Magnificent story, quests, graphics, music and stellar combat...held back by a clunky camera and interface.
If I had reviewed it then, when I was still working my way through the prologue and first chapter, I would have given The Witcher a 9, or even a 9.5...but as I progressed into chapter two, the things I considered minor annoyances grew to become major pains in the butt. Some of it can be patched (and in fact is announced in the upcoming 1.2 patch), and some of it will likely be patched in future...but it's enough that right now, me enjoyment of this great game has fround to a very, very sudden halt.
It's not the game itself; the story so far is really compelling, and although some of the dialogue is a little...weird (you've no doubt read about the F-bombs in the game), most of it is spot-on, and well acted. Geralt especially has, for the most part, just the right mix of "Yeah, I'm a badass" and "Yeah, I'm THE badass" in his voice. It's not the story, it's not the truly beautiful music or the really FUN combat or the well-conceived alchemy component of the game.
Nope, my gripes are (in this order); Interface and Camera. Someone should have told the developers, CDProject, that it's ok to keep *some* elements of other RPGs, especially when they work. The game's hotbar runs along the left side of the screen, top to bottom. It works, it's not too complicated...it's just not in the right place for me, and it means I have to look away from what's going on onscreen to make sure I have, in fact, selected the right weapon and the right combat stance. Although the manual says there are 3 potion slots for hotkey access, I have only found one...and having to pause the game, open the inventory, right click a potion and then close all that and resume the game is a pain. And the inventory, oh the inventory.....
It's too small. Things don't stay where you put them. It doesn't autosort. And friends, for a game that has such a vast selection of items- food, drink, alchemy components and other odds and ends- that's a big, big, HUGE problem. Dragging an item from storage (you can leave things you don't want to carry around with you with the local Inkeeper, who acts as a sort of bank) and dropping it into the bottom part of my inventory, which I had decided was my "food" section, only to see it move up into the top of the inventory- just because that's where the first free slot was -becomes a pain. The same goes for the Innkeeper; you can drop something in the bottom part of the storage area, but everything just snaps upwards into the first available slot, making the whole inventory/storage system a big, disorganized mess. It's looking like this will be patched in the next patch, but right now, the endless hunt-and-peck really hurts the game.
The camera? For the most part, it works; it's not customizable, so you have to settle for 3 different 3rd person views; close-up "over the shoulder", which looks great but doesn't really work well at all in combat...or 2 variations of "from above and behind", each a little further up and behind. Again, they work....but not fluidly or cleanly enough for me to be happy. If you happen to be attacked form behind, you have to move the camera by putting the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen in order to turn; the W-A-S-D keys are used to move Geralt Forward/Back/and *strafe*, not turn. I tried finding a way to reassign this in the Control options, but came away with nothing.
The end result is that I find myself spending, literally, just as much time in the inventory screen and futzing with the camera as I do fighting, questing, and moving. Once both issues are patched- and I am sure they will be -I'm positive that I'll be spending weeks and weeks playing this game. It's well-written, beautiful to look at, deep, and I love the characters and music. It's F-U-N....except that it's hard to actually *get* to that fun when I have to keep nudging the screen left and right so I can take a swipe at the stupid Drowner who came up behind me.
EDIT: I just came across another problem which I had not experienced yet, but which I read about on The Witcher's offical boards. During a fight in the city of Vizima (hey, I was attacked by a Ghoul!!!!) I received the "help" of a half-dozen NPCs...without asking for it. Unfortunately, I hit one of them during the fight. Well, he..his buddies...and every guard and even the Knights of the Order in the city then proceeded to hunt me down and kill me. I don't know if that's a bug but I'm hoping it is, because if not it's just really awful game design. I'd been running around just reading notice boards and advertisements..so there's an hour of gameplay wasted. Sadly, it just sours my opinion of the game even more.