The Witcher Previews

A couple more hands-on previews of The Witcher have been posted to the ‘net, courtesy of the demonstrations being shown at Gen Con Indy and the Leipzig Games Convention. The first is at Games32:

The combat mode is influenced by the silver and steel blades that Geralt always carries at him. If you meet human enemies you have to use the steel blade otherwise the silver one. The combat mode was from the beginning developed to be fun instead of being extremely complex. Being a point’n’click mode, the developers decided to exploit new possibilities of interaction. The new gig here is that you have to coordinate every hitting action. You cannot click your mouse like a machine gun like you do in all the other rpg games. Guide by different forms and colors of the cursor you have to push the action button in a determined sequence. If you fail at a point to follow the sequence Geralt will miss hitting the opponent. Depending on how you have evolved your character, and on how much can control the sequence of actions, Geralt can perform more and more combo moves with an increased damage power. The combos are really spectacular to see and are based on almost 300 fighting movements.

And the other is at Gamers With Jobs:

Along with the isometric, zoomed-out views we’re used to seeing in games like Neverwinter Nights and Titan Quest, you can also bring the camera down to an over the shoulder view and move using the WSAD keys. Combat worked so well in this mode that it was actually preferred by the developer showing off the game. You still click to attack and do combos, it’s just closer to the action and more visceral. I found myself jumping from the standard, distant PC RPG view to the more direct camera depending on how many enemies I was dealing with in a given situation.