Well, that escalated quickly.

I got nothing against The Witcher's setting. It's pretty solid, realistic and crude. We're not getting thrown titties at our face at every possible second in a pretty juvenile way (Metro: Last Light), or watching a massive amount of gore and torture just for the sake of morbidity (God of War.) Geralt doesn't fucks every single biped with tits that crosses his path, only the very few ones who doesn't have a racist grudge against him, people he helps and wish to "reward" him, and people he treated nicely. Pretty realistic in a Medieval setting where sex didn't become a Tabú between Humans because of any archaic ideology where sex is just for breeding purposes.
Then the Feminazis came bashing it all, stating that women are treated as sluts and CDP apparently gave up and decided to change it all. No more sex with random women, at least not Human ones. To pour salt into the wound, they decided to make a sort of Easter-egg with Malena, "joking" how these kind of encounters would end irl.

There are quite a lot of irregularities with the videogames and the books.
There's the Triss, who carried a scar in her chest since the battle of Sodden Hill which would prevent her from wearing a low-cut dress for the rest of her life. In the first two games, she never wore such a dress, but she doesn't have the scar either. In The Witcher 3, CDP just doesn't cares anymore and decided to give her a low-cut dress. Because sex sells now.
There's White Rayla, whose face and body got completely disfigured after the war with Nilfgaard. Compared to the description of the novels, Rayla is a a beauty on the videogames.
There's finally Adda, the striga-princess. When Geralt lifts her curse, she's described as being an ugly red-headed woman. She was nothing special and, mentally, she was going to be a baby. Physically, she became far too beautiful on the videogames. Mentally, it was unlikely that she could become a decent Human being in such a short lapse, but not impossible. With the love and care that Foltest gave to her child, his resources and her age, she could have learned to speak the common tongue and learn the basics of politics, etiquette, etc. on 5-6 years (this was long before the second war with Nilfgaard). She didn't have mental issues, she was just inexperienced as a Human being.

Story-wise, the only complains I got are that Yennefer and Ciri didn't have major roles in the games. The writers didn't even care to mention them properly. I also complain how we got Triss shoved at us in every game.
In The Witcher, Yennefer is vaguely mentioned; they never mention her name, just that Geralt was in love of a sorceress. Ciri was just mentioned once by the inkeeper at Murky Waters, who resumed her story.
In The Witcher 2, Yennefer had a more important but still ridiculous minor role. Ciri got mentioned ONCE on a flashback.
Both of them are now appearing on The Witcher 3, the finale of the trilogy. Their role is going to be extremely small in the whole franchise and both of them were the most important characters on the novels.

I agree. It's not a nice place but it's not supposed to be a nice place, and Garrett doesn't bang any more women than a rock star or a professional athlete does in the real world. And he actually seems to like the ladies he has sex with. He's not contemptuous of them.

If I had superhuman senses and reflexes, and I lived a life of danger, and women found me irresistible, and I was sterile and immune to disease, I'd undoubtedly be having lots and lots of sex too. I don't see the problem.

Geralt isn't particularly shy about waving his sword in the books either, although he is in love with Yennefer. I thought this was pretty well-done in the Witcher 1. It fits the atmosphere quite well, and Geralt's personality and special 'circumstance'.

I've yet to play much of Witcher 2, but I didn't like the direction they brought the gameplay, and the signs of consolitis. Apparently the combat was influenced by Batman, but I thought it was fine in the first game, and it offered lots of good finishing moves and diverse combat. I got bored with the intro in all honesty, and started to play the first game again instead.

Exactly. Women who have "rewarded" Geralt have met him as the rare, kind and complicated person he is, not as the murderous freak everyone says he is or the racist d'hoine who kills non-humans with a passion.
Being Geralt, with all the pros of a witcher, of course you would take advantage of it. You got nothing to lose, and a lot to win.
Being one of these ladies, you would definitely want to get laid with that man. A kind, sterile, immune-to-diseases man who has 100s of years of "experience" in the subject, who also got a super-human physique, is not an opportunity you get every day. Same situation: nothing to lose, but quite a lot to win.

Their relation was pretty unique, but also strange. Both of them loved each other, but most of the time they dismissed the idea of living together and having a normal relation. They lived separately, having affairs with other people. But always thinking in each other.
It was a really good love story imo.

If only it ended being as fantastic as Batman...
I honestly don't know what they intended to do for The Witcher 2. Maybe they tried to modernize the series and at the end it backfired. Maybe they just wanted to appeal to console players with a ridiculous AI, terrible combat mechanics and a whole new story and setting. Maybe they were more experienced in developing for keyboard+mouse controls rather than developing for controllers. Maybe they had economical problems and tried to make a quick buck without becoming EA or Ubisoft.
I don't know. What I do know is that they got a lot of work to do for The Witcher 3.

If we're going to address how Geralt treats women as opposed to the writers, then what about Abigail? She honestly thinks that Geralt is going to hand her over to the crazy villagers so that they can burn her alive, and offers to have sex with him to convince him otherwise. That's not a "reward", that's a desperate woman offering herself to help make sure she doesn't die; it's so insanely close to rape (I'd argue that it is, myself) that Geralt, at least from what I can gather from having read The Last Wish, and his Chandler-esque ideals should be disgusted at the thought, and yet the game allows him to take her up on the offer. Fucking someone who is in a position where they believe that their life is dependent on doing so isn't being kind, it's downright callous when considering the person's motives indicate they aren't necessarily doing this because the idea of sex even remotely appeals to them but because they believe they have no other choice.

Wait, really? The dice physics allowed the dice to leave the box? That's a rather baffling oversight.
Again, the problem isn't that Geralt has a lot of sex, as I noted above, and I agree with you that the setting isn't supposed to be a nice place. The problem is (again, as mentioned above in more detail) the romance card mechanic incentivized a "scoring" mindset about sex wherein the partner is reduced to a conquest as opposed to a thinking feeling individual, and that a character was reinvented for the sole discernible purpose of the player being able to "romance" them without squicking them over taking advantage of a mentally retarded person. The sexist bullshit that offends is, for the most part, not done by Geralt in game, but pervades the game's mechanics and character design by way of the writers and designers.

I'm more for Witcher 1 to Witcher 2, due the controls and lesser measure the history, being the first the main reason I'm going to wait too much before buying the last part. Though, is funny how the people from PC are very angry by the "console" controls meanwhile the consoles people are angry with the PC controls.

Geralt is a son of "#$%
Yep, its happens, and only to the player, the A.I. will never got so bad luck.

You know, a thought occurs. If this is a problem with your dice physics, then either (1) ditch the idea of physics and just show the randomized results, or (2) use the perfectly good dice physics from the last bloody game. Why they didn't do either, particularly the latter, is beyond me.

Abigail wasn't offering herself to be raped. She was trying to bribe Geralt using the best resource women have to bribe men: sex.
If anyone gets raped in that situation, I think it would be Geralt. If you choose to share intimacy with Abigail and then save her, when Geralt meets her on Murky Waters you realize Geralt did it because he felt attracted her, not only sexually, but also emotionally. It remains clear that it wasn't just sex for Geralt; Abigail plays with his feelings to save herself.
You mentioned The Last Wish. Remember Snow Whi... ehem, Renfri? She does the same thing. She explains her situation to Geralt, trying to convince him to choose to aid her, to make him think she was the lesser evil. Then she acts like if a seizure struck her to look like the innocent, poor suffering soul, and then she fucks Geralt to brainwash him further.

This is how you realize Geralt isn't just a beast looking for a hole to stick his sword. He has sex with women who want to have sex with him. Women want to have sex with him because he's a nice, pragmatic person, or because he can be a valuable asset. And because he's a witcher. If there's any true asshole to women in the lore, it would be Dandelion. He's the one having the "scoring" mindset. He doesn't give a single fuck about the women he hurts by treating them like sexual objects.
I remember that, in The Witcher, sometimes one of the AI's dice fell out of the table while throwing. Weird as it is, it counted. Probably the players looked what number fell on the floor and picked it up as it was, keeping one eye on the dice table. Just like one would do it irl. It's a shame that wasn't implemented on The Witcher 2.

Oh, man, you haven't tried dice poker in TW2 yet, I gather. It's horrible. You actually have to roll the dice using controls that are intentionally clumsy. If you don't throw them hard enough, they just land flat in the box without falling over, but if you throw them slightly too hard they bounce out of the box and don't count. The box is 3D now, and it's tilted at a really strange angle.

Even though it's not all that significant to the story as a whole, I'd probably rank dice poker number one in my list of dumb things about TW2 simply because there was absolutely no reason to change it. They "fixed" something that wasn't broken, and now it's broken.

"To me, the sexiest videogame in the world is one with no sex, no nudity and no romanceable NPCs."

SNIPP! And SNIPP, again!



"Either the writers have absolutely no clue how to write a character who is appealing to women"...

As a witcher 2 NPC says: "Women prefer ugly men to groomed dandies, and you are ugly something mighty".

Now let's have a look at real life. That beautiful French actress with the French prime minister, anyone??
Or Silvio Berlusconi.



"Years ago, when I was pregnant with twins, I was bored, nauseous and full of hormones."

Beware that something mighty, dear. That time of the month or any other situation that brings overflowing of hormones, can cause even up to schizophrenia like symptoms, if left unchecked. Another type of issues, dammnit. This is neither sexist, nor a joke; psychologists and doctors can confirm.



Finally, as a poster there said, miss Fiona, "Very funny post, and thanks for making sure I don’t waste my money on this!". Kudos to that person and honesty as a consumer! Take it, or leave it. Just don't pretend or assume your tiny daily mind is superior to that of a professional artist or writer, just because your hormones are flaring. Or nag enough to have the damned thing watered down. Now, kindly please, return to playing barbie, the doll house, and *MY little pony*. Especially the latter. Its cute, playful, adorable, and *fits anywhere*. Comes in the color *pink*, too. (and this is the one and only joke here, but a little difficult to get)

Sadly, I expected this type of response. You really should read the series, it not only points out a lot of the problems but also highlights some of the successes, which may surprise you (the writer is favorable towards the sexual encounters with Morenn and the Lady of the Lake, for example).

Or, I suppose, you could just mock women and make a bunch of sexist jokes instead. I'm sure no one will think less of you for that.

Yeesh, I just read it, and... you know, at least with Abigail, there was the choice to not have sex with her in a scenario where it's not exactly clear that the offer for sex is truly consensual, but with the vampires, your choices are literally fuck or kill. When you have a choice between dying and having sex with someone, that's not conducive to consent, and without consent, the ensuing act is rape. I'd get it if this were being done by a scummy side character, but this is Geralt, who draws a lot of inspiration from Philip Marlowe; if there was one thing that defined Marlowe, and Geralt by extent, it's that no matter while he might get involved in all sorts of awful crap, he has a few noble ideals that he adheres to at all costs, and that includes not having sex with someone who is offering it to shield themselves, especially if they thought they were in danger of dying if they didn't put out.

Just an inquiry. This whole discussion about Sexuality on The Witcher games has drifted away the main point of this post: to discuss which Witcher game is better. Should we create another post for this subject? Or is it alright to keep writing here?

I honestly don't know who rapes who there. That entire scenario was messed up. Resumed, it was:
Night Mother: "You got 2 options. Either you fuck with us and share some of your blood, or we kill you."
Me: "Wat"

To make things worse, you can betray them afterwards, or do nothing, which is as bad or worse. So what was the point of choosing the fuck option in the first place? To live? Because the other option is to fight unprepared against 4 higher vampires without any sort of negotiation. In reality, Geralt wouldn't stand a chance in that situation. He couldn't even defeat a single Bruxa on the short story A grain of Truth

I don't know if the writers decided to make the vampires look like evil rapists, or to make Geralt look like an idiot who knows that he could get away of these kind of situations if he negotiates, but forgets it whenever he is offered an option to unsheathe his "sword".

I still hold my opinion about Abigail, though. She could have drugged Geralt and then killed the entire village with whatever she was brewing if she feared so much that he would "betray" her. Could have made sense, since she knew the village hated her and that Geralt was treating with these SOBs. Just a high dose of a strong hallucinogen like Black Gull and she had all the necessary time to end her plan.
But again, for reasons I can't fathom, the writers decided to make that Abigail's grand plan of survival was to fuck Geralt to change his mind.
"Abigail, I've been drawn to you from the start."
"Abigail, remember our time at the cave?"

It doesn't feel right for the player, the invisible spectator, to make that choice. And it's not. But for a variant of Geralt, who feels himself attracted more than physically to Abigail, up to the point of forgetting why she's offering herself, there's nothing wrong with it. At least, on his mind.