Can we discuss this here?

Just had a quick play and no combat yet but the graphics are excellent and the voice talents very good, reminding me of Game of Thrones

Graphics look amazing, but i hear it's buggy. How does it compare to Dragon Age?

Not been buggy for me at all, very polished. I have DA:O and DA2 and I like them but TW2 has sucked me in more than they did and you only control Geralt rather than a party of 4. Combat is difficult on NORMAL setting and I have had to move down to EASY on a couple of fights lol.

Haven't played far yet. I've just finished the prologue, escaped from the prison (the stealthy way) and have now arrived in a small town on a river.

As Mace said, the graphics are pretty good with nice effects (high settings). However, some of the effects have a less positive effect such as Filmic Depth of Field or Depth of Field during cutscenes as the graphics/textures get constantly reloaded when the perspective changes.

Sound is nice too, albeit it sometimes is misplaced/imbalanced. One time I could hear the conversation of a group standing far away from me as if I were right beside them, next moment I could barely make out what my own character was saying.

Fighting is okay. I like the way of moving my character away and around opponents and attacking them from behind. The AI isn't very clever though. Just run away far enough from them and they'll leave you alone, giving you time to regain health and start another attack when you feel like it.

So far, the prologue and prison escape was rather straight forward and scripted. Not and open world game. But this might change later.

However, I agree again with Mace -- and judging by the comments in the gog.com forum many others -- the difficult is pretty tough. I was close to giving this game up already when I was only playing the prologue; because what is probably meant as a tutorial gives the player hardly any useful hints how to proceed in certain situations. So I got roasted by a dragon again and again until I found out by reading the comments in the gog.com forum that a certain spell helps to get through the scene.

It doesn't help either that CDProject decided to use runes only to represent the different spells and weapons. With no explanation whatsoever, the player doesn't know which spell might help him. He/she has to check the "handbook" (.pdf file) for that. Not very intuitive.

Other than that this games seems to be a real click-fest. They should've offered a special collectors edition bundled with a mouse because I'm pretty sure when I'm done with this game, mine will be completely wasted. x-D Be it in combat or the different action scenes like fleeing from a dragon and shielding someone, aiming a ballista etc., there is always a lot of mouse clicking involved- especially in the action scenes.

All in all, the game looks nice and I haven't encountered any serious bug so far. Again, I haven't played far into it yet so can't give a final comment. The above is merely my first impression.

I haven't played the first game and am usually not a fantasy RPG player (haven't played any of the Dragon Age games either). I picked The Witcher 2 up because the videos looked impressive and I was interested in the more mature feel the game has to it. And in this respect, I haven't been disappointed one small bit. The opening of the prologue, the storming of a castle, already got me impressed because it actually felt like a siege. It looked and felt huge!

I'm not exactly hooked yet. But I'm still interested how this game will go on.

I am hooked! The atmosphere is fantastic. I'm at Port Flotsam and just walking round, watching all the people do their jobs is great. One thing I wish is that there was a penalty for stealing from peoples houses etc. I am just walking in and stealing everything in front of them lol.

First Witcher 2 patch to be released next week

http://www.vg247.com/2011/05/19/first-witcher-2-patch-to-be-released-next-week/

I hope they tweak the difficulty as the combat is becoming insanely hard. 6 drowners coming at me at once and I'm dead in seconds even with me meditating, drinking potions beforehand, throwing bombs and using my signs and dodging. This is on normal and every fight I have to go down to easy.

I am on the quest to kill the big octopus thing and I'm reading on GOG.com forums that it is really hard even on easy. I think I may try and do the side quests I have gathered first to see if leveling a bit more helps. Still loving though.

The game is a tough nut indeed. When I encountered the drowners I was again close to giving it up. Managed to kill them fairly easy though by running away and trying to lure one or two of them away from the group, attacking, running away again and always using Quen. This tactic works best for me in most of the fights. Also I use the ALT key to lock on a target.

I don't even dare to attack the octopus thing yet though. Heck, I can't even finish off the mothers of those spider thingies yet. I'll concentrate on the side quests first as well. I hope to get the last ingredients to build a silver sword as that is said to be more useful against monsters. I hope that I can finish them off easier/faster with that weapon then.

The more I play, the more I get soaked into the game though. Really looking froward to bring the story on now.

I had a silver sword when I first looked round Flotsam . Go round all the houses and steal everything you can and you will have enough to make a silver sword.

OK this game is about to go in the bin. I've had it for 2 days now and I am still stuck on the F@kking dragon bit. How do you do it? I tried all sort of combos, but still get fried by the #%&*$#.
Can someone post an idiots guide to completing the tutorials please

SD