The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine

DB

11 minutes ago

3 min read

A fine, fairy-tale ending for the world's greatest monster hunter.

Geralt breaks the fourth wall to praise his closest ally, the player - from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine

Here's what I've been watching and playing over the last seven days...

MOVIES

The Hunt for Red October

Still a great film although I think I'd marginally give Crimson Tide the edge over it as a submarine-based movie, and it's still mind-blowing that John McTiernan did this as a follow-up to Die Hard, which followed Predator - what a run of movies!

And I've only just realised I've never written about The Hunt for Red October before... I will correct that next week!

Wait, I've not written about Predator either? Re-watch and review incoming!

GAMES

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine

Story summary: Geralt travels to Toussaint to investigate murders linked to a mysterious vampire, uncovering a conflict based on a long-buried personal betrayal.

I have to say that I don't see what the fuss is about when it comes to the Blood and Wine expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Yes, Toussaint is a very pretty new area and quite possibly the best the game ever looks at any point - and yes, it all sounds very nice too, including the voice acting which remains exemplary.

On the other hand, too many of the side-quests feel very ordinary and as if they were added to bump up the numbers; Roach is even harder to control with loads more narrow roads, paths and bridges*; and most of the new monsters added are pretty shit to fight.

*This is before the Remastered version was released and Roach apparently handles better now, so this criticism may change.

What won't change is how many of the side-quests, while not bad, certainly don't match The Witcher 3's reputation for these missions being of high quality.

And the new monsters are just fucking terrible - get ready for constant knockbacks, stunlocks, being swarmed, creatures that constantly back away, can trap you in place, turn invisible or any number of these combined.

It's not that these new monsters are a serious threat, as my Geralt is pretty much unkillable at this point and can kill most of them in 2-3 hits, but they're irritating, annoying and frustrating to fight, with them often spamming abilities to stop you getting close enough to kill them quickly.

And it's a real shame that the gameplay side of things, which was never what The Witcher 3 excelled at in the first place, really drags things down for me because I really liked the central story of Blood and Wine.

I really like how it starts, before growing into something much larger, and introduces multiple characters who are now among my favourites in the series and have got me asking for the books for my birthday so I can spend more time with them!

Don't get me wrong, it's not close to as good as Hearts of Stone and the affairs of Olgierd Von Everec and Gaunter O'Dimm, but it's still highly enjoyable pretty much from start to finish.

It has a really sweet ending too, with Geralt finally finding a place to call his own and hang up his swords - it's a lot more fun decorating and upgrading his estate than fighting the new monsters at least!

Blood and Wine is a very good, but not great, addition to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt experience, with some really entertaining characters and a strong central story let down by some so-so side-quests and aggravating enemies. [7/10]

TV

I've finished the third season of The Americans and will be writing about that next week.

Also, bingeing The Americans like this has made me decide to not do so in the future - I'll instead alternate between at least two different series to give each season some breathing room.

At least The Americans is a good enough TV show to 'force' myself to watch without a break for any other shows.