Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)

The Witcher 3 is one of my all time favorite RPGs and among my all time favorite games. Cyberpunk 2077 definitely follows that tradition and is a memorably good RPG. The variety of quests, the choices available to players and the ways they adjust the story, the general story, and the options for growth all varied from awesome to pretty cool. I wouldn't put it on greatest ever list but it certainly belongs on some really, really good lists.

The protagonist suffers through a story straight out of Greek tragedy. Ambition becomes his doom as he proves just one more sacrifice in a world where nearly all human life serves corporate greed. Along the way, there are romances to make and people to save or not save, alliances to build and friends to lose. The vision of the future is fairly well-developed. This is no doubt down to CDPR's use of an established IP, a decision that no doubt helped The Witcher series' success.

There were moments of frustration. Some of the boss battles got maddening. Especially the Oda boss fight after meeting Hanako at the parade. That one almost made me rage quit.

I had it on GOG so I couldn't play it on my Deck. That was fine except that my fairly nice laptop completely died about halfway through the game. I pulled a junky old laptop and was actually able to finish the game on that. It wasn't perfect and loading times were absurd but it was surprisingly playable.

Before Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red was not on my radar. I’d heard of The Witcher 2, but it was an Xbox game when I was solely on PlayStation. They built up some good will with me during their Witcher 3 run and so I was interested in Cyberpunk 2077. Of course, this game has a well-known reputation of being a buggy mess, with CDPR abandoning support for the PS4 version of the game. Though I’d heard they were still supporting the PS5 version, so this game was on my list of PS5 games to play.

The first thing that struck me about Cyberpunk was how radically different it felt from the Witcher games. It’s not bad that they’re different, it just really stuck out to me. Like when I think of different series developed by the same studios, there’s usually a lot of similarities between them. For Bethesda: Elder Scrolls plays like Fallout plays like Starfield or with Ubisoft: Assassin’s Creed is similar to Ghost Recon is similar to Watch Dogs is similar to Far Cry. Playing through Cyberpunk, there were several times I had to remember this was from the Witcher developers, because I noticed no DNA shared between the two, gameplaywise at least.

Cyberpunk is played from a first-person perspective with a focus on gunplay. The shooting feels responsive, and the combat is varied. While I played as a rifleman, you can also build a character who specializes in melee weapons. There are some combat encounters where your best tactic is finding cover and popping out from behind it to hit baddies, sometimes you have to be mobile and play it like a movement shooter. While there are a lot of mobility options, like double jumps, slides, dashes, I found the controls to be awkward. The dash button is also the crouch button, so any dash included crouching and uncrouching. It made dashing around during fights less appealing. As long as you upgrade your guns and gear as you progress, most enemies are easy enough to dispatch, only taking two or three headshots from a pistol to drop. The boss enemies are the only time the game gets bullet spongy with its baddies. These are also usually the most mobile enemies, so trying to dodge around their heavy hitting attacks runs afoul of the awkward dash controls.

There’s an extensive upgrade tree and cyberware modifications used to buff your character’s stats. The upgrade tree is a fairly standard RPG fare. There’re upgrades that just bump up stats, others that add skills. Nothing that radically changes how you play, just improves upon previous skills. The cyberware mods are where you can get some unique abilities. Again, some are just stat boosts, but you can also buy gear that lets you heal automatically mid fight or jump 3 stories high. Cyberware is also how you increase your armor rating. Clothing is entirely cosmetic in Cyberpunk, instead you buy cyber skin enhancements. I do like games that let you play dress up with your characters without worrying about stats. It lets everyone’s end game characters look different.

To travel around the world of Night City, the game has vehicles. You are allowed to drive in either 1st or 3rd person. The car controls are a spot where CDPR’s inexperience in this setting shows. A lot of the cars are very floaty on corners and the brakes seem a bit soft. Trying to whip around a corner often had my car drifting into a light pole or side of a building. Maybe they were going for a realistic style of driving, but I felt more annoyed by the constant smacking into walls or spinning around trying to turn. I found the heavier cars to be easier to drive, while the sporty cars often drifted all over the road. The poor car controls were often the reason I had to flee the cops. I had a bad habit of drifting through a turn and hitting a cop car or pedestrian. The wanted system is the standard 5 levels of escalation that a lot of games use. Luckily, I never got it above a two star and the chase timer is short, so there’s not minutes spent waiting in alleys for the cops to give up.

By this time, a lot of the bugs that plagued Cyberpunk’s launch seem to have been ironed out. I only noticed one or two glitched NPCs. The game did crash on me a few times, but luckily the save system is generous. While not a glitch/bug, one thing I did notice that was a bit immersion breaking, is when you call in your car, it pops in behind you, which that’s fine, it’s an old video game trick, but it doesn’t pop in at street level. Instead, it spawns 15 ft in the air and crashes down onto the road. It’s a little goofy and does mean your car usually starts with a little bit of damage.

Much like the Northern Regions of the Witcher 3, Night City is a sprawling map you can explore. CDPR did a good job creating a city that was vast, but not annoyingly large. Night City’s roads are winding and twisty with futuristic skyscrapers overhead. I have found city centric open worlds lose their luster fairly quick. It’s a lot of similar streets with similar looking buildings with the only unique buildings in the city being used for one-off story missions, then locked up forever. Cyberpunk does a good job of giving you more unique buildings you can explore and drive by. While many are only used for main missions or side missions, there’s other world spaces that are always available, like mega apartment buildings, stores, clubs, etc. Even the more generic buildings pop a little more thanks to a coat of Cyberpunk paint. And there’s an expansive area outside of city limits to explore. You drive through the acres of garbage that surround Nighty City until you finally hit the desert wasteland. There’s no small towns to explore here, just small pockets of scavengers, a few farms, and a hotel. Exploring the badlands were a nice break from the bustle of Night City. There is a nice vibe of Night City though, I loved riding shotgun or taking the city’s metro system just to watch the city pass by. And there’s a variety of radio channels that play various techno, lo-fi, and rock music, with the jazz music channel being an outlier.

I will admit, Cyberpunk as a genre was something I never really got into. The genre tends to be “edgy” and I generally prefer games set in the past. When I do go for sci-fi, I tend to go for the space exploring kind. Had 2077 not been developed by CDPR, I’d’ve probably given it a pass, like the Deus Ex series. 2077 is based off the Cyberpunk TTRPG, which has a distinct style. It may have been the originator of the term ‘cyberpunk’, as the world is a mix of dystopian future and punk fashion circa the 1990s. CDPR does a good job imitating that look in the design. There’s lots of those bright, garish colors on buildings and clothes. Everyone wears high top sneakers and pants with too many belts and chains on them. Japanese culture permeates everything in Night City, including cars based off 90s era exotics street racers. Everyone uses goofy street lingo, like “gonk” or “choom”, that, to me, felt very 90s. I hummed the song every time I walked by a Tom's Diner. But the world doesn’t feel outdated. There’s still enough ‘new’ mixed in with the design to make the world unique. Technology is both futuristic and charmingly retro. Arcade cabinets are still popular, but people also watch movies in their minds. And there’s the overriding themes of corporate greed and rampant capitalism. Everywhere you go is plastered with adverts and TV screens, from your own apartment to doctor’s offices, or temples.

This game shows CDPR can still excel at developing interesting characters, even when they don’t have novels worth of pre-established characters to pull from. Though a lot of the characters in Cyberpunk follow familiar archetypes. You play a V, an upcoming Night City merc. In this world hiring a merc is as easy as buying a pizza. During character creation you can pick V’s backstory, was he a street kid who joined a gang, a corporate ladder climber, or a nomad smuggling goods out in the wastes. I went with the Nomad background for my playthrough. Leaving the Nomad life, you become friends with Jackie Wells in Night City. Jackie is a character that quickly endeared himself to me. Guy who loves life and wants to make it big. The comradery between V & Jackie felt natural. Your ripperdoc, the guy who installs cyberware, Viktor Vector is an old boxer who uses tough love & is the closest we have to a father figure for V. Each district in the city has a “fixer” that assigns V gigs. They are minor characters, but they do get used throughout the main story. It was neat to see these characters, that in most games are just quest givers, used in the main plot. It makes the city feel more connected and real.

Some of the early characters you meet are either passively hostile, like Rogue & Judy, though they both warm up to you later on, or only tolerate V as far as he’s useful to them, like Dex or Takemura. When I was introduced to Panam & the Alecaldo Nomads it waas a refreshing moment in the story. They were one of the few factions that felt like they were honest folks who were being straight with V and not trying to use him. The Alecaldos, and most nomads, are the descendants of farmers & other rural folks, so I’m already predisposed to like them. You’ve got Panam, the tomboy with a temper, & Mitch, who's the grumpy old uncle that’d take a bullet for you. I did notice some of Panam’s more expository lines were a bit awkward and wordy. It was the one time I noticed the writing felt a bit amateurish. I romanced Panam, because, well, I don’t need to explain myself. Romance is more than just a couple missions and a sex scene. Throughout the rest of the game, your love interest will text you randomly to either ask advice, just check in, or do a little sexting. And people will occasionally bring up your partner in conversations.

Of course, the biggest draw in the character department is Johnny Silverhand, voiced by Keanu Reeves. He is V’s devil on his shoulder. His character fills the typical role of a handholder, giving you objectives during a mission, but that’s not what Silverhand is interested in. He has his own agenda, so it’s not always in your best interest to blindly follow his advice. It’s a twist on the typical gaming formula. It led to me accidentally letting Takemura die. Silverhand was a rock activist who was popular in the underground scene. He is very much the stereotypical rocker: loud music, fast women, & mixing drugs with tequila. As you spend more time with Johnny, he does become your bro and evaluates his life and the mistakes he’s made. Hiring a big name celebrity for your video game is definitely a gamble. I recall most celebrities in games give phoned-in performances at best. Reeves is fairly flat through most of the game, but that’s also kinda Keanu’s style, so I don’t know if it’s bad or a choice. He does seem to be trying and is featured heavily throughout the game, this isn’t a Matthew Perry in New Vegas situation where he’s only in a few scenes. Overall, I’d say Keanu does a fine job.

There’s also a lot of side quests in Cyberpunk. There are gigs, which 75% of those are simple “go here, do X” tasks, but a few have small story beats to them. The real side quests are side jobs. These can be one off quests, or whole quest chains that range from thought-provoking to goofy. Most of the goofier quests are used for cameos from internet personalities. I recognized one of them as a podcaster I listen to. Even the goofier aspects of this world are not immersion breaking. That’s one thing I disliked about the GTA games, which also satirize capitalism and America. The satire is very juvenile and quests end with cynical twists in GTA V. If Rockstar did Cyberpunk, I’d expect the Arasaka logo to look like a dick. Cyberpunk has humor, but they play it much closer to the chest and I think it comes off much better. There’s also a lot of references in this game that I wasn’t expecting, you can drive around in a futuristic General Lee, reenact the Hidetoshi Yakuza surgeon bit, and find the three seashells. A lot of the poses in photo modes are meme recreations.

There were several quests where I had to take a moment afterwards to decompress or just be in the moment. On the more bittersweet end, finishing Judy’s last side quest, so spoilers, sees us talking about life on the dock of a small lake while drinking coffee in the morning. She was baring her soul, there was melancholic guitar music, and the lake was bathed in the sunlight of dawn. After that conversation, I just took a moment to walk down the dirt road, take in everything. It felt wrong to just speed off to start blasting bad guys. Panam has a mission where you camp out for the night and as you sit around the campfire, she snuggles in and makes a bad pun about Big Dipper. It was a real moment among this sci-fi world. On the other end of side quests that made me feel uncomfortable, was the Sinnerman quest. Here you help a death row inmate who’s a born-again Christian. He’s decided he wants to be crucified as a way to proselytize his faith. A film producer wants to film it as a bit of Christ-ploitation. During the quest, there is a question on whether the convict is doing this for his faith or for his fame. The quest string ends with V attending the crucifixion. I’m a backsliding Christian at best, but even I felt hinky watching him being nailed to the cross. It’s staged so well, that it’s one of the first times in a long time I felt legitimately uncomfortable while gaming. I sat the controller down for a bit after that.

Now to the main story, so major spoilers from here on. It kicks off with V & Jackie being hired by Dex, a famous fixer who's back in town, for a risky job stealing a brain chip from the CEO of a major corporation. It’s established quickly that V is streetwise & levelheaded, which makes it odd he goes through with this job. From jump street, this whole heist is throwing up red flags. I can only imagine V isn’t being as critical about this job because he’s buying in a little to the fact that this could be the job that makes him. The heist ends up going fairly well, until V & Jackie witness the Arasaka CEO being killed by his son. During the escape, Jackie ends up dying and V sticks the brain chip in his head. Dex shoots V and dumps him in a junkyard, but the brain chip saves his life and saddles him with the virtual ghost of Johnny Silverhand, similar to the Joker in Arkham Knight. It makes sense to have a loud personality like Johnny, especially if you try to play V as a paragon. Johnny is always there to tempt you into the renegade options. It would be a lot less interesting if it was the ghost of an office clerk or fry cook. The only other character type I could see working would be a cutthroat corporate executive.

The main quest from there is finding a way to get Johnny out of your head before he slowly takes over your body. There’re a few options you can chase down, but each one cements the fact there’s not much hope for V. Luckily, Cyberpunk felt like a much shorter game than The Witcher 3. It hits that sweet spot in terms of length. As the story progresses, V becomes more ill as the chip kills off his body, and Johnny takes control more often to do what he wants. Finally, we learn that Johnny’s ex, Alt, invented the chip in our head and the ‘antidote’ to it and she now lives as an AI in cyberspace. Arasaka uses it to make copies of people that can be uploaded into chips to allow them to be ‘immortal’. I do find it odd why the CEO of Arasaka chose to make their first prototype chip using Silverhand’s personality. Silverhand was a middlingly famous rocker who was totally anti-Arasaka. We have to break into Arasaka tower where they are storing the program that can split Johnny from our psyche. How you get to the tower is determined by who you accept help from. You can get in good with the daughter of the late Arasaka CEO, join up with Johnny’s old merc group, or ask help from the Alecaldos. I chose the third option, and we get a nice moment where we spend the night at the Alecaldos camp, the calm before the storm. V gets inducted into the family and have some more of those little moments to catch up with everyone, including Panam. The following morning, the whole clan rides out to break into the tower.

At the end of this journey, we are faced with a choice. Between V & Johnny, one has to go into cyberspace with Alt while the other goes back into V’s body. Beforehand, Johnny promised to leave V’s body. But we learn that because Johnny’s programing has corrupted V’s body so much, if V goes back, Alt only gives him 6 months to live, at most. Johnny insists we stick with the plan. It’s a hard moment for V, giving up his life to live forever in cyberspace. I found the choice easier to make. In the end, Johnny isn’t really Johnny, he’s more a computer program of Johnny’s personality. Even with his terminal illness, I decided to send V back to the real world. The game ends with V, Panam, and the surviving Aldecaldos leaving Night City, heading to Arizona, their home turf. You leave town with Panam, a slow jazz tune on the radio as you both reflect on your time in Night City, the sunsetting on the skyline. It’s a nice epilogue that wraps the game up with a bittersweet note. The ending didn’t hit on the whole “6 months to live” thing as hard as I expected. I was expecting a Red Dead 2 type of ending where V didn’t make it out of the game alive. Glad that isn’t what happened though.

The big theme I got from Cyberpunk’s story was freedom and fresh starts. Johnny wants a chance to leave his virtual prison and make amends for his former ways. V has given up on his dream of being a Night City legend and wants to get out before the city eats him alive. Judy tries to help Night City’s downtrodden only to have it backfire on her, so she leaves town to do some traveling and soul searching. In the end, V is able to find that freedom with the Aldecaldos. It is interesting that I played Star Wars Outlaws before this where the theme was commitment to a cause and running from your problems isn’t freedom, the opposite of Cyberpunk’s themes.

All in all, as someone who isn’t super into the cyberpunk genre, I enjoyed my time in Cyberpunk 2077. The gameplay is solid with a lot of options in approaching situations and good RPG systems. The story kept me engaged through its run, the world of Night City felt connected, and the characters were all distinct. The quieter moments are the ones I’m more likely to remember when thinking back on my time with this game. I am interested in checking out the Phantom Liberty DLC & I do hope CD Projekt Red isn’t totally put off on doing another Cyberpunk game. If you are someone into cyberpunk or CDPR’s work, I can recommend this game for whatever price it’s going for now.

NB: I played the game before the big update and DLC.

Playtime: 114 hours (cleared map, nomad and solo ending)

Intro

CP77 is an open world first person role-playing game, which is my favourite genre. You explore Night City and its surroundings, do quests, kill stuff, level up, etc.

The game takes place in the Cyberpunk universe, which was established in 1988. It's the post-apocalpyse, corporations have more power than the state, everyone has robot parts, and everything is neon.

The story involves you being an up-and-coming criminal who does a job that goes sideways. You end up with edgelord Keanu Reeves in your head, a fate worse than death. The rest of the game involves you trying to get rid of him.

The Good

• Hacking enemies is so much fun.
• Lots of places to go, people to kill (unlike, say, GTA 5).
• Everything looks really cool, the city, the carts, et cetera.
• Some of the characters are well done.
• Generally there are multiple solutions for problems.
• Nice epilogues.
• The solo ending is actually challenging and you can't save. Normally i hate the latter but i really enjoyed this ending.

The Bad

• The city has too many overpasses and other restrictive roads.
• Looting and selling takes up too much time.
• Forced vehicle sections.
• You can't turn off or destroy the radios that are freaking everywhere.
• Some skills (like Athetlics) are annoying to level.
• The city feels impersonal and just something you drive through rather than live in.

The Ugly

• Johhny Silverhand is one of the most obnoxious characters in a video game ever. A tryhard edgelord played by Keanu Reeves, who would be out-acted by a piece of cardboard. Oh wow, you are a rockstar who drinks, does drugs, smashes things and has sex? You're so cool... to 12-year-old boys.
• Hacking minigames don't belong in open world games. They suck in Fallout. They suck in Deus Ex. They suck here. I used Cyber Engine Tweaks to set the relevant skill to max and it vastly improved the game.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed CP77, especially after cheating a bit and developing a reflex to hit mute the moment i saw Keanu. It has its flaws, but overall it's very enjoyable to play. The core gameplay -hacking, sneaking, shooting- is just really really solid. And despite Keanu's worst efforts, the story is pretty decent too.

I'm not sure why i only gave this 4 stars a year ago, but it's been so long now that i'm sticking to that. With the game-changing update and DLC it will probably go up to 5. I hope.

I've seen footage of the game's darkest endings, and for my first two playthroughs I chose The Star simply because I wanted the happiest.

Temperance was hair-raising good. But aside from that, it seems like every time I play Cyberpunk I discover something I hadn't before, or just have fun doing whatever. It's become one of my favorite combat games: it not only encourages difference, but makes altering combat modalities accessible and satisfying, which is extremely rare in a world filled with RPGs whose options for expanding a player's combat repertoire are either convoluted or barren. As a decision-driven RPG, I'm countlessly amazed by how intertwined all of my decisions seem to be. This game also has one of the best ensembles I've encountered. Just so many characters it's a blast to get to know.

It feels weird praising a game that, in 2020, it was unthinkable to me that I would ever try. Now it's become something I can see myself routinely replaying, and even if I'm not, there's clips I'll get a hankering to watch on Youtube, or reactions and articles and essays I'll want to read. I can't get enough of it.

To be honest, I am writing this review from the perspective of someone who did not play Cyberpunk on release and I am going to be adding in Phantom Liberty's experience too rather than just the base game.

Frankly when people were getting excited about Phantom Liberty I wondered why? The game was a broken mess, it failed, and some of the earlier reviews do reflect that. Even before launch I actually was tentatively hopeful but felt that it likely was going to have a ton of issues and it did. So that, plus lacking the specs to play it, meant I really didn't care especially after the release botched.

When the anime Cyberpunk Edgerunners finally dropped however, I started getting more interested in it again. The CP 2020 RPG always looked cool, I always loved Sci Fi and Cyberpunk settings and with a really good anime in Edgerunners my interest came back. When Phantom Liberty dropped, got good reviews, and the fact I now had the specs to play it I decided to pull the trigger on a sale and play it.

And yeah, it was very very much worth it. When this game is cinematic you really feel it. The graphics and presentation nail the big mega city vibe better than any gaming media out there.

The writing is probably the biggest surprise for me. I hadn't played a CD Project game until this one (need to finish the Witcher novels before I check that out) however, this is up there as one of the best written RPGs I have personally played.

So many notable quests, especially from Phantom Liberty. they had interesting responses and choices and the ending itself felt very satisfying. The criticism does come from the fact I wish there were more substantive side quests. I didn't mind doing the small time gigs. Some were good though others were just fodder. Phantom Liberty's were much better. Still because of how good the writing is you wanted more of those quality side quests or main quests. There is still a lot of substantive stuff though. And the game is not short though at least. I did almost everything and as a result I got a 70 hour clock with Phantom Liberty.

The combat was fun and twitchy. Of course, it would have been nice to have more varied cybernetic powers and weapons but the actual combat still was a lot of fun. I wouldn't say it's that difficult (played on hard) but there were a few challenging segments and the cyber psychos do offer some unique fights. Sound design and music was really good. The OST stands out. Some radio songs aren't great but others were fantastic and introduced me to other bands.

Ultimately is this game perfect? No, it has jank, even still, there is obvious stuff that could be missing especially to make the world more vibrant. But when it executes stuff well it executes it better than I have ever seen in a video game. In that way it's a lot like some of my other favorites in the RPG genre (Fallout New Vegas or KOTOR II). Hopefully with time 2077 will lend itself to better memories from the horrific release it had.

I don't think gaming fans should give Red a pass. Bad business practices need criticism. When the sequel comes out I still will not be buying on day one lol. That said I think skeptics of CP 2077 should give it a chance and while I don't expect perfection, I do think if Red is able to better manage the production of CP 2077's sequel, with a better frame of reference they may be able to get pretty close to it, eventually at least lol.

A story about us humans, a story about what drives us and what kills us.

All kidding aside. From the beginning i was very excited for this game and a good story. It was actually very nice , me, trying to finish the campaign several times on a beta game. And now, after all this time, i really had my patience with this one, really took some time to dig deeper into the whole universe and i must say. Well done. I really like how V is created as a character. His journey as a whole. How well Night City is created. The politics behind. Character progression is changed 180 and now it has a new vibe to it. I've had a totally different experience with Cyberpunk 2077 after 2.0 with Phantom Liberty. I really enjoyed the story, the message they wanted to put out there. Never got board with any missions ( side, gigs). Much of what is inside the Cyberpunk universe, happens today in our lives. Never thought that most of this game is a chase between being rational and being present with your emotions and not giving in to your illusions. There is so much truth going on inside the universe it is scary that a universe like this is possible. Every mission, text shard, if you take the time and analyze them within the universe, you will see something different. 10/10

I'll admit I've come around a lot on this game. the gameplay still isn't GREAT or super innovative or anything, but it plays well enough and slicing and dicing enemies with katanas is genuinely fun. the options that netrunning gives you are super interesting to tinker with too - getting whole swathes of enemies to commit suicide or blow up their own grenades in their hands is the exact level of brutality a cyberpunk game needs.

there's of course stuff that doesn't really work. the police, gangs, and fixers feel completely underbaked, the stealth system is laughable, and like I've said before, all of the gameplay does feel a little deus ex human revolution-y at times. even with that, though, there's still a certain level of fun of impressing the fixers, of sneaking around elaborate compounds by hacking cameras and doing a little netrunning.

the actual core of the story is pretty great and imo lives up to the heights of TW3, and there are interesting things being said about mortality, identity and all that fun stuff. does a good job at pulling apart johnny silverhand's failed "revolution", too, uncovering the pathology behind his politics. the less good stuff is obviously the weird fascination with Japan and Japanese culture, which feels like a bizarre 80s holdover. japan's bubble economy burst, like, ages ago. this shit isn't interesting anymore.

the arasaka family drama is more compelling, however, and is a story we only exist on the periphery of, even when we literally meet with hanako and assault arasaka tower itself. we are truly just the little guy, after all.

their writers are also still very adept at getting us to care about all the side characters, from silverhand himself to fan favorites judy alvarez and panam palmer to the bit players like blue moon and sandra dorsett.

V is enough of a character that I'm always sad to let them go at the end of the story. it's simple, yet affecting that no matter how strong we get, no matter how many allies we collect or enemies we slaughter, V is basically terminal and there's nothing that can be done. we have to say goodbye. alt's recitation of a poem to V at the very, very end could come off as hokey but really works for me.

I'd put this to the side cause when the game came out all the stuff going on in the world with COVID-19 set a pretty heavy tone (and a fucking plague and contested election is dystopian enough, aye?) and TBH i play video games to access stuff I don't want to experience in real life. So, let me start out by saying "CYBERPUNK IS A WARNING NOT A MANUAL." Alright now, lets get to it and have some fun. I've played Witcher 1 and so I can't really compare it to Witcher 3 but I can see clear RPG influence in the game. The game is very very fluid and fast combat and plays like a looter shooter and I was really relived this was the case because I fear it would be super gimmicky and janky ans it's not. The only bad thing about the combat is that enemies are bullet sponges, there are mods that can disable that but it didn't really both me. (Everyone is augmented killer cyborg so it takes multiple hits to put the baddies down, big deal)

The best thing in this game is the weird and goofy universe. There are a lot of small details everywhere which make it fun to explore. Meaningless Lights on the inside and outsides of cars. Rear view mirrors replaced with something that look like cameras or scopes. 101 Different Junk Food type items of the dark and dangerous future, Comical slang lexicons inspired by well known cyberpunk table top games (they really did this right lol) Tons of clothes and stuff you can wear to look cool, with outfit presets. This game is basically dystopian GTA IV, with a kind of darker much more sardonic, tone deaf sense of humor in the dialogue. The game doesn't try to be funny. What is funny (or was to me) was Keanu's character (is this even a spoiler? Doesn't everyone under the sun know he's in this game) Cause like, if you've seen his other movies like Johnny Mnemonic, Matrix, or the other films, you're gonna have a certain expectation, and for me anyway, the role here is a nice twist going in a different direction from what i'd expect. Some people didn't like that, but i did, lol. Maybe it's because Cyberpunk isn't supposed to be a happy place, but a hopeless place.

However, this game doesn't really convey a sense of hopelessness (Unlike GTA V which did little else than that for me) because it's actually pretty easy to stay out of trouble most of the time. If you are a slow, methodical and explore everything by the time you get to the end you will be Max Level easily.

In the end it's a fun game where everything feels like a toy. I felt like a kid in a candy store every time i pick up a new gun or steal a new car or meet some new person or whatever. It has some hang-ups and hiccups (there are still some minor technical issues i had as of v1.6 which were actually solvable but I didn't know how/what to do, such as disabling vignette and sharpening in game and letting Nvidia do it, or the weird light flashing thing when loading new parts of the map) that definitely warrant it to not be a five star game no matter how much hun you think this might be.

There are also some really questionable and annoying design issues and mechanics... For one the upgrade system is super confusing and it actually CHANGED over time so different guide say different things depending on what you read.. This is something that can be fixed by mods affected levelled loot.

Consumables are junk and dumb and don't really serve a purpose other than filter and that shocked me a bit because they were always so important in the witcher.

buying cars and apartments is a waste of money and serves no purpose. and in game economy is so broken... you will pay like 20+ hours of in game money on a weapon once or twice maybe and get some implants and that's about it. Money serves no real purpose in the game and you just loot and craft everything (or i did)

Doing just light testing of all the weapons, some firearms also seem to be of questionable design. I have no idea why you'd ever use an assault rifle in this game over a heavy machine gun (which is basically a faster shooting, higher DPS assault rifle with a bigger magazine) the DPS is never better than other options. same is true with lots of pistols, or certain model of ANY type of weapon (such as knives for instance)

cyberware and augmentations are pretty cool overall and very OP and worthwhile to spend the money on, but i'm torn between them making me feel too powerful and also annoyed I'm limited in weird ways because implants go in specific slots (I can only use certain implants or a cyberdeck for hacking for whatever reason) Some of it makes some sense in a Deus Ex kinda way (leg slots = jump higher or double jump, arm slots = sword arms or gun arms) but some kinda don't and forcing you to choose and make you pay to install/uninstall is annoying, yep.

In the end its a dystopian GTA, and way different tone that I found much less irritating than GTA V. side quests/filler is actually all pretty good (maybe the best third person game i've played in the sense i almost found almost everything worth exploring and doing just for the sake of doing) i'm actually replaying it again as off/on pick up and play with mods now and going for a different origin/character/ending.

definitely would recommend But C2077 is just like cyberpunk itself: perfection wasn't promised and should not be expected. Here's to hoping my computer doesn't melt or something from some kind of Faustian Bargain.

Itse en oikein missään vaiheessa ollut hypännyt hypejunaan mukaan, enkä ollut erityisemmin seurannut ennakkouutisointia pelin ominaisuuksista tai mistään muustakaan.

Lähdin peliin melkolailla sokkona, joten ensimmäisten tuntien aikana pelin omat termit ja eri osapuolten nimet aiheuttivat informaatioähkyä. Pikkuhiljaa peli kuitenkin rupesi avautumaan ja lopulta rakastuin maailmaan, hahmoihin, päätarinaan, ja muutamaan pitempään side questikaareen.

Pelattavuus oli sanalla sanoen hauskaa ja mitään hirveän suuria pelikokemukseen vaikuttavia bugeja minulla ei tullut vastaan. Pelissä oli tiettyjä ongelmia ja kummallisuuksia, mutta itse katsoin niitä läpi sormien, kun peli oli muuten vain niin loistava.

Sääli, että liian moni on jättänyt mediamylläkän takia tämän pelin pelaamatta. Se ei välttämättä ole ihan sitä mitä Witcher 3:sen jälkeen olisi voinut CDPR:ltä odottaa, mutta se ei todellakaan tee siitä huonoa peliä. Itselleni peli totisesti oli niiden 9-10 arvostelujen arvoinen ja omakin tähtiarvostelu kertoo siitä.

Aloitin peliä PS4 Prolla ja uuden PC:n hankittuani pelasin alusta loppuun pelin sillä. PS4 Prollakaan kokemus ei missään nimessä ollut huono, mutta kyllä tämä tehokkaalla PC:llä avautui vielä upeampana.

5/5 Erinomainen

Cyberpunk was a little bit underwhelming experience for the amount of hype that surrounded it all these years. The game's problem is far more than just the technical aspects (which is still bad, the glitches are way too many). It's not a great game at all, a good one at best.

The combat is so average. The enemies AI is terrible, glitched and sometimes doesn't even work. I caught them a lot of time standing still behind a cover doing nothing, just waiting to be shot. It makes the gun fights a shooting gallery. The shooting itself is good and fun, the weapons are fun to use, but it doesn't matter without good enemies to face.

Driving is atrocious. Cars feel like they're running on ice or soap !

The RPG elements is so underwhelming and very lacking. Most dialogues feel like they'll end with the same conclusions regardless of your choices, and choices that affect the ending only appear just before the ending. Otherwise what affects the ending is the side missions you have done and they only just open alternative endings, nothing more. How you build your character is also pretty lacking. Never felt like the skill tree affected my playstyle this much and I was able to use most weapons without a big deal. Melee combat is atrocious, and the armor is just you looking for the highest numbers to equip and nothing more.

The Cyberware is a fun idea but I honestly barely even used it and didn't feel a big need to. They add some nice tweaks to your jumping, armor or attacks but nothing groundbreaking.

The open world is just your very generic open world. A big, empty map with several icons for side missions and gigs spread on it and some shops and that's about it. No interaction and no sense of wanting to explore it on your own to find some interesting things. Nothing ! It's a far worse open world than the one CDPR designed in The Witcher 3.

I have to say though, the main story was quite entertaining to follow and most of the characters were fun, but that's about it. It's also quite short, takes about 18 hours to finish. Most of the game is spent on side quests involving side characters and gigs. These are fun and all, but I was surprised by the length of the main story.

The technical aspect is still a mess, too many glitches everywhere. Too freaking many. The frame rates were mostly stable though, but serious drops in frames happened whenever I went to Nomad lands outside the city. I had one crash, but nothing more. The glitches and bugs are the main problem though, and I had to reload last checkpoints a lot of time thanks to them.

Overall this is just a decent/good game that I can rate 6/10 at best and nothing more. A lot of potential but it's completely thrown away. Pretty shame really.

Story : 8/10

Gameplay : 5/10.

Graphics : 8/10

Performance : 3/10.

Voice acting : 8/10.

Overall : 6/10

Before I say anything else, let me get out of the way the fact that I’m playing on a fairly high-end PC (Ryzen 3800x and GTX 3070), and likely as a result have not seen the myriad performance issues and bugs that seem to plague the console versions and older PC hardware. For me the game has been remarkably bug free, with only the occasional physics and clipping bugs almost every open world game has. Cars spawning into each other and blowing up, enemies getting stuck in level geometry, things like that. Nothing game breaking or unusual for an open world game like this. Settings are maxed out, except for raytracing which is on ultra (max is psycho), and dlss is set to performance mode. FPS is 40-70 most of the time, with occasional dips into the 30s.

Let me also get out of the way the fact that, unlike most, I was not hyped at all for this game. I had no idea if I would like it or not, and in fact I still haven’t purchased it. I’m playing through family sharing my best friend’s steam library. There are two primary reasons for my lack of excitement.

1:

I didn’t really enjoy The Witcher 3 very much. I played about 35 hours before losing interest. I think it’s pretty shallow as an RPG with a complete lack of stealth or alternative gameplay styles (pretty much just pick your damage type and what kind of buffs you want), has some of the worst melee combat I’ve had the displeasure of experiencing in a modern action RPG, and just about the only saving grace is that, by video game standards, the writing is very good. Geralt is a genuinely entertaining protagonist and had me frequently laughing out loud with his perfect deadpan delivery. However I care very little about the writing in video games compared to most, as it’s just generally not what I come to games for. If I want good writing, I read a book, which is still going to blow video game writing out of the water, and truth be told books edge out games as my favorite entertainment medium anyway. Games are for gameplay, imo. Your mileage may vary.

2:

Despite playing a lot of and enjoying this style of first-person western rpg back in the day (Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, New Vegas), I have been completely unimpressed by modern offerings in that vein. I couldn’t get into Fallout 4 at all, and I only finished Outer Worlds because it was so short. I think partially this is due to long-term burnout (I sunk almost a thousand hours into Oblivion alone over the course of a dozen playthroughs and I played through Fallout 3 twice), and partially because the modern games are too similar and don’t offer enough newness to the formula. Outer Worlds FELT like it was made in 2010. I recognize that’s exactly what many people wanted, but I needed an update, I needed to see at least some new things I didn’t immediately recognize and intuitively understand at a glance. Anyway, I wasn’t expecting “another one of those,” to hit me any differently. Boy was I wrong.

First of all, the graphics are the most impressive and most immersive I’ve yet seen from a video game. Period. This game is the new Crysis. Years from now people are going to be saying, “but can it run Cyberpunk?” It feels like a true graphical leap forward for the first time in a long time, it’s the first true showing of raytracing, for which Control was apparently just the apéritif, and makes the best case so far of why it’s going to be so important for games from this point on. Even if the game was absolute shite I would still be playing it because being in this world is such a joy. I can’t even remember the last time I just wandered around a game world looking at stuff. GTA IV maybe?

Gameplay-wise there’s so much more going on than Witcher 3. Not only is stealth an option but there’s more than one type. You can hang back and literally snipe people through walls. You can go full netrunner and jump from camera to camera hacking people to kill themselves or catch on fire without ever even entering the building. You can play it like a straight shooter which, while not Doom Eternal or anything, feels pretty good. You can just beat on people with big cyberpnetic arms or arm blades or a crazy laser whip like whiplash from iron man 2. The full netrunner playstyle is my favorite, and so completely unlike anything I’ve experienced in an RPG before. Unfortunately that variety of choice does not really enter into the story. The amount of dialogue options are paltry and you don’t really have much agency to change the course of events. Despite being able to choose male or female and customize the look of your character to a small extent, V is as much a set character as Geralt was in The Witcher 3, which might be a disappointment for some, though it doesn't bother me. The writing is perhaps a little edgelordy at times and not as tight as Witcher 3, but as mentioned previously I don’t place as high an importance on video game writing as most. It’s good enough to make you feel immersed in a neuromancer esque world and that’s all I really care about. Also it contains perhaps Keanu’s best acting performance to date, so there’s that. The voice acting across the board is also very good.

Bottom line: It's a very, very good game that truly pushes the limits of what modern high-end PCs are capable of and should never have been released on eight year old console hardware. As much as I hate to say it, this game seems to be one of those, "play it on a top of the line PC or not at all," type of games.