10 Amazing Games (With ABYSMAL Combat)

5. The Witcher

When discussing the combat in CD Projekt's 2007 RPG, it's hard to get past critic Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's description of the average battle - "You fight enemies by clicking on them once, and then if you're really advanced, clicking on them again".

Depressingly, that explanation isn't as reductive as it sounds. This writer's main memory of the combat involves the climactic battle against Azar Javed, the mage Geralt spends the majority of the game tracking down. Azar's demise came not at the hands of any brilliant strategy or outrageous feat of dexterity, but as the result of the left mouse button being monotonously clicked by an increasingly bored player. And thus ended the life of Azar Javed - a ruthless, bloodthirsty murderer reduced to the status of a particularly persistent pop-up ad.

However, much like Mass Effect before it The Witcher's writers ensured Geralt's maiden video game voyage was a largely successful one. While grimdark fantasies are ten-a-penny in these post Game of Thrones days, back in 2007 The Witcher's grimy, unpleasant world was, ironically, a breath of fresh air. Quests seldom had wholly happy endings, and heavy topics like racism were discussed with an eye-opening level of frankness that simply didn't exist back then.

Subsequent Witcher games would go on to improve the combat and further refine the writing to create one of the best trilogies in gaming, but it all started with one exceptionally rough diamond.