@deactivated-5849e19d1deb2: I am not happy with the game, either. I prefer real-time combat, though. This is just poorly executed combat.

They gave the player and all of the enemies fast and fluid attacks. The difference is that nearly every time you get hit you are stunned if not knocked completely off of your feet. Every time you hit an enemy they don't even react to the hit. That makes you feel weak and wimpy. None of your attacks are satisfying. Even when you warp-strike to an enemy they don't get stunned for more than a fraction of a second. Since you aren't invincible when you attack and your attacks basically have no effect (except for reducing their health bar) you are better off simply holding the block button. There is no reason to attack if your attacks aren't going to slow the enemies down. So you wait with the block button held down until an enemy uses an attack that can be countered. This isn't exciting either because you were already holding the block button down. No reaction speed required. Then you press the attack button once to deal a respectable amount of counter damage and then resume holding the block button. You don't want to attack because you will simply get knocked off your feet in exchange for dealing normal damage to the enemy. Then you rinse and repeat until the battle ends.

Every single fight is like this. If there are a small number of enemies in a wide enough area you can play around with evading and attacking. But, for the most part you are going to be holding block and waiting for a counter.

Then I fought Coeurl. I died several times to them because they have attacks that hit through blocking which would be fine if rolling was viable. Rolling is not viable because there are several of them and the other ones simply hit you during your roll-recovery frames. They have an instant kill counter if you hit them while they are healing (cheap). Your allies are too stupid to not strike them when they are healing. So, count on them killing themselves. I did beat them, though. I beat them because I paid for food that gave me 90% lighting/fire/ice resistance. Then I mixed quintcast fire-ice magick, stood on a rock and then threw these magick-grenades at them until there was only one left. If I didn't have a rock to stand on and cheap grenades that do entirely too much damage I probably wouldn't have been able to beat them. That isn't fun. That is very lame. I would love for someone to point me to a video of someone beating several coeurl at once without using cheap tactics. But, I don't see that. All I see is a cluster of disorganized football fondling. Players don't even bother not getting hit. They just spam phoenix downs and hi potions and hack and slash until all of the enemies are dead. That is really boring gameplay.

@Pedro There is a difficulty setting. But, unlike Skyrim, you still need timing and tactics in order to win a fight even on the easiest setting in TW3. A group of level 6 drowners still poses a lethal threat to level 10 characters if you haven't bothered to learn the combat because they will swarm you and interrupt your attacks and you will die.

Give me an example of the "higher level ones" and what you mean by "button mash". Maybe you just aren't brain-dead and you can be bothered to press the dodge or roll button at the right time. Furthermore, the level is irrelevant. A level 10 drowner is still a joke because it is still a basic enemy. It isn't meant to be much of a threat. Even when there is a group they are still not much of a threat to someone who is proficient in the combat system. And, it sounds like you are proficient. Since you played the Batman games this doesn't surprise me. Just so you know. You aren't a casual gamer. You just need to realize that every fight isn't supposed to require a monumental amount of effort.

In my experience if I don't attack at the right time I will eat a hit even if my hit connects. That leads to taking unnecessary damage, repairing my equipment more than I need to, and even opening myself up to be hit again. You can easily defeat wolves, drowners, dogs, bandits, and other basic enemies like that. However, I have simply pressed the light attack button over and over and drowners and wolves will usually dodge and not let you just hack them all the way to zero life (assuming you don't have the necessary damage output to kill them in one or two hits). Have you actually fought a cockatrice or something like that? Guess what? The basic enemies are easy because they are basic enemies. I don't understand why you think every enemy should give you a fight for your life. Some enemies are easy and some are hard. There are more easy enemies than hard enemies. This shouldn't be such a difficult thing for you to understand.

There is literally no forced auto-lock. You have refrained from holding the direction you want to attack so the auto-lock takes over. Your fault, not the game. If you can't figure out how to press the sprint button in order to close the distance with the enemy you want then I can't really help you. I assume since you played the Batman games it shouldn't be so difficult for you to understand how to use the controls in this game. Oh, also, maybe you can't get to the ranger in the back because you can't move through enemies? Maybe they are blocking your path? Otherwise I attribute you problem to not pressing the sprint button. You can disable and enable the lock with no compromise. I don't even understand what you want. The game lets you do everything you want to do. It just seems you don't know what buttons to press in order to make that happen. You can't cheese your way through combat. It is easy to beat basic enemies. It is not so easy to defeat the more dangerous enemies. I have said that three times so I hope you will retain that bit of information. Gear does make it easier. I didn't say it doesn't. I said that if you are incapable of becoming proficient in the combat system you will still lose. It isn't like Skyrim where lower level enemies are a joke and you can just tank hit after hit while you mindlessly tap away.

I don't use the lock on feature either. I know how to press the move button in the direction of the enemy I want to attack. I'm sorry that doesn't work out for you. The hard lock doesn't work on tougher enemies because this game doesn't want to hold your hand the whole time like other games do. You would realize the complexity of the combat if you were able to figure out how to use it. So far you have demonstrated that you don't know how to attack in the direction you want to attack and you don't know how to sprint around enemies. So, I ask you to consider that you might not have a firm enough grasp on the combat in order for you to pass judgement.

This game is not a real life simulator, true. Like most games, compromises have been made. But, how is real life boring? If you were put on a battlefield you would not be bored. Also, it isn't an all or nothing thing. Just because the people who made the game decided to make some unrealistic design decisions doesn't mean they can't make any realistic design decisions. Believe it or not, people can make games how they want and if you don't like them you should not play them. This argument of yours is the only thing that isn't logical. 'But, these things are unrealistic so they can't put anything realistic in the game at all. You can't break the game making rules like that.' There are no rules, but there are time and budget constraints. They chose to produce what they did. But, where they faltered they more than made up for in the major portions of the game (combat and quests).

Well, a tank can rotate on the spot, but I get your meaning. His mobility is limited in order to make combat a little less teleporty and a little more realistic. But, it is not optimized for exploration at all. I dislike how if I fall ten feet (or sometimes on staircases) I will fall and take 1/3 to 1/2 of my life in damage. I have been spoiled by the free-running in Assassin's Creed. I also have problems looting. It gets pretty frustrating at times. But, the reason why I am willing to overlook these faults is because I have a blast fighting and questing in this game. Skyrim bores me to tears in combat but thankfully has good quests. But, I want both and I am willing to accept slightly buggy exploration to be absolutely enthralled by the combat and quests in TW3 (which is the vast majority of the game in an RPG).

Wait. You can't even lock on to a bear? Okay. You don't even know how to use the controls. Thanks for wasting our time.

@Pedro A casual gamer would not enjoy the Witcher because the combat demands a fair amount of timing and tactics in order to win fights. You have to fight in order to progress. There are other games that don't require good timing or tactics in order to progress, like Skyrim. You just have to be able to equip better gear and press one or both of your hand buttons. In the Witcher you will definitely lose even if you have good gear without adequate timing and tactics. So, anyone who is not willing to invest the time needed to become proficient at combat in the Witcher (i.e. casual gamers) won't enjoy it.

The controls are not poor in the Witcher. If you press towards the enemy you want to attack and press the light or heavy attack button Geralt attacks that enemy. This is exactly like the Batman games you referenced. It is true that if you don't choose a direction, the auto-lock picks for you. But, that is obviously better than standing there swinging your sword at nothing. Furthermore, you can actually lock onto a specific enemy if you choose. So, you really don't have an excuse anymore. You just need to practice in order to become proficient enough to enjoy the combat.

What everyone doesn't seem to understand is that Geralt actually has somewhat realistic movement. Geralt has to move into position to attack, recover from swings, and close the distance if you pressed the attack button when you were a little too far away from the target. In Batman or Assassin's Creed your character just instantly interrupts whatever animation they are doing and completely reverses their momentum and nearly teleport in the opposite direction like the Flash every time you change your mind. You can't actually do that if you fight in real life. All the Witcher does is make you take into account how long it takes to pivot, swing, recover, and reposition. You have to pay attention to your relative position and which direction you are facing. I understand this makes you less powerful. That is why people don't like it. They just want to tell their character to wreck face and see their character do it. Many people don't want to have to learn a combat system in order to defeat their enemies and progress through story. Again, that is fine. But, that doesn't make the Witcher bad. It just isn't for you.

Skyrim is for casual gamers. The Witcher is for people who enjoy a challenge.

Skyrim has boring combat. The Witcher has good combat.

They both have good quests and stories. I personally favor the Witcher in this category because choices hit harder and are more controversial. Many of the outcomes are harder to predict, too. The Witcher is just more compelling overall because it isn't hamstrung by having to appeal to a wider audience.

The character customization in Skyrim is obviously great. The Witcher has no character customization other than how you wish to assign skill points. But, I don't see how this adds to the experience because your character is just a vessel used to enjoy the story. The game is almost imperceptibly affected by choosing a different race or sex.

Winner: Witcher. For the fun combat and great story.

I understand what you are saying about injuries. But I think it would be perfectly acceptable if there was a recovery time between missions (or some other significant point in the story) where you could have reasonably recovered. Because if you were in a survival game and broke your leg... it would be pretty intense trying to actually get out of there (or do whatever you had to do) with a broken leg. Now since a broken leg would considerably up the difficulty for that task... it would proabably result in you dying or getting a game over in some way. OR, if you found a way to do it anyway you can brag about it to your friends. If the former occurs then you will just restart at the last checkpoint (or whatever) before you broke your leg. So it would be about as permanent as dying is in video games. Not that horrible.

1) A real wound/health system. Meaning if you break your leg... it stays broke until you take a cast off.

2) A realistic form of character/skill/ability progression. Meaning... you practiced close combat/shooting/magic/driving so you are better at THAT now... not, "I killed 3,472 EXP worth of enemies so I level up and can do more damage...and stuff."

3) Action/Adventure/Combat mechanics in multiplayer games. Devil May Cry Online!!! Castlevania MMO!!! Aren't you tired of, "You missed!" WTF!!! I'm standing right next to him and I am a F*CKING WARRIOR!!!?!?!?!?! As a matter of fact if Devil May Cry, Castlevania, Soul Calibur/Tekken, and an FPS MMO all had a love child I would play that game until I died.

Well it is simple...which was the first next gen console released? The 360.

Was its main competitor cheaper or the same price? No.

Did more people want to wait to pay more for next gen games or not? They wanted their next gen now! (for less money to boot)

So simple economics shows why the 360 has so many followers. I'm sure if the PS3 was released at the same time for the same price it would be doing much better.

So in the light of those facts... Multi-plats and just about everything else is going to the 360. Obviously, people want to play with their friends and/or the most people possible. The more people means that there is more competition= more exciting= more diversity et cetera.

Finally, I am really frustrated when people choose sales figures, multi-plat game sales, and because of the last two things online players to judge the system war. That really isn't "fair" at all.

The 360 came out early and bugged to the point that their systems would fail. That is unacceptable. No one would be happy at all about their brand new car breaking down for no reason other than bad quality.

So I deem this topic moot. It doesn't mean anything. If you own a 360 of course you aren't going to buy a ps3 game (duh?). And I already showed why more people have 360s. So of course the multi-plats are going to be bought more on the 360. But, all that means is that more people bought 360s. It doesn't mean anything else. Bottom line... end of story.