in the 1st chapter, you get to play the 2nd one in one of 2 places. To see them both and do all the quests you have to finish the game at least twice.
Then again I did read all the books 3 times (sucks for you if you're not speaking Polish) so I'm not sure I'm objective enough ;)
as an added bonus: the 1st in game sex scene ;)

The Witcher 2 SEX Scene Ultra Setting (Adult Contents & Nudity Warning*) - YouTube

Wow sounds good, I see its available on both PC and 360, not sure which is the best version but will put it at the top of my list anyway.

The main difference is the graphics - the xbox version, while by many called the "best looking xbox360 game"(which is yet to be determined really as the game is not out till march) looks like the pc version on low. If you have a powerful enough machine, I suggest you play on pc. Also if you have a monster machine, the kind regular mortals don't really need for anything, you can run the game with ubersampling - something my i7 and gtx580 can't handle well ;)
But on the highest possible graphics setting without the ubersampling, I had people that are completely ignorant of video games stop and stare. Hell, when i bought the game and brought it home I had a couple of friends over and "I'll only turn it on for a moment to see how it works" turned into "3 grown men and 2 grown women are hypnotized for 45 minutes by the sheer beauty of the game"
Apart from the graphics I don't think there are any differences.
Yac.

Tore pretty much hit the nail on the head!

I like the fact that Witcher 2 doesn't have a karma system. They explained it as "You're just a hero that's reacting to situations he's put in."

Also, the intro....

Now those are very impressive graphics.

At the moment I'm on a medieval/fantasy type fix and really digging Skyrim, and reading the Song of Ice and Fire novels, so this does interest me a lot.

Just finished playing Runespell Overture and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Runespell Overture is a fun poker rpg style game, and will keep you entertained quite a bit. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 single player was good in my opinion. Other than being short, it had good action and an interesting story (it was written by Paul Haggis, a favorite director of mine).

Love the COD games but have heard this is a bit short, will be getting it soon. Also I'm going to pick up Gears of War 3 its going really cheap at the moment and loved the first two.

Gears of War 3 is easily the best in the series. Horde mode is tons better, The story is fantastic and it's the only Gears game that I actually enjoyed playing the Competitive Multiplayer.

While COD:MW3 was fun, it was short indeed. I played on Normal on my first play through and finished the game in 4.5 hours. It was a great 4.5 hours indeed though.

COD MW3 single player sucked, with went perfectly in line with the last couple of CODs. Story was terrible, and it had those stupid action sequences that were once kinda cool but now so commonplace in the COD campaign they lose any impact (those parts where your character slits a guy's throat, but you don't press any buttons).

What's with the one scene of gratuitous violence that they seem to stick in each and every COD by the way? Is it their pathetic attempt at being daring and edgy or something?

I beat it on Veteran by the way. What a waste of time.

I still don't think they'll ever have another CoD game that I enjoy as much as I enjoyed CoD2.

I'll always have the best memories of the original COD, before then I was playing Medal of Honor Allied Assault and COD was without a doubt a big step up with the aiming down the reticule and killcam improvements. Definitely a great game for it's time.

I'm told that I missed out on COD4 though and it was something special when it came out.

CoD4 was great, and the only REAL problem with the games now is the lack of innovation since then. CoD4 worked, so they have literally changed almost nothing with the series now.

Also, I absolutely adored Allied Assault.

Allied Assault was awesome. The beach storming scene was so immersive.

The original Call of Duty game was such an improvement on the Medal of Honor series. I will give credit where credit is due though, the opening mission in Medal of Honor: Frontline was pretty incredible and I liked the pacing, but overall I disliked the "lonewolf" American soldier who single-handedly won World War II. I know this was in the time when programming friendly A.I. wasn't easy, but still, the opening two levels gave you this great mental image of fighting alongside other soldiers, but after you beat the second level and board the sub, you're pretty much on your own for the rest of the game.

Call of Duty really fixed all of that with the squad and the memorable characters, like Sgt. Moody. There was one early mission where you're with a throwaway Private and Sgt. Moody and you're driving along the French country side in some little blue tin can car performing drive-bys on Nazis, it's easily one of my most enduring memories of the series.

Anyhow I just finished "playing" the commercial release of Dear Esther, a remake of a source mod that came out in 2008. It's not really a game so much as it is an experimentation in storytelling through the minimal use of gameplay. The only thing you really do is walk around this seemingly abandoned island while there's a voice-over narration at moments that spell out the plot. You pretty much just walk around and listen to this story, while trying to piece together what it's all about. It's a neat experiment but without much to do gameplay wise I can't help but think it's really limiting its audience. It worked well as a free downloadable mod, but the polish done for the commercial release really doesn't warrant the $10 price tag. If it sounds intriguing, download the mod and "play" it, and then if you really want to check out the commercial version, wait for it to go on special. That said though, there are some really unsettling moments that do a great job of building tension without the need of slavering monsters and disembodiment.

I'm really disappointed in FPS developers in general. I remember playing Half Life and saying to myself: just think what enemy AI will be like in ten years.

I tried beating COD2 on veteran. Just couldn't do it. That one mission towards the end where you charge up the foresty hill and fortify the top... impossible.

Did you ever play World at War on Veteran? I thought I was supposed to be raiding the Reichstag in that game, but ended up raiding the german grenade factory :mad:

Awesome

Nah, never played any Treyarch games, but I know what you mean. If you took cover in COD2 veteran for longer than 15 seconds, you were promptly rewarded with a hail of excellently-placed grenades

MW3 multiplayer is free for the weekend via Steam. I'm too cheap to buy it, so this will be nice.

I actually did it for the third time last week.

The first two times were on PC. The third time was on the 360.

Anyone want into the Tribes: Ascent beta? I just got an email saying I can invite someone.

the game of "Life"

Played Bioshock 2 for a while today. I loved the first one, but I got stuck somewhere, died, and it re-spawned me outside the area I was inand for some reason I couldn't get back in. Faff.

This one is also great. Very atmospheric and I do expect something around every corner. I do find myself checking every single nook and cranny for something to pick up though. Time consuming.

Currently i play 4 games which are as follows:

- MW3
- NFS Run
- Bulletstrom
- Assassin's Revelation.

I found it very disappointing in the story aspect (which is what made the original so great in the first place). It was a sequel three years in the making, yet both the graphics and storyline are de-improved? Wtf?

The gameplay is only marginally better too. The equipping weapons and plasmids at the same time is a nice touch (though kind of an obvious addition).

Great case example of what happens when a secondary developer works on a game in a franchise while the developer of the original works on the third of the series (Bioshock: Infinite). They don't tamper with the formula at all and basically just ride the coattails of the game's namesake.

^ Agreed. I couldn't get into Bioshock 2 at all and never ended up finishing it. And the first Bioshock was one of the best games I've ever played. It looks like they'e putting actual effort into the third one though.

Bioshock 2 doesn't have the freshness of the first, but considering the gameplay is much like a slightly enhanced version of the first game, I find it downright strange - almost hypocritical - that someone would absolutely love the first, but think of the second game as such poor quality as to not bother much with it.

Bioshock 2 only failed (slightly) as a sequel. On it's own feet as a game, I think it was good. 5/6!

The major reason I enjoyed Bioshock was because of the story and the atmosphere that came along with being in Rapture for the first time. The second just felt like a rehash of the first game, which was a major disappointment.

I guess if I played it without playing the first it would have been better, but the story (up to the point I played) seemed weak.

What Thom said. I'm happy I played the game cause now I feel ready for Infinite, and it was far from a bad game, just a big disappointment.

Bioshock's greatness came from its story, atmosphere and characters. I challenge you to name a single character from 2 that was as compelling as Andrew Ryan, Frank Fontaine or Sander Cohen. The atmosphere suffered as a result (not to mention the audio diaries which weren't interesting at all in the 2nd game) and the levels seemed more bland to me at least than the first game.

Hypocritical seems a very strange choice of words. I certainly feel that 2 was a disappointment, so I'm not sure how that makes me a hypocrite.

i've only played System Shock

I think the best way of summing it up is that Bioshock 2 was Bioshock without the charm.

I'd use the phrase "Obvious franchise cash-in", but that's just me. That being said, if the money from that game went to funding the obviously superior BioShock: Infinite, then I suppose it's not all bad.

I don't know, I thought the story line for Bioshock 2 was pretty good, it seemed to focus a lot on the history of Rapture, which was petty much what I expected. Not sure how much people expected them to push the idea, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Hypocritical because to me, Bioshock 2 simply felt like more Bioshock. Hence, people who love the first should at least like the second. If you don't, it's a bit like having pancakes for the first time in your life and loving it and then hating it when you get your second serving because it's what you got the first time around. It just seems strange to me - first you love the recipe and then you don't.

I don't think the levels nor the story was much of a let down in the second game. It had a lot less novelty factor and I think people's disappointment in a lack of "new " manifests itself with a projected dissatisfaction with story, level design, etc. Not saying that's the case with any of you guys, but in general terms of how the game is rated, I believe that sort of stuff bleeds over and makes other aspects of the game seem less positive - even if they may well compare well to the previous game to a more objective observer.

As I stated, the second game failed in bringing anything new and significant to the table. That makes it slightly inferior to the first. Everything else was pretty much like before. As I enjoyed Bioshock and wouldn't mind exploring the city of Rapture a little more after the first game, I was happy to come back. In the end, I finished both and I enjoyed both. I thought that would go for most Bioshock fans.

I disagree, as myself and others have pointed out, the recipe wasn't the same at all. You're taking one aspect of it (the gameplay) and acting like since that part was unchanged from the first to the second, we should love it equally.

Well what puts Bioshock above other standard shooters like COD? I can tell you it certainly isn't the gameplay, COD's is far smoother and more refined. No, the reason people loved the game in the first place was the world and atmosphere it created, and the unique Ayn Rand utopia-turned-dystopia it parodied.

While it's true that the lack of excitement contributed, it also had to do with the whole contrived feel of the game. I found none of the characters interesting, the story was a bland love/emotional connection story lacking any of the political themes or objectivist philosophy that made it compelling in the first place. Plus the whole thing felt off, I can't remember any events in the 2nd game on par with those of the first. It just wasn't memorable.

You seem wholly focused on the black and white here, the fact that the gameplay and the setting is the same means we should instantly like it. Hell it didn't even feel like the same Rapture to me, the colors were a lot more dull in the game and, as I've said so many times, there weren't any colorful personalities to fill the empty halls of Rapture. The only thing that beared resemblance IMO was that it's still underwater.

To me, it was pretty much the same. The big story things which I adore were still there, like the underwater Utopia gone wrong, the little sisters and big daddies .. As you play the game, you get to know various twisted residents through audio recordings here and there, just like in the first game. You follow a story through the game which was still interesting, at least to me.

To me, Bioshock 2 was similar enough to feel like an expansion or a large "DLC" for Bioshock. Anyways, if you really disliked it for being such a poor sequel (or prequel), you're free to do that, of course. It's hard to argue against taste and opinion.

edit :

Did you ever finish Bioshock 2? If not, for how long did you play it?

Yeah I think a lot of people have this preconception that bio shock 2 was a "cash in", but it's a superior product in every way, including narrative presentation.

The ending is far stronger than the original bioshock.

The gameplay was more open ended. I beat the game a second time by using the "drill specialist" tonic, which meant i couldn't use any guns but had a lot of oil. It was fun just freezing every person and drill bashing them to death, and it remained effective for the entirety of the game lol