Polish developer CD Projekt charmed a lot of PC-playing RPG fans with its first game, The Witcher, and now the studio is using that solid foundation to build the sequel, subtitled Assassins of Kings. The first game used a heavily modified Aurora Engine (from BioWare's Neverwinter Nights series), but The Witcher 2 runs on a new graphical engine of CD Projekt's own design and features a revamped combat system.

At a recent meeting with the developer, I played through one of The Witcher 2's sidequests, which amounted to roughly an hour's worth of gametime. It was enough of an introduction to convince me that if you liked the first game, you'll enjoy the second. There's not a lot of innovation in the sequel, but CD Projekt again proves itself to be a skilled developer of the PC RPG.