I have to say that I do. They both start off slow and take a good while to get going, but there seems to be more of the game left once it does get good in this one as opposed to The Witcher 2. I just thought the second one was incredibly short for an RPG.

Perhaps I shouldn't answer this as I've only played the very beginning of the Witcher 2, but from what I saw, I much preferred the first Witcher. I liked the combat better there, and the UI isn't raped to hell and back for consoles. Wish it was possible to mod TW2 so it looked more like TW1.

Speaking as someone who isn't a self-entitled "MASTARACE PC GAMER L33T FUCK CONSOLES", and since I have nothing against consolization of PC games, as long as they're optimized in a decent way, I like The Witcher 2 more than the first one in terms of looks and feels, but that isn't enough to top the writing and the story of the first Witcher. So, yeah, I like The Witcher more than The Witcher 2, though not for the same reasons as practically everyone else.

They play like somewhat different games and I enjoy that, I like some gameplay elements that The Witcher has but The Witcher 2 lacks, and vice-versa, and I can enjoy them both for the things they do differently, but the story of The Witcher had me more engaged and interested, and that makes it the better game of the two, for me, even though I absolutely love The Witcher 2.

I preferred the original game, but not by a huge amount. I can understand people preferring one of them, but I can't understand people who VASTLY prefer one or the other. Anyone who loves one of the Witcher games shouldn't hate the other one.

I am, and you should be too.

That being said, Witcher 2 isn't bad...but it isn't anywhere near as good as the first.

Witcher 1 is longer, more challenging, has more quests, more lore books to read and a bigger supporting cast. It feels "epic" (Though I loathe using that word) whereas Witcher 2 is a 15 hour long action game.

I'm hoping the third game brings back the challenge and the length.

W1 for me was the best, how the story was tell was the strongest point, I finished the game 8-9 times, W2 only 3 times...

I'm, The Witcher 1 is fully designed to be played with mouse and keyboard, The Wither 2 is more oriented to gamepad.

The witcher 1 designed played with mouse an keyboard, but this control with keyboard and mouse is complicated and difficult, the best option is mouse alone.

I liked certain aspects of Witcher 1 more, like for instance doing Witcher's work like the kind seen in the Last Wish was a lot more fun than it was in Witcher 2. Also the medallion was a lot more conspicuous and actually helpful in the Witcher as opposed to 2. In Witcher 2's defense I did like the story itself better, even if I found it painfully short. I also liked some of the redesigns of certain characters better in Witcher 2. Overall, it's a tie in my opinion, but there are several things better in Witcher 1, oh and Witcher 1 allowed you to play with one hand, which was nice.

I think that 1 had the better story, but 2 was the better game.

Each was clearly made with love, but story-wise and quest-wise there were a few too many rough edges in 2. The interface in 2 was also a bit clunky compared to the first game. However, they're the best RPGs to hit the PC in years.

I would have to agree with you. The Witcher will always have a special place in my heart. Undoubtedly, it was one of the best games that I ever played, minus the problems of course.

I love them both but prefer the original. It has more of a crpg feeling, the quests are great (dagon & alina/ celina among my favourites), it is darker and has a lovecraftian atmosphere, the dice minigame was better. And the cards, how can anyone forget the cards! :-P

If that's what they were going for, then they failed miserably. Critiquing something by doing the exact thing without either carrying it to a ludicrous extreme or pointing it out in any way isn't satire or deconstruction, it's just business as usual. It's the difference between engaging in all the tropes that make modern warfare shooters come across as tasteless completely straightfaced and [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spec_Ops:_The_Line]engaging in the same tropes in ways designed to make the player feel uncomfortable with them[/url]. Not once in the Witcher did I see anything resembling critique of how women are treated in games, just more of the same. I mean, I'd sooner buy that Minsc was meant to be a satire of the trope of "ranger and his animal companion", and that's one I'm on the fence about to say the least.

I absolutely love the Witcher 2, but I have to say that the first one really was the better rpg.

The main strength of TW2, when compared to TW1 ist actually the gorgeous visuals, which isn't much of a surprise considering that they are 5 years apart. Almost everything else, I think TW1 does better.

That doesn't mean that TW2 doesn't do it well - the story and the dialogue in TW2 are great, much better than in most of the competition; I love the attention to detail, f.ex how a flock of children gathers behind you when you walk around in Flotsam to comment on You because You're a cool freak carrying two big swords and that kind of stuff. Also, I tip my hat before CD Project for really pulling off that thing with the two completely seperate second acts.

Nevertheless, the first one was really even better in a couple of ways:
The story is better overall, as is the way it's told - I found the depth of the supporting characers especially impressive. In TW2, I sometimes had the impression that character design focuses a bit too much on making the characters VERY tough indeed and thereby often somewhat shallow and exchangeable.

The GUI in TW1 was WAAAY better. Consolization yes or no (I, for one, don't like it at all), the GUI in TW2 is just awfully clunky and unpolished where in TW1 everything was smooth as butter. The map in TW2 looks really cute, but is effectively useless, while the one in TW1 is absolutely clear and also gives You the useful option to put Your own markers on it.

I liked the development system with the bronze, silver and gold talents in TW1 better, I found it more interesting, though this is really a matter of personal preference, I think - the one in TW2 doesn't really leave much to be desired and works just fine.

What I really missed in TW2, though, was the alchemy system of the first - why did they drop that albedo, rubedo, nigredo system? This gave the different ingredients containing the same alchemical component a nice aditional function that gave You additional strategic possibilities.

All in all, apart from the visuals, I thnk that TW2 does everything ALMOST as well as the first one, but just not quite (with the exception of the GUI, which I really hate in TW2...)

EDIT: 2 things I forgot: I liked the combat system in TW1 better (again, personal preference, I think), and I really don't understand why they exchanged the perfectly smooth dice animations for that incredibly awkward "realistic physics" in the TW2 dice game...