As we reported earlier, a nearly defunct public PC assembly company Optimus S.A. was planning to strike a deal with CD Projekt.

CD Projekt spokesperson told us at the time that the company has signed a letter of intent - not an agreement. "In short," the spokesperson explains, "this is a kind of share swap between Polish stock company Optimus S.A. and CD Projekt Investment (which is the holding company owner of CDP Publishing, CDP RED, GOG.com, Metro and Porting House)."

The end result result is that the shareholders of CD Projekt Investment will become the owners of Optimus S.A. "Since Optimus is a stock market company," the spokesperson states, "CD Projekt will in fact go public and have access to all stock instruments. Ultimately, this means money for future development of the whole company."

The deal has gone through. The deal itself is complicated financial operation but the final result is very simple: CD Projekt Investments owns 50% of Optimus shares which in fact means that Optimus is now controlled by CD Projekt . According to game site Gamikaze, the deal is worth 63 million zlotych (US$22.5 million) and CDP will enter the Polish stock market through this agreement. CD Projekt Investments owns 50% of the Optimus shares and have control over Optimus. That means CD Projekt has not been "acquired" by Optimus, a company spokesperson has told Kotaku. CD Projekt has the control over both companies now.

"The transaction fully accomplishes the strategic objectives of CD Projekt," said Adam Kiciński of CDP Investment." First of all, as a company we enter the stock market and that means gaining access to capital. That enables us to continue to grow. We also got instant financing and so we can calmly continue our current operations in the times of the [economic] crisis. And all of that while keeping control of the company, what has been crucial to us. What is worth noting is the fact, that we join forces with the company that (just like us) influenced the shape of the Polish computer market throughout the years."

CD Projekt i Optimus podpisują umowę - Gamikaze - aktualności ze świata gier [Gamikaze]

The watermarks will tell you this is for "internal use", suggesting it was "leaked", but yeah...no. This is meant for you.

[via jtyettis @ NeoGAF]

Originally developed by Cryo, who were purchased by Microids in 2008, MegaRace was one of the games that ushered in the age of the CD Rom. I remember working at a CompUSA around the time the game first came out, and I wouldn't let anyone leave the store with a shiny new CD drive without a copy of MegaRace. It was the 7th Guest of futuristic racing. Don't remember the game? Well now you can pick up it and MegaRace 2 in a bundle via GOG.com for only $5.99.

Other Microids titles heading to the service include Haegemonia: Legion of Iron with the Solon Heritage expansion and Obscure. Both relatively fine titles, but MegaRace is where the excitement lies here. I bet it's held up horribly over the years.

Michal Kicinski and Marcin Iwinski, co-founds of CD Projekt, Poland's largest games distributor - were chosen from a field of 11 of the top entrepreneurs in the country, based on resourcefulness, innovativeness, good management and the measure of worldwide success achieved by the company. Their success was due in no small part to development arm CD Projekt Red's The Witcher, which has one more than 100 awards around the world since release.

Having won on a National level, Kicinski and Iwinski will represent Poland in the world's final competition in Monte Carlo next June.

CD Projekt Wins Big as Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year

Warsaw, Poland – December 5 – CD Projekt announced today that Michal Kicinski and Marcin Iwinski, co-founders of CD Projekt, were named Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of the Year and will represent the nation in the world’s final competition in Monte Carlo next June.

“Entrepreneur of the Year” is an international initiative promoting the best entrepreneurs around the world on an unparalleled scale, with more than 10,000 candidates each year. The contest has been organized annually since 1986 and over 30 countries participate. In the United States, where the competition was born, the Ernst & Young awards are often referred to as the business Oscars. In Poland the contest has been organized for the last six years, drawing more participants each year and consequently fulfilling its mission to present the most valuable examples of business success to the general public.

This year, the special jury supervised by Jan Bielecki, former Polish prime minister and chairman of Pekao SA, chose an elite group of the 11 best entrepreneurs from dozens of worthy candidates. The main criteria used in awarding the prize were resourcefulness, innovativeness, good management and the measure of worldwide success achieved by the company by offering products better than those offered by foreign competitors.

Michal Kicinski and Marcin Iwinski owe their victory and the prestigious title of “Entrepreneurs of the Year” to their success on the computer game market both as publishers – CD Projekt is the largest games distributor in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, with more than 135million PLN (approx. $43 million) annual revenue – and as developers. The Witcher, the first game developed by CD Projekt’s development branch, CD Projekt RED, was a massive success. Developed over five years at a budget of more than $11 million, the game has won more than 100 awards around the world and has sold more than a million copies.

The future is already bright for CD Projekt. The company recently launched a beta version of GOG.com (http://www.gog.com), dedicated to selling classic PC games 100% DRM-free and compatible with modern operating systems, which is earning praise from media and gamers around the world. The company just announced The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf (http://www.thewitcher.com), coming Fall 2009 to Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION3, bringing its top-quality games to an even larger global audience. Two other unannounced titles in development at CD Projekt RED, as well as the multiplatform sci-fi shooter in development at Metropolis Software – another CD Projekt family company – will only further the company’s global presence in the coming years. Jan Krzysztof Bielecki said: “My colleagues from CD Projekt are not only managing a good company but also focus on innovativeness. This is how they fight the monster of recession.”

This year’s competition was extremely tough: among the nominees were representatives from companies much larger than CD Projekt, including Jędrzej Wittchen (founder and owner of Wittchen Sp. z. o.o. company), Bogdan Szewczyk (founder of the Bodzio furniture factory, one of the biggest furniture manufacturers in Poland) and Adam Bogdani (chairman of Otopol Technology S.A., one of the market leaders in manufacturing and selling highly specialised eye-diagnostics equipment).

###

Game designer Jakob Stilinsky says that the console version (for PS3 and 360) will be a little slicker. It'll feature extensive use of motion-capture for the character animations, have better lighting and environmental effects, improved enemy AI and full achievement and trophy support.

Seeing as this game is yet to be officially announced (this obviously being a leaked promo), we've tagged this as rumour until Atari make things a little more official. Just in case there's one person in the world who thought it'd be funny to fake a leaked developer diary for the console port of a Polish PC role-playing game.

[via Eurogamer]

Part of me wants to get this started right now. The other part can almost smell the freshly-printed box scent of the retail version. Decisions, decisions.

The Witcher Enhanced Edition Download Instructions [Official Site]

Consider me intrigued. Also consider me not going anywhere near the service, because I have a buying disorder that doesn't register how many times purchases under $10 occur, leading to some surprising and painful math lessons once the bank statement hits. Slots are still available, so hit the link below to sign up today.

Good Old Games [GOG.com - Thanks to Paul for the Pic!]

You'll have to wait until September - it's currently in beta- but the site's teaser says it'll sell games for $5.99 and $9.99, and promises total DRM freedom:

You won't find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do, so at GOG.com you don't just buy the game, you actually own it. Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and even re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.

Whoa, really? Awesome.

Details after the jump.

Time Travel Invented. GOG.com Brings Good Old Games to the Present

CD Projekt Announces DRM-Free Online Store for Classic PC Games

Warsaw, Poland – July 10, 2008. CD Projekt, best known in the Western world for its award-winning PC RPG, The Witcher, is proud to unveil its invention of time travel. The company sent several representatives to the past and they’ve returned with some amazing findings. Quick to capitalize on the incredible treasures of history, the company is pleased to reveal its newest project, GOG.com. The site, whose name is an acronym for Good Old Games, is a new games-on-demand platform that allows old fogies (and young fogies) to buy some of the best PC games of all time – many of which just can't be found in stores anymore – and play them on modern hardware, completely free of intrusive DRM. GOG.com is poised to become the center of the classic-games universe with a huge community section including forums, user reviews and ratings, as well as insightful commentary and editorials from some of the industry’s most beloved writers. A closed public beta of the site is scheduled for launch on August 1st, and excited old-school gamers can sign up for more info and a chance to enter the beta by visiting GOG.com.

The site makes it tremendously easy for gamers to buy, download and install some of their all-time favorite PC games. The games will be sold for $5.99 or $9.99, are guaranteed to work on Windows Vista and Windows XP systems and are available to download as many times as needed. This is very nice, yes? The DRM-free games, low prices, the site’s ease-of-use and the community are some of the main features that make Good Old Games something more than just another digital distribution outlet.

GOG.com has already lined up agreements with such publishers as Interplay and Codemasters to make their games available on the site. Among the titles those companies are bringing to the site are in-demand classics like Fallout, Freespace 2, Operation Flashpoint: Game of the Year Edition and TOCA Race Driver 3. Negotiations are in progress with several other publishers, with the ultimate goal of GOG.com offering a comprehensive collection of classic PC games from the 80s, 90s and 2000s.

“Our main goal is to create a user-friendly site with the best classic PC games for a price that might be considered impossible to achieve,” said Adam Oldakowski, Managing Director of GOG.com. “The people behind GOG.com are gamers and we all know how difficult it is to find a lot of classic games. So we’ve started building a great games catalogue, gotten rid of the copy protection that gamers hate so much, optimized the games to work on modern operating systems, and made them cheap enough that piracy seems like a rip-off. It’s so easy to buy, download and install a game and then get deeply involved in the community; we’re very confident that gamers will absolutely love the site.”

Okay, so that part about inventing time travel was a lie. Sorry.

Any publishers interested in bringing their titles to GOG.com are encouraged to contact contact@gog.com.

"We are committed to providing a new level of game experience through the use of local game masters, community managers and customer support. For years we have waited for the right MMO game to come along and now it is here, in our hands."

Polish version of Age of Conan coming in second half of 2008

- The highly anticipated MMO scheduled for fully localized Polish release as CD Projekt enters Service Partnership Agreement with Funcom -

Durham, USA - April 24th, 2008 -Funcom and CD Projekt are delighted to announce the signing of a Service Partnership Agreement for a Polish version of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. According to the agreement CD Projekt will fully localize voice and text and operate local customer service, communities, websites and in-game support for Age of Conan in Poland, while Funcom will take care of back-end technology, server infrastructure and continuous development of the game.

"It is with great pleasure and satisfaction that we are announcing this partnership, one that proves to be yet another milestone for our company - releasing the first subscription MMORPG fully localized into Polish." said Michał Kiciński, joint CEO of CD Projekt. "We are committed to providing a new level of game experience through the use of local game masters, community managers and customer support. For years we have waited for the right MMO game to come along and now it is here, in our hands."

"CD Projekt has an impressive track record both as a developer and distributor, and they have done excellent localization and distribution work on other Funcom titles such as The Longest Journey. Escalating our collaboration to a whole new level is something we truly look forward to," said Trond Arne Aas, CEO of Funcom. "We believe a key aspect in making Age of Conan successful around Europe is to work closely with great local partners such as CD Projekt. In many countries it is essential to release in the local language to truly succeed, and Poland is definitively such a territory. CD Projekt is through its agreement with Eidos the chosen partner for retail distribution, sales and marketing in Poland so it's a perfect match. Together we aim to make Age of Conan a great local success."

Age of Conan is consistently mentioned as one of the most anticipated PC games in development. At launch the game will have received more than thirty covers on high-profile gaming magazines across the globe and more than fifteen major awards, including numerous "Best MMO of E3" awards and the official "Best Online Game" award at the Games Convention 2007. Age of Conan is a key title in Microsoft's Games for Windows line-up, and a showcase title for nVidia. Age of Conan launches 20th of May in North America / Oceania and 23rd of May in Europe. The release date in Poland is still to be set.

For more information or to pre-order Age of Conan - either in English, German, French or Spanish - visit the official website at www.ageofconan.com where you also can access the respective community websites.

The Witcher Enhanced Edition Announced

New, Improved and Enhanced Version of 2007 PC RPG of the Year Coming in Late Spring

Warsaw - February 18, 2008. CD Projekt RED is pleased to announce that in May of this year, a new and improved version of The Witcher will appear in stores, a game already considered by many players and media to be the best PC RPG of 2007!

Michał Kiciński, CEO of CD Projekt described the idea behind The Witcher Enhanced Edition: "The leading idea during the development of The Witcher Enhanced Edition is to create a game that is devoid of all of the major criticisms levied at the original release. The Witcher was received very warmly by both players and the media, but we are well aware that it is not a product without its faults. There was just not enough time to perfect certain elements, while we learned that some things needed to be changed from the players themselves. Now we have the opportunity to introduce changes that will allow The Witcher to provide even more enjoyment. I hope that, as a result, the game will come even closer to the ideal RPG."

Maciej Szcześnik, Project Manager at CD Projekt RED, spoke about the content provided in the new edition: "The Witcher Enhanced Edition will be a completely polished product, something rarely found on the PC market. Of course, it would have been best if the original edition could look that way. There were a few ways the original game didn't quite live up to our high expectations, but now we're trying to make up for it. Work is being done on two levels: one concerns the removal of technical obstacles that hinder the player from properly using the game and thus gaining enjoyment from it. Some of those elements include the loading times, which will be reduced by 80%, the stability of the game on different PC configurations, as well as an array of smaller fixes that will increase interactivity and precision in combat. The other level consists of very important changes that are not usually found in patches. First and foremost, the English-language version will, for the most part, be completely re-done. The amount of text in that version was reduced compared to other language versions and that was said to cause a significant decrease in immersion and atmosphere. Now the English version will be as polished and atmospheric as the other language versions. Speaking of other language versions, most of them will be improved in some way. Significant changes will also be made in the German version, where we are planning to re-record the voices for many of the characters. The most important improvements concern those elements of the game that players criticized the most. For example, over 50 new supporting character models will be added, so that the player won't run into the same person too often. The inventory panel will be re-designed and improved, and some elements of the main game screen will be polished. However, one of the biggest changes that will greatly increase the player's immersion in the game world will be improvements concerning dialogue scenes. Both Geralt and non-player characters will get over 100 new animated gestures which will make their body language during conversations much more natural. Additionally, the facial animation and lip-sync system will be re-created, making the faces of the speakers now even more natural, as well. Of course, I've mentioned only the most important changes, and that's still a lot. There will be many smaller changes that will make the game more fun. I'm convinced that, thanks to those changes, The Witcher will almost be the ideal game for fans of PC role-playing."

Adam Kiciński, head of CD Projekt RED spoke about publishing and the availability of The Witcher Enhanced Edition in different parts of the world: "Our goal is to make the Enhanced Edition available to all players all over the world. We are currently negotiating with our publishing partners to confirm availability dates. Our release date in Eastern Europe is May 16, and thanks to the great support from fans, we're confident that we will be able to bring the game to stores around the world on that date, as well. The retail release will be quite important for us, as we're not just improving the game itself, but want to improve how the title is packaged. For example, aside from the game DVD, we are planning to include a DVD with the D'jinii Mod Editor, as well as two additional adventures, a video DVD with extended material detailing the making of the game, a music CD with 29 tracks from the game, a music CD with 15 tracks of music inspired by the game, an 80-page instruction booklet, a 112-page official guide written by the game's developers, and a 50-page short story written by Andrzej Sapkowski. There will also be a map of the game world. As you can see it is quite an elaborate release and it is important to us that fans all over the world be able to buy this version of the game. Especially considering it will not be more expensive than the standard edition of the game! Fans that have already bought the game need not worry, however, because the new content and improvements will be available to them in the form of a downloadable update."

The Witcher Enhanced Edition not only means changes in the game's mechanics or better graphics, however. There's also an included mod editor called D'jinni that allows players to create or modify their own adventures in the world of The Witcher, as well as two completely new adventures created by CD Projekt RED. The first adventure, entitled "The Price of Neutrality," tells the story of Geralt coming back to Kaer Morhen and finding a mysterious camp near the stronghold (3 new quests), while the second one focuses on Geralt's close friend, Dandelion, and his troubles in Vizima City (5 quests).

The Witcher is an RPG about the adventures of Geralt, a professional monster slayer, and was developed by Warsaw, Poland-based CD Projekt RED. The game is based on a new version of the BioWare Aurora Engine, titled Aurora 2007. The story is set in a world created in the books of Andrzej Sapkowski and sold all over the world. The game has already managed to garner worldwide success, having sold over 600,000 copies. It has received more than 45 awards and distinctions, including the prestigious "Best PC RPG of 2007" from IGN.com, Gamespy.com and PC Gamer (see the entire list of awards: http://www.thewitcher.com/community/pl/awards/). The game has also received very high ratings from players from all over the world, which is reflected in the average player-review scores at such sites as Metacritic (9.4/10), GameTrailers (9.1/10) and Gamespot (8.8/10).

The Specs

Since PCs aren't consoles, it's probably a good idea that I show you the recommended specs for the game, along with the system I played on for comparison's sake.

Minimum requirements

* WinXP SP2 / Vista
* Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz or AMD Athlon 64 +2800
* 1 GB RAM (WinXP) / 1536 MB (Vista)
* 128 MB Video RAM w/ DX9 Vertex Shader/ Pixel Shader 2.0 support (NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or ATI Radeon 9800 or better)
* 8.5 GB hard drive space

Recommended requirements

* WinXP SP2 / Vista
* Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz or AMD X2 5600+
* 2 GB RAM
* NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX or ATI Radeon X1950 PRO
* 8.5 GB hard drive space[1]

Once Upon A Time

Geralt is a Witcher, a human mutated into the perfect monster hunting machine. While he died at the end of Sapkowski's series, the beginning of the game finds him alive and well, albeit having completely lost his memory. He is taken to a Wticher stronghold by his compatriots, which is soon attacked by brigands led by a mysterious sorcerer. The mutagens responsible for creating the monster hunters is stolen, and a young recruit is left for dead, sending Geralt on a quest for answers and revenge. I know the concept of an amnesiac RPG hero is tough to wrap your head around, but work with me here.

The world of The Witcher is like a dark, medieval version of our own. You'll find racism, drug use, profanity, rape, murder, jealousy, intrigue, etc. Geralt might as well be starring in a dark fantasy version of Law and Order. He questions witnesses, eliminates suspects, eliminates suspects, jumps to conclusions, makes judgments. The game has all of the hallmarks of a TV crime drama. When you aren't wooing women, crafting potions and explosives, performing escort quests or simply exploring, you're solving crimes. Plot lines are every bit as twisted as a detective show, with suspects becoming allies, and the innocent revealed as extremely guilty.

Decisions, Decisions

From the get go you are presented with decisions that will effect gameplay, but unlike many RPGs, the effects won't be readily apparent. CD Projekt has made sure that you won't be able to quicksave back to change your mind by making your choices matter much later in the game. My choice to kill a group of elves trying to steal weapons early in the game ended up with a major NPC getting arrested several hours of gameplay later. When such events take place your decision is recalled via a painted cutscene, showing the ultimate effect of your actions. Every time such a scene occurs it makes you wonder what would have happened had you chosen another path.

The choices themselves aren't often very clear. There is no real good and evil in this world. Throughout the game you'll find yourself wondering who the real monsters are that Geralt is hunting. In the first chapter alone you deal with brothers killing brothers over jealousy, a soldier who rapes a girl he claims to be in love with, and a priest who allows children to be kidnapped. Are they any less sinister than the evil hounds you find yourself facing throughout this corrupt village? Are you hero or anti-hero? The story is crafted beautifully to the point where I found myself questioning my own motives as it progressed. Brilliant.

The Witcher After Dark

Make no mistake...this is an adult game. Adult language crops up often, and while I've not run into any outright nudity, the sexual innuendo runs rampant throughout the title. Sometimes it's subtle, like an extra bit of emphasis put on the word 'come' in a conversation. Other times the women in the game might as well have hiked up their skirts and painted a target on their privates. Geralt gets a ton of action throughout the course of the story, to the point where sex scenes included a trading card-like picture of the woman he's with against the backdrop of a blurry collage of bodies rubbing together. It got to the point where I went through every dialogue tree when I was speaking with females exhaustively, just in case. I don't get out much.

Swords and Sorcery

The combat in The Witcher is almost a rhythm game, really. In a fight, you initially click your mouse on your target to initiate an attack. At the end of said attack, your cursor changes to a flaming sword, at which point you can click to string together the next attack. Miss, and you leave yourself open to counterattack. As you progress through the game you'll unlock longer combos throughout three different combat styles for each of your two swords - silver for monsters, steel for human monsters. The system is very satisfying when it works, but at times, especially fighting large groups, you'll find yourself on the receiving end of a string of attacks that leaves you unable to fight back. It didn't happen often, but it was quite frustrating when it did.

Magic is also a large part of combat, as a well-timed spell can knock your opponent on their ass, setting them up for a killing blow. Casting spells is simply a matter of right-clicking, while holding the button down can charge spells to make them more potent. Spells are used in and out of combat...for instance, the wind spell you acquire first can be used to clear blocked passageways as well as knocking your opponents off of their feet.

An odd note concerning equipment...early in the game I received two additional weapons - a dagger and an axe. They have stats and everything, but they can't be used with the combat styles, so I have never used them. They look great hanging from my belt though, so I won't complain.

Potions, Poker, and Other Distractions

Alchemy plays a pretty big role in the game depending on the difficulty level you choose at the beginning. On easy, crafting potions and explosives using materials you collect from plants and monsters is almost more of an optional sidequest, but at higher difficulties you'll find you rely on the beneficial effects gained from drinking such concoctions to survive. Personally I found the system a bit unwieldy, but for folks looking to get the most out of the game, mastering alchemy can be a very rewarding indeed.

Along with alchemy, Geralt has a couple other distractions to keep his mind off how much people in this world suck. The poker dice mini-game is entertaining enough, with an accompanying quest that pushes you to find more and more skilled opponents. There is also a fist-fighting side quest, where you use your bare hands to pummel the daylights out of a series of tougher opponents as the game progresses.

Sights and Sounds

The Witcher does an amazing job of creating a living, breathing world. People line the streets of the busy cities and villages you visit, huddling under overhangs during the odd rainstorm and complaining about the weather. Blades of grass rustle as you wander fields and swamps in search of monsters to defeat. The music is definitely a high point in the game, with haunting Celtic melodies giving way to pulse-quickening battle music as your enemies move in for the kill. CD Projekt went to great lengths to immerse you completely in the world of The Witcher, which makes it all the more unfortunate that they spend so much time pulling you out of it.

Loading...Loading....Loading

The game would be perfect if not for this one, glaring flaw. Load times are ridiculous. They aren't so bad when going into a small building or cave, but when you enter a large city...forget about it. The initial village you quest in is particularly horrendous, as the large environment can take minutes to load. At one point exiting one of the houses in town I literally got up, went to my kitchen, made a peanut butter sandwich, came back, and the loading was almost complete. I could understand if I was running a below-spec system, but my computer matches their recommendations exactly. Does it hurt game play? Hell yes it hurts game play. I cannot tell you how many times I stopped playing out of sheer frustration over the wait.

The Final Judgment

I love The Witcher. Well, I love most of The Witcher. The story line, the combat, the characters, the environments...I love just about every aspect of the game. Having said that, I can't play for more than a couple of hours at a time until the load time issues drive me completely insane. It's really tragic that a game with so much replay potential has this one, huge, glaring flaw that makes me want to set it aside rather than go through it again. Perhaps a patch down the road will address the issue, but until then be prepared to wait.

The world of the Witcher differs from other RPG settings in that there is no clear delineation between good and evil. Much like the real world, it is a world of shades of grey, where evil is a matter of perception rather than fact. Though the setting is medieval fantasy, real-world themes are integrated into the story. Instead of having dwarves, elves and humans live in harmony, the humans have take over the other races' lands, forcing them to live on reservations. It's this sort of parallel that differentiates the setting from standard fantasy fare.

The Witcher takes the concept of your choices affecting how the story unfolds to a whole new level. Rather than giving you a choice of actions that immediately changes the way the story is laid out, your decisions can effect the story hours after you make them. Madej illustrated the point by heading to an inn to meet with an NPC who has a quest for him, only to find the NPC laying dead in his room. The game then presented a flashback to a point several hours back in the game where the main character was given a choice between handing over weapons he was guarding to a band of elves or fighting them. Having handed the weapons over, the elves then used them to start raiding human villages, causing the death of this NPC down the line. Now his quest line is gone forever, and there is no quick and dirty way to go back and change the decision you made. The mechanic has the potential to add tremendous replay value to a game already touting 80-100 hours of gameplay. OF course this means I will never have enough time to fully experience the game, but such is the plight of the gaming press.

There are no numeric stats in The Witcher. As you level you are granted abilities in three categories; gold, silver, and bronze. By the time you reach the highest level in the game you will have earned enough points to have purchased 100% of the bronze abilities,30% of the silver and only 10% of the powerful gold abilities, assuring that while every character has the same basic abilities their more powerful traits will separate them, creating even more replyability I will never get to experience. Madej also pointed out that every ability has some sort of physical representation in the game world. One might add an extra, flamboyant attack animation, while another might alter your character's appearance.

At first fighting seems like an overly simply series of mouse clicks, but the system digs a bit deeper than that. There are three fighting styles in the game. Group fighting allows your attacks to hit multiple enemies, heavy fighting attacks your enemies weak spots for massive damage, and quick fighting is perfect for dispatching weak enemies. As you fight, your cursor flashes, and if you click at the right moment you string together flashy combo moves that continue as long as your timing holds up. Very fluid and graceful, the combat animations were some of the best I've seen in a PC RPG. Aside from swordplay you'll also be able to use magic, with each spell consisting of a quick and easy version and a more powerful charged version that can completely decimate your enemies.

The Witcher looks quite spectacular. Powered by a modified version of BioWare's proprietary Aurora Engine, doing away with the tile-based construction of the original version to allow for environments to be created in 3DS Max and then imported into the game, allowing for much richer environments. The motion captured animations are graceful and fluid beyond anything I have seen in a PC RPG. You really cannot tell that this is the engine used in the original Neverwinter Nights.

I'd daresay The Witcher could end up one of the best RPGs of the year when it comes out this fall. When I was shown the game there was a freelance journalist there who said he only had ten minutes worth of time to spare, and Michal Madej assured him that once he saw the game he would stay longer. Thirty minutes later the both of us were still there, enthralled by the world CD Projekt had created. A very good sign.