Walking down the same path as Dark Souls, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings on Xbox 360 takes a bold stance with its difficulty and complexity. Full of vague character references, sex, precise combat, tight controls, and tough enemies, the fantasy world lives and breathes with or without you. There's no hand-holding, and knowing how well its PC counterpart turned out, this unapologetic RPG is exactly what Xbox 360 needs.
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The Witcher 2 might be the first case where a player can call a game "PC-ized" (in contrast to the negative connotation of "consolized"), meaning it's optimized for the complexities of the mouse and keyboard, but adapted for controller play without sacrificing gameplay intricacies.
In fact, the The Witcher 2 needs every button on the Xbox 360 controller. Not only does every button have a function (down to tapping the back button and clicking both the right and left sticks), combat requires a timed precision rarely found in modern RPGs saturated with action. The tutorial is a requirement, not an option. Every odd combo of brewing potions, using magic, and knowing when to throw a riposte plays a critical role in the simplest altercations in The Witcher 2.
CD Projekt Red dumbs nothing down in their adaptation of The Witcher 2 for Xbox 360. Sure there's an animated vignette explaining what a witcher is, but the burden is on the player to catch up with the world's lore, figure out which characters are connected, and learn how to survive in combat beyond an enemy or two. Hopefully this version opens the door for more hardcore content to jump from the mouse and 101-button keyboard to the 18 inputs on an Xbox 360 controller. It can be done.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition comes to Xbox 360 on April 17.
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