W3 "works" and is true to itself. It has a gritty realistic flavor but deftly melds the fantastic with the pitifully mundane and allows them to occupy equally valuable space in its world. A lost shoe in the gutter gets as much notice from me as the textures on a necrophage, and W3 allows an appreciation on so many levels. The high overall quality coupled with the intriguing story would be good enough but the game is beautiful, finding its own style without being cartoonish in any way. One thing I really like is that the game goes right along and will go over your head if you're not a Witcher series nut, and it does so unapologetically. If the player misses the reference, then the player misses it. the games doesn't stoop to hitting the player over the head with a situation until it is obvious. Not only an excellent game with high quality, but a breath of fresh air, surprisingly, in a genre that is well represented by dozens of games.