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At first I couldn't believe it: Triss Merigold's flawless, female form writhing naked next to Geralt of Rivia. No stuttering, no wrinkles. Visuals of the highest calibre appearing on screen. My machine wasn't even making that much noise.
The protagonist conversed with his captivating, scarlet-haired companion. Each face animated with a painstaking level of attention to detail. I could hardly believe my eyes. I had to go and ruin it by leaving the tent where the opening love-in was staged.
The frame rate slowed to a crawl. What I can only imagine to be the processor started screaming in a high-pitched tenor. My coffee table, where the laptop resides, was hot to the touch. I wasn't mad; I was just disappointed.
More than any other, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a PC-exclusive release that needs to find its way onto a console.
Why? Because the PC as a platform has too many variables despite my laptop apparently being, at least according to the launcher's auto-detect option, capable of rendering the game with medium settings at the highest possible resolution.
How to remedy my situation? At first I picked the most extreme solution. I lowered the resolution and changed the settings to the lowest possible configuration. It wasn't immediately noticeable, but I couldn't play the game like this. Geralt was washed out. So were the pursuing figures in the nightmare of the Wild Hunt. It mattered not, until I saw Triss again. She was pale, plain. She looked unhealthy. This would not stand, so I immediately closed the game. For the first chapter I thought I had found a work-around. Using medium settings and a reasonably high resolution, Triss was returned to an immaculate state.
How could you ruin a love so beautiful? Try setting the configuration to low.
So now that I finally got to play the game, I engaged in a series of well-directed conversations. I witnessed a siege which almost challenged my improvised software solution. Thankfully, the game still looked a cut above most console releases, and I was happy to delude myself with thoughts of more acquisitions for the substantially cheaper PC platform. Even the epic battle against the Kayran was able to be portrayed with an acceptable frame rate and no shortage of effects.
As the story progressed, though, my faith in the makeshift configuration waned. Firstly, there were issues with a sex scene in an Elven bath and then the unforgivable end to the first chapter — the stuttering mess that was the battle to the barge with character models disappearing or stammering about in an unnatural fashion. Still I persisted, until the battle at Aedirn. So much heat and noise…none of which was created by the game itself. Sacrifices had to be made.
Sacrifices, it would seem, are hard to suffer. Saskia's blank, textureless face. Geralt was once again blank and colourless. Someone needs to optimize this for a console; I don't care which one, it just has to happen. I need to know that what I'm seeing on screen is the best that it can be. I need to know that I don't need to spend upwards of a thousand dollars for the game to be as beautiful as it should be.
Wouldn't console gamers like to see it ported?