So last week I had nothing much to do and played some more. Once I got out of the starter area I started really loving it. The skills are varied, interesting, the fighting is new, and the “building” of attacks forces you to choose your style carefully. You can’t just spit out fireballs or blast waves or mind-altering spells between attacks whenever you want, or vice versa. Well you can, but if you do you have to start over your series of attacks. So you actually have to pay attention and think, but it’s still easy for those of us who are not twitchy fps players.

It’s also pretty big. Full of side quests and choices that only affect you much later, and varied skills supports playing it twice at least. In this game you definitely do NOT want to read any sites for advice, even if you get stuck.

I think this is one of the best single player rpgs since Baldur’s Gate.

I haven’t lost this much sleep since Asheron’s Call. The end of the first act was getting long in the tooth, but the boss fights and the start of Act II are fantastic! I’ve not played anything that was this morally vague, and the NPC comments about locking up your wives, here’s a Witcher are quite amusing.

Also, it is pretty unstable under Vista. It crashes after you save 4-5 times, and sometimes when loading a new area. Not unplayable, but annoying.

The game itself is excellent, enough so that I put up with the instability and continue playing it.