Best game ever?
I want to first point out that I'm not a fanboy ("yea, sure", you may be thinking) and I am aware that the game has numerous issues still unadressed, like the absolutely awful character Pop-in, which I have been trying to get fixed since day 1. Still, I have started a new playthrough to celebrate B&W (and to finally play HoS as well, which I have been postponing until both expansions have been released) and realized that there has never been another game (except MMOs) I managed to clock almost 200 hours into. I have come across statements in the reviews of numerous games claiming 200 hours of gameplay, but I have always completed said games in 80-ish hours, exploring everything. Yet, I have almost 200 hours in TW3, made up of one and a half walkthrough.
I started thinking, and trying to be as objective as possible, given my love for the series, and I came to the conclusion that TW3 is quite poissibly the best single game I have ever played, during my 20 years in the hobby. Sure, I hate pigeonholing games by unjustly compressing them into a single score, disregarding genre specific characteristics, and ranking them, but stay with me. Graphically, TW3 is - again, I think - unmatched by anything I have seen on PC. Dying Light comes close, and probably surpasses TW3 in terms of sheer fidelity and photorealism, but the atmosphere and the map is just amazing here.
The music is fine as well, there are some absolutely great cues, although I'm not a great fan of the combat music with the female chanting. I never ever listen to cinema/game music outside of the associated product, as it takes away the atmosphere imo, but I did listen to TW3 music a few times.
The characters and the story are flawless, I'm not sure what else I could say. The combat is solid, although I admit I could use a difficulty that actually forces the player to make use of the dozens of different decoctions and potions. Even Death March is piss easy just spamming quen and dodging, so all those resources, bombs, oils, they just feel somewhat pointless every now and then. Other than that, the gameplay is perfect, pacing is great, there are loads of stuff to explore, and loot. My only gripe with the game is the XP system, early quests are extremely (and I mean EXTREMELY) easy to outlevel, and getting 8 xp for a quest at level 5 is rather disappointing, even though the story still incentivizes you to do these as well.
Is there anyone who thinks that all in all, TW3 would be their no. 1 game ever if they had to choose?
I want to first point out that I'm not a fanboy ("yea, sure", you may be thinking) and I am aware that the game has numerous issues still unadressed, like the absolutely awful character Pop-in, which I have been trying to get fixed since day 1. Still, I have started a new playthrough to celebrate B&W (and to finally play HoS as well, which I have been postponing until both expansions have been released) and realized that there has never been another game (except MMOs) I managed to clock almost 200 hours into. I have come across statements in the reviews of numerous games claiming 200 hours of gameplay, but I have always completed said games in 80-ish hours, exploring everything. Yet, I have almost 200 hours in TW3, made up of one and a half walkthrough.
I started thinking, and trying to be as objective as possible, given my love for the series, and I came to the conclusion that TW3 is quite poissibly the best single game I have ever played, during my 20 years in the hobby. Sure, I hate pigeonholing games by unjustly compressing them into a single score, disregarding genre specific characteristics, and ranking them, but stay with me. Graphically, TW3 is - again, I think - unmatched by anything I have seen on PC. Dying Light comes close, and probably surpasses TW3 in terms of sheer fidelity and photorealism, but the atmosphere and the map is just amazing here.
The music is fine as well, there are some absolutely great cues, although I'm not a great fan of the combat music with the female chanting. I never ever listen to cinema/game music outside of the associated product, as it takes away the atmosphere imo, but I did listen to TW3 music a few times.
The characters and the story are flawless, I'm not sure what else I could say. The combat is solid, although I admit I could use a difficulty that actually forces the player to make use of the dozens of different decoctions and potions. Even Death March is piss easy just spamming quen and dodging, so all those resources, bombs, oils, they just feel somewhat pointless every now and then. Other than that, the gameplay is perfect, pacing is great, there are loads of stuff to explore, and loot. My only gripe with the game is the XP system, early quests are extremely (and I mean EXTREMELY) easy to outlevel, and getting 8 xp for a quest at level 5 is rather disappointing, even though the story still incentivizes you to do these as well.
Is there anyone who thinks that all in all, TW3 would be their no. 1 game ever if they had to choose?