The Witcher E3 Preview

GameSpy has put together a preview of The Witcher, based upon what they saw of CD Projekt’s RPG at this year’s E3. In addition to talking about the game itself, they examine how the company started and how they obtained the Aurora Engine from BioWare. An excerpt:

CD Projekt has done some impressive things with the Aurora engine. The graphics are on par with other titles using the engine. When your main character pushes a foe to the ground and initiates another attack, the game’s camera swivels to provide dramatic scenes of the killing blow. The mouths of NPCs move as you talk with them, in synch with the dialogue. Interior environments are beautifully done, with realistic textures, lighting, and architecture.

Combat in The Witcher is similar in some respects to Knights of the Old Republic. Attacks can be lined in an action queue at the bottom of the screen, much like you could stack actions in KotOR. However, in The Witcher, they’ve discarded the idea of having battle actions occur in a turn-based system. Every click of the mouse will perform the next attack in the action queue. It’s not a Diablo-style click-fest, though. Every move has a timed animation, and each click of the mouse must be coordinated with the end of the preceding animation. Click too fast or slow and you’ll be penalized with less XP and less effective attacks. Time your clicks correctly, though, and you’ll be rewarded.