Avadon: The Black Fortress

If you don't have any experience with Spiderweb's previous games, your first moments with Avadon are likely to come as a shock. The single-player-only game could almost have been developed in 1989. Crude isometric visuals and paltry sound recall the 286 era. By 2011 standards, the game is ugly. Characters and monsters are soft-focus multicolored blobs, and you can't zoom the camera in to get a better look. Dungeon furniture and architecture mainly consist of standard chests and wardrobes like the set dressing in summer stock theater. Outdoor locales are loaded with symmetrically arranged cacti, rocks, and other terrain features that make the landscape look surreal. Only some of the textures stand up to scrutiny: the gravel roads and stone walls look pretty good. There are virtually no audio effects. The game has no music or voice acting, and monsters share a handful of attack noises. Oddly, a near-constant wind seems to blow whether you're indoors or out.

Game options are sparse in the beginning. You start off with no real character customization options. You get to type in a name and pick from four set Dungeons & Dragons-inspired classes that touch on the standard fighter, wizard, cleric, and thief archetypes. The only difference is their names: the warrior is called a blademaster, the wizard a sorceress, the cleric a shaman, and the thief a shadowwalker. There are some variances, most notably in the way that the classes veer off into slightly innovative directions. Still, there is no way to roll up a custom character, so you're stuck with a quick choice before delving into the action.

Thankfully, Avadon has a lot of appeal beyond this admittedly off-putting surface. Some areas feature a considerable amount of detail when it comes to furnishings, with elaborate layouts in bedrooms, libraries, and other locales. You're given just enough for your mind's eye to work with, so suspending disbelief isn't a problem. Performance is also very good, making this a good choice for older machines or even netbooks. Some user interface flaws get in the way, however. Levels are typically massive and confusing, which isn't helped by the hit-and-miss minimap. Quests aren't noted on the minimap, and neither are some key characters and locales. Even vital spots like stairs up and down aren't given icons, which can be incredibly annoying given the mazelike nature of many of the levels. The developer has at least posted more-comprehensive maps in the official forums on its website, but they're hardly an acceptable substitute.


Redbeard is good, bad, or some blend of both.
Despite the flaws, you can't help but be drawn in once you go deeper into the game. Even though the graphics don't do a complete job of immersing you in this fantasy world, textual blurbs bridge the gap between what you see and what you're supposed to be envisioning. They tell a story and bring situations to life without being overly wordy. The generic medieval fantasy setting and plot are somewhat predictable, though. Events center on a fantasy land of magic and monsters dominated by the Midlands Pact, an alliance of five nations dedicated to protecting all that is good from evildoers. The heart of the Midlands Pact is Avadon, a fortress ruled by the ominous Redbeard, a hero who might be going a little too far when it comes to guarding the realm from the bad guys. You play as a newcomer to Avadon, one of Redbeard's warriors dedicated to helping the big guy keep the peace. The story keeps you interested, even though it offers few surprises--or at least few surprises that you don't see coming a mile away

Quests mix inventive tasks like playing PR man to an irritable dragon with typical go-fetch and locate-missing-people busywork. There is a lot of combat during these assignments, although you're never overwhelmed. Battles are not so numerous that you feel numbed by monotony. They actually fly past pretty quickly, with characters and foes moving as though they're under the influence of a haste spell augmented with liberal shots of Red Bull. Fighting is handled from a tactical perspective, in a way that hasn't changed much since the aforementioned Gold Box games of two decades ago. Whenever you spot a foe, the real-time exploration mode switches to a turn-based perspective, and grids pop up on the screen to show you how and where characters can move. It's an easy-to-learn and intuitive system for anyone with a background in RPGs. The main drawback is a lack of monster variety. There are a fair number of creeps in the game, drawn from fantasy archetypes such as giant spiders, lizards, wizards, orcs, and the like, but they mainly attack in straightforward melee styles. You don't need to get too fancy with combat strategies, save in some of the boss battles, which can be brutal on the regular difficulty and above. The visuals aren't detailed enough to make monsters distinctive, either, so you're often facing off against blurry groupings of pixels that need to be identified by the text blurbs beneath them.


There aren't any big surprises here, especially if you pay attention to what's going on with the average folks living in the Midlands Pact.
Character development also offers a fair number of options. Experience points are earned for combat and other tasks and are used to level up party members. Skill points are doled out for each level and are then spent on buffing core stats as well as special class abilities that boost attacks, defenses, spells, and so forth. Basically, this gives you extra goodies to employ during battle with the use of a vitality pool that sits alongside your hit points. These features lend an added dimension to combat strategies with souped-up attacks and healing spells or buffs to core functions like hit-point regeneration and the percentage chance to inflict a critical hit. There isn't anything dramatic or new here in the character skill trees, although there are enough options to give you the sense of growing and customizing your party.

If you crave up-to-the-minute 3D visuals and bombastic sound, Avadon: The Black Fortress is not for you. But if you want to immerse yourself in a fantasy adventure and don't mind letting your imagination take over where the graphics end, this RPG can be involving and satisfying. You might get the feeling that you've played this game before, but in this case, that is sort of the point, and one of the big positives to this retro treat.

Kirby Mass Attack

The game's effervescent plot thickens when Kirby's latest nemesis, the evil skull-lord Necrodeus, blasts the poor fellow into 10 tiny versions of himself in hopes of eradicating the pink hero once and for all. His plan almost works, but one remaining wayward Kirby manages to escape. Setting out to rally the troops and defeat Necrodeus by piecing himself back together, the last Kirby must rely on his mini-pals for support. This cute story gimmick translates into some excellent strategic platforming and puzzle-solving. Beefing up and maintaining your small pink army is integral to the gameplay, and the unique ways that you have to put the little guys to use from one level to the next keep the adventure from stagnating. The numerous stages across Mass Attack's five worlds also require you to have a certain number of Kirbys in your group to proceed--secret areas within every stage are accessed in much the same way. You gain more of your comrades as you go by collecting fruit to fill a score meter, but your herd can be whittled down if any perish permanently within a given stage. It's a cool dynamic that encourages backtracking and exploring because any Kirbys you collect will stay with you within a given world as long as you don't let them die off.

Mass Attack's intuitive touch-centric controls are fun to use and make the challenging task of micromanaging a herd of energetic little blobs easier than you might expect. You can move your group by tapping and dragging it around the screen; it's also possible to grab them all and float them along a drawn path in short bursts as in Kirby: Canvas Curse. Double-tapping foes sends your mob charging forward to dog pile onto them, or you can fling individual Kirbys around to grab items, latch onto foes, and hit switches. It's a comfortable system that works surprisingly well once you've had a little practice, and you won't find yourself missing traditional button controls much. That's not to say things don't go awry at times. Some Kirbys occasionally wander away from the pack and get into trouble, but this can be overcome with a touch of vigilance. If one of your pals perishes, there's still some hope. Members of your gang can be hit once, which turns them blue. If they're hit again, they turn into fluttering ghosts that can be recollected and saved if you grab them with another living Kirby before they get away.

Though Kirby's ability-copying powers are absent in this adventure, there's a still a ton of variety in the gameplay and puzzles. Mob mechanics are put to good use: You have to split up your Kirbys at times to take branching paths, use them to weigh down platforms, divert them to multiple foes, and put them through obstacles that require some elbow grease. Charming stage designs change up the pace at regular intervals. At various points, you may pile into a thundering tank and shoot your pals as ammo, use your collective weight to steer a hot-air balloon through dangerous obstacles, and climb through a tipsy tree trunk perched precariously by your shifting weight. That's not even considering the crazy boss battles scattered through the bubbly landscape. Each fresh encounter is wildly different from the last. Mass Attack rarely settles on a single routine for long, yet it never feels disjointed. That's a big part of what keeps the fun flowing.


Teetering trees: one of many cool new stage designs.
Collecting items and unlocking goodies have always been a staple in the Kirby series, and Mass Attack is bursting at the seams with these extras. Progressing through the main game offers a reasonable difficulty level, but completionists will relish the added challenge and replay value of going back to earn neat in-game achievements and tracking down all of the coins. A few of the many unlockable Kirby-themed minigames also offer nice surprises because they are so complete. Strato Patrol EOS is a fun, competent shooter; the pinball game is solid; and the role-playing game battler yields a pleasant diversion.

Mass Attack doesn't stray from the colorful, kid-friendly presentation and syrupy sweet platforming that the Kirby franchise is known for, but substantial innovation in the way you play it sets the game apart from its predecessors. The stylus-only controls are a welcome addition, and a terrific balance of familiarity and freshness is what makes this buoyant experience so addictive.

Breath of Death VII: The Beginning

It’s very refreshing to come across an RPG that’s both self-aware and joyously humorous. Comedy RPGs are a real rarity, so whenever one comes along, it usually provides something different from what most other entries in the genre have to offer. Sure, the underlying plot may deal with destruction and evil creatures, but the dialogue and writing are different from most RPGs and warrant a play-through by gamers. This is especially true for those who want to take a break from the typical turn-based title. Breath of Death VII: The Beginning does just that—it offers a unique RPG experience that’s fun, retro, and totally hilarious, even if it is a bit short.
Don’t let its name fool you. Breath of Death VII is actually the first (and currently only) game in the series. The game starts out with a nice, old-school cutscene that depicts a brutal war. After a massive weapon destroys the entire planet, a civilization of undead creatures rises and rules peacefully over the land. These friendly monsters create an ideal world and live happily within it—until an evil entity makes its presence felt across the land. That’s when Dem, the skeleton knight, rises to the occasion and goes on a quest to save the world from destruction.

If this all sounds a little quirky to you, that’s because it is, and the characters are just as strange as the tale itself. For starters, Dem doesn’t talk because he believes that a true hero should never speak. How do I know this? Because the narrator immediately turns on the Thoughts-Subtitle-O-Matic, which allows players to read what Dem is thinking. The rest of the cast is just as colorful, and the many characters you meet along the way often have hilarious things to say. The humor in Breath of Death isn’t so much about jokes or delivery. Instead, characters make references to other titles like Resident Evil, Castlevania, Pokemon, Earthbound, and Zelda. If you’ve played a lot of different franchises, you’ll instantly get plenty of the references, and they’re sure to bring a cheesy grin to your face.
Though Breath of Death VII emulates classic RPGs in terms of its graphics and menu design, the gameplay is actually a lot more forgiving than the punishing titles of old. You must travel to various towns in order to receive your next objective.  While in towns, you can purchase upgraded weapons and armor. Along the way, you traverse an overworld map full of random encounters. In between the towns and overworld, you must clear dungeons and increase your party until you have four total members—each bearing his or her own special abilities, strengths, and weaknesses.
Dungeons are completely maze-like and require plenty of exploration and backtracking. As you explore caves, cities, and sewers, you engage in battles with enemies and collect upgrades and gold. If you want to find everything in the game, you’re definitely going to have to do some backtracking. This can be a bit of a hassle, especially in the bigger stages later on, because exploring the large mazes isn’t always enjoyable. Now, normally it would be a total pain having to deal with random encounters, because many of the dungeons’ paths lead to dead ends, while others lead to weapons and treasure. Thankfully, the random encounters within dungeons are limited. So once you’ve beaten all of the foes in a dungeon, you don’t need to worry about any unwanted surprises, and you can explore the mazes at your own pace.

Battles are also a lot simpler than most retro RPGs. Though the basic turn-based setup remains intact, you have several different attack options at your disposal and a combo system that allows you to perform strong finishing attacks. Tallying up your combo with constant offense allows you to set up a devastating attack that’s increasingly powerful based on your combo count. These moves can be used to finish off stronger enemies rather quickly, and they definitely come in useful in boss fights. Breath of Death VII puts a lot of emphasis on quick battles. You won’t spend several minutes on these encounters, and don’t be surprised if certain sequences take you mere seconds. This will either be welcome by RPG fans or it will be slightly disliked. Personally, I prefer longer, more complicated battles. That said, there’s no denying the fun factor in taking out baddies with a couple of high impact moves.
Upon clearing battles, you are rewarded with experience points. Once you level up, you can choose from two different upgrades at a time. Sometimes the game asks you to upgrade either your characters’ stats or add a new move to your arsenal. Other times you can choose between upping your defense or adding HP to your party. Depending on how you like playing, and whether you prefer magic or physical offense and defense, the game lets you decide what type of characters you want in your party, which is pretty cool.

One element that Breath of Death VII decided to keep completely old-school was its presentation. The game looks and sounds like a retro RPG through and through. This isn’t a bad thing, though, and the game’s presentation shines through as remarkably stylistic. That said, the plain black backgrounds during battle sequences are really drab and offer nothing in the way of graphical eye candy. The music, though largely enjoyable, is definitely not as pleasant as that of Cthulhu Saves the World, developer Zeboyd’s other comedy RPG.
Breath of Death VII is a fairly short game, especially for an RPG. The main adventure should take you about five hours, which isn’t too bad, as the game tends to drag a bit toward the end. There are three difficulty settings, and beating the game gives you access to Score Attack mode, which is a fun addition. Overall, the value is really good, because for just $3 you get Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World, which is lengthier and better overall. If you’re a fan of old-school RPGs or crazy games with a good sense of humor, you simply can’t go wrong with Breath of Death VII: The Beginning. Even with its few flaws, it’s still a highly enjoyable parody adventure worth plaything through.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Review

Trails in the Sky is a satisfying adventure that blends an exciting plot with smart gameplay.

The Good

• Fascinating story   
• Good strategic emphasis   
• Challenging, with self-adjusting difficulty level   
• Charming presentation.

The Bad

• Labyrinthine dungeons lack variety.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky marks the first game in this strategy role-playing series to see a stateside release. Plenty of tactical elements keep combat interesting and often challenge you to outmaneuver foes in unique ways, while a high difficulty level encourages you to stay one step ahead of your opponents. Though the gameplay of Trails in the Sky is rewarding, it's the twisting plot of love and deceit that really draws you in.

Estelle has some fierce competition for Joshua's affection.

The enthralling story launches one strange mystery after another, hooking you with rich characters and a romantic subplot. The game opens in the small town of Rolent in the kingdom of Liberl, where a hero's young daughter, Estelle, and her orphaned friend, Joshua, have just completed training to become bracers--civil servants that fight for the good of the people. When Estelle's father, an experienced bracer himself, suddenly disappears, the duo sets out on a quest to find him, unmasking a national conspiracy in the process. The dialogue is a little heavy, but memorable characters keep it lively with amusing banter; you meet a flirtatious bard, a dominatrix gypsy, and a spiky-haired kid with an attitude problem as big as his giant sword, as well as an interesting supportive cast with rich backstories. Estelle and Joshua are fairly complex as they hide their feelings--and true involvement in this political fiasco--from each other while a charming love story unfolds. There is more to this plot than meets the eye, and what begins as a simple quest to save Estelle's father grows into a tale of destiny.

Interesting bracer missions enrich exploration, which makes investigating the game's simple mazes much more fulfilling. Each town has its own unique scenario that advances the story, creatively blending plot elements with dungeons. In one job, you escort a clueless photographer through a monster-infested tower so she can snap the perfect photo; another has you staging an undercover rescue operation in a heavily guarded villa. You also trigger a decent variety of side quests, including monster-extermination jobs and treasure hunts. Though most of the game's dungeons amount to little more than mazes, their hidden corridors and optional bosses keep them enticing.

The turn-based battle system is a little slow but satisfying, and it frequently surprises you with its strong strategic elements. Battles occur on a large grid that limits your movement field, shifting the tactical focus from surrounding out-of-reach enemies to outmaneuvering--or just outpacing--them. To this end, a turn wheel that features battle bonuses comes into play, randomly granting gifts of health recovery and strength boosts that make all the difference in a close fight. You can monopolize most of these bonuses for your allies by delaying enemy turns, but your opponents don't make it easy because they often cast speed spells upon themselves to snag critical hit bonuses with surprising efficiency. Fortunately, devastating attacks, called S-breaks, give you the edge by interrupting the turn order, which lets you snatch an enemy's bonus right before it's used against you. Another good strategy is to quickly wipe out a foe marked with a turn bonus, which you can do by capitalizing on its elemental weaknesses via magic.

Flashy S-breaks interrupt the turn order to deal devestating damage.

An orbment system lets you strategically fine-tune characters to make up for their shortcomings. Orbments--mechanical devices that enable you to use magic--determine your spell variety, depending on the elemental quartz you pair with them. Inserting water quartz lets you cast heal magic; whereas activating wind quartz unleashes whirlwinds. The strength of these spells will depend on your quartz level, with advanced quartz unlocking your most devastating abilities. While collecting quartz and discovering new magic is fun, you can also take advantage of their stat bonuses and support abilities to strengthen your allies. If you want to increase Estelle's defense, for example, you can use an earth quartz to directly modify her defense stat while granting her access to a protective shield spell during battle.

Good enemy variety and clever bosses should keep you on alert. Monsters wield a diverse skill set that rivals your own, and they're crafty enough to adjust their tactics, depending on your actions. Enemies frequently surround your healers or inflict you with such status ailments as confusion if you get too close, which sends your dazed teammates after your mages. Bosses also cast strong area spells or use inventive tactics, calling for backup or exploding upon death to get the last laugh. Despite these numerous challenges, the game's difficulty remains very player friendly by automatically adjusting itself if you experience problems. This handy tweaking covers everything from standard battles to missions. For example, in one segment, you're required to sneak around a town while avoiding enemy soldiers. The game gradually reduces the number of patrolling guards if you're caught, limiting any potential frustration while still prompting you to think.

Detailed 3D environments highlight the game's charming atmosphere, spanning towering architecture and a lush wilderness that is thick with forests and meadows. Towns feature intricate buildings, cute sign posts, and tiny food stalls that add to the picturesque scenery. The game's short characters look a little strange at first, but their detailed outfits and cute portraits quickly grow on you while boosting their personality. A good soundtrack sets just the right tone, supplying a haunting harmonica melody for romantic scenes and peppy Celtic tunes for exploration. Battle effects look and sound good, with S-breaks and advanced spells adding enough flair to keep you interested, although the minimal voice acting is a disappointment.

Smart enemies use powerful area magic and slow spells against you to dominate the turn wheel.

Trails in the Sky is a 50-hour epic that boasts plenty of side quests to undertake. There isn't much in the way of bonus content once you finish the adventure, but there is a new game-plus mode that lets you experience it all again after selecting which goods you want to carry over, including money and character levels. You can also unlock both hard and nightmare modes, boosting the difficulty level for an even greater challenge.

Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky features a good strategic focus and a plethora of fierce opponents, but its riveting narrative is where it really shines. The transformation of a simple rescue mission into a vast conspiracy against the throne should put you on the edge of your seat, while Joshua and Estelle's budding romance steals the show. The result is a heartwarming adventure that marks a welcome North American debut for the series.

By Shiva Stella, GameSpot

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review

The Good

• Morally ambiguous choices lead to game-changing consequences   
• A number of exciting and memorable moments   
• Phenomenal visuals with a grim tone   
• Involving tale of lost memories and political allegiances   
• Fun, challenging combat with a satisfying sense of impact.

The Bad

• A variety of bugs   
• Combat sometimes ventures into cheap territory   
• Unsatisfying conclusion.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a gift, gilded with moments that stay with you even after the curtains close on its dark tale of uncertain pasts and uncertain futures. Like the rare Roses of Remembrance you might find growing in this role-playing game's lush fields, these moments are carefully cultivated. They're meaningful not just because they are packed with excitement, but also because there are stakes--both personal and political. As Geralt of Rivia, your actions don't just bring you closer to the truths of your own murky history, but they also influence the tides of war. And just as you exert your power on this game's events, they work their power on you, drawing you further into a gorgeous world populated by quarrelling trolls and drunken, sex-crazed dwarves. Some bugs, combat quirks, and other foibles prove bothersome, but they don't greatly diminish the impact of exploring a dungeon whose walls ooze the agony you've just witnessed. This superb role-playing sequel offers a bold world woven together by tenuous alliances and closely guarded secrets.The Witcher 2's phenomenal visual design isn't its defining characteristic, but it's an effective lure and makes for an immediate connection with the game's provocative tone. On the outskirts of a dwarven enclave, sunlight glistens upon a misty pond; a tower just beyond it bristles with potent magical properties; the underbrush surrounding you casts deep shadows, yet rays of golden sun coax you onward. In The Witcher 2, sights like these communicate so much. The delicate lace of a sorceress's collar gives her a regal air, yet dark makeup and dark brown eyes speak to mysteries beneath the surface. A red scar above a defiant elf's upper lip is not just a testament to past violence--it suggests a permanent scowl. Walls, cliffs, and meadows aren't just repeated textures. Look closely at the patterns carved into a stone column, and you notice how each one is slightly different. These may seem like unimportant details, but they're indicators of how much care went into every facet of this game's environments and character models.

The superlative art is rendered by equally superlative technology that ensures you can admire the rips on a mercenary's trousers, a harpy's individual feathers, and the buckles and seams on Geralt's clothing. Yet The Witcher 2 is as much about grand gestures as it is textural detail. You cross paths with a giant dragon and other grotesqueries, each of which moves with a sense of weight appropriate to the creature's proportions. Pungent colors, roaring flames, and shafts of glowing light make mainstay environments like sewers and caves a wonder to explore. Impressively, all of this beauty is rendered using DirectX 9 technology rather than the newer DirectX 11. The game is nevertheless demanding of your hardware, though it is attractive even at lower settings. A few imperfections stand out amidst all the graphical wizardry, such as mechanical facial animations, characters that pop in during cutscenes, and the occasional frame rate dip. But such quibbles are easily tolerated in this luxuriant digital world.

All that glitters is not gold.

And what a world it is, alive with activity yet tinged with violence and sorrow. The opening moments ready you for the game's brutal overtones, showing a captive Geralt of Rivia whipped and taunted by his jailers. Geralt's defaced flesh is not an easy sight to take in, but it's thematically relevant: The witcher is scarred by his past. Geralt, once thought dead, is still piecing together his memories of a savage battle and a beauty called Yennefer. The story takes its cue from these lost memories, juxtaposing violence and sex. It also presents both as inevitable and natural results of the human (and nonhuman) condition. You can still bed various women in The Witcher 2, as you could in the original game, though you no longer collect sex cards. Lovemaking (or ploughing, as so many characters call it) is a frequent subject of conversation, and it's one of Geralt's favorite pastimes. You can bed a few different women, and the game hardly shies from nudity, handily earning its mature rating. The lacerations on Geralt's back are a stark reminder, however, that this earthly pleasure is only a temporary respite for him.

But The Witcher 2 is not primarily about sex, nor violence. It's about the search for truth. Geralt seeks clues to his past, as well as the royal assassin that ended the life of King Foltest at the conclusion of The Witcher. This man's identity is not a secret for long, but then, this is not a murder mystery; rather, it's a chronicle of discovery, redemption, and political upheaval. Geralt is blamed for Foltest's murder, but as he gets closer to the true killer, he becomes more and more involved in the region's power struggles. Not including the prologue and epilogue, The Witcher 2 is split into three acts. The first is primarily concerned with following the killer's trail, while the second greatly expands the plot, introducing so many new characters and so much lore that you might be initially confused. Yet, the convoluted plot seems poised to explode in the final episode, only to fizzle at the end. The lack of closure intimates a sequel, and it makes the final act feel abrupt when compared to the robustness of the first two.

Harpies of a feather shriek together.

Characters new and old both assist and hinder Geralt's quest. These include the flamboyant bard Dandelion and the earthy Zoltan, a foul-mouthed dwarf who, like most of The Witcher 2's dwarves, loves women and drink. Dwarves are a rich source of humor in most role-playing games, and The Witcher 2's are no exception. Yet, the tone is different here. These are the raunchiest dwarves you've ever encountered, yet the comedy is undercut by underlying anguish. It's initially funny to learn that teetotaling dwarves are outcasts. But when a dwarf confides that he fears being ostracized because he doesn't drink, you understand his dread. You might admire a bearded character's enthusiasm for heading to battle for the first time, but when pressed, he admits his misgivings. Aside from the occasional expository speech, most of the dialogue sounds natural, including the asides spoken by random citizens. Most of the voice actors do a good job of bringing these characters to life, in spite of the occasional hollow note. (The actress playing Triss Merigold again sounds like a random meter maid rushed into the studio for some last-minute line readings.)

The Witcher 2 is not an open-world game in the way of The Elder Scrolls games; each area is relatively contained though expansive enough to encourage exploration. The rewards for doing so aren't just pretty vistas. You might uncover a chest that can be opened only by interpreting the clues on a nearby scroll or stumble upon a giant arachnid guarding treasure. However, the game's flexibility isn't a result of wide-open journeys; it is the extraordinary ways you can influence the story and fundamentally change the direction of your future travels. For example, choices you make at the end of Act 1 not only determine how immediate story events play out, but also have a dramatic impact on the entire game. The characters at your side, the enemies you face, the dialogue--they all differ based on a series of decisions that the game never forgets. And these aren't "good" or "bad" choices: these are ambiguous circumstances with ambiguous results, which is just as well. Geralt is not interested in heroism or villainy. He navigates turbulent waters seeking neither justice nor injustice, only answers