Geralt Of Rivia, where have you been all my life?

The Witcher was always a curiosity for me, I am a fan of both medieval lore and literature and the RPG's inspired by said subject. So when I heard of a PC RPG inspired by a series of Polish fantasy novels featuring a monster slaying superman, my attention was well and truly caught.
Close inspection of reviews in the gaming press revealed that the The Witcher was a rushed, flawed experienced. Alas, another opportunity passed up.

Then came The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, a generously bulky update from the developers to fix the flaws of the original game. This edition recently became available on yet another gargantuan Steam sale (god bless you Valve) and I finally decided to make the purchase.

I emerged 55 hours later dazed, groggy and overcome with a sudden urge to consume copious amounts of mead and attempt to bed the wife of my local innkeeper.
The Witcher is a wonderful game made up of several key elements of quality design.
A brilliant and engaging storyline mixes old school RPG archetypes with some sly modern day subtext, racial inequality and women's rights going hand in hand with evil mages and swamp monsters.
The updated version of the Neverwinter Nights engine is visually impressive even in this generation of graphics cards and the motion captured battle animations are satisfyingly brutal, chaining attacks together using one of the three witcher styles is fun and addictive.
Music is exemplary, many of the themes (present on the OST that comes with the enhanced edition) staying with you long after play has ceased.
Elsewhere, some clever gameplay quirks like the alchemy system, a nuanced upgrade tree and a brilliant mechanic that manages to work getting drunk off your ass into both character interaction and combat.

In the centre of it all is Geralt, surely one of the RPG universe's great leading men. Blessed with some hilariously salty dialogue ("absofuckinglutely beautiful" is his reaction to beingn thrown in jail) and the ability to bed every major female character in the vast empire of Temeria (no in-engine nudity but a porny tarot card is more than enough to sate the flesh fans), Geralt is the sardonic force driving The Witcher and I will personally be welcoming him with open arms when the much anticipated sequel arrives early next year.