14 DAY TRIAL // The Witcher 2 is a very ambitious game and the developers at CD Projekt RED pretty much succeed in their effort to establish a whole new standard when it comes to PC-based role-playing games, but one area where they mostly fail is explaining the game world and some of the mechanics to the player.
I was first hit squarely in the figurative face by the new combat mechanics, which are significantly different from those used in the first game in the series and get quite a bit of time to get used to.
There are some tooltips, but they seem to pop up in the middle of the action and they only stay on the screen for a short time, which means that I rarely read them all.
The Witcher 2 does offer the text in the Journal section to read when you like, but the natural tendency for the players is to ignore that options and try and figure everything out on their own.
Because of the continuous interaction with the game world, gameplay mechanics can be learned in the end, but The Witcher 2 can be a bit unhelpful even when it comes to the various characters that the player meets as the story progresses.
One of the major players in the second act is called Phillipa and the first encounter with her takes place in the first chapter, but a certain quest that allows the player to find out a bit more about her before actually coming physically face to face with her but is rather easily missed.
This means that I found myself talking to her and at an obvious disadvantage because I lacked knowledge that the game should have thrust in my face before.
There are also names of kingdoms, rulers and other world players that are not well explained when they are introduced and, while the overall picture can be put together by the player as the game progresses, it's a pity that the game does not make it easier to learn about its world.