Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)

It's just amazing that even 3 years after release and a big 2.0 update, the game is still pretty janky. Last night I saw an NPC with their phone floating 1 metre away from his hand, both NPC and myself teleport up as down when walking over garbage bags, an unconscious body started flinging around when I dropped it on the floor, and got an honest-to-god crash to desktop.

Nothing too game-breaking, but still noticeable. The level of jank I would expect and accept from a small game by an indie dev.

I cannot begin to imagine the utter disaster that this must've been at launch.

Cyberpunk was on sale and since I've heard very good things of the 2.0 version and I'm in "buy everything before Steam dolarises prices" model, I decided to get it and try it.

The character creator was kind of lame. I don't like having predefined bodyparts instead of sliders, since it's a PITA to look through 50 slightly different mouths to chose one that barely looks like what I want. I do appreciate that gender, bodytype and genitals are not tied together, although I don't get why the voice is 🤷.

Story seems slow to build up, but so far it's good enough. Characters feel lively and have personality. I liked how one NPC was eating while talking to me and actually stopped talking while chewing.

So far gameplay feels kind of generic but competent, I guess. Driving feels like shit with M&K.

I also encountered a few bugs, like a dead body hovering above the floor or complaining when a character step on it.

Or these two identical NPC chatting sitting at a table. (I don't know, they might be twins?)

So not bad, but a bit underwhelming given all the hype and storied history surrounding the game.

I am still being held hostage by Cyberpunk 2077 base game 2.0.

I might even try to 100% it or at least complete the map.

There's a little glitch here and there, and I had a bug where I couldn't take a quest item, but a restart of the game fixed that. All in all, I am over 50 hours in, have barely touched the main quest and love it.

For the first 30 hours I refused to fast travel or drive because I wanted to walk around the city. Then I realized driving is much, much better now than at release and good enough that I can have fun with it.
The world got definitely more lively, although on close-up it stays mostly a "look but don't touch" place. I don't mind that, because even after so many hours I still stop and watch the rain and how the laser advertisement banners that seem to touch space turn into waterfalls made of neon light, while the sounds of the city sing me a song of heart break and endless possiblities.

The stealth in this game is crazy good, but not because the usual "sneak behind, distract, take out, store corps away" mechanic is better than in other games, but because there is now a second level of stealth where I can be stealthy and at the same time go in guns blazing and wreak havoc hacking them and then finish them with a knife face to face and they never see me coming and it is so, so, so much fun.

This is probably the first game ever that has made melee combat something that I like and can be good at, except for the boxing, fuck that. So I made my character a stealthy netrunner with a plan B of being a headshot virtuoso with a knife finisher fetish. Show me a game that can top THAT! 😁

Crafting got tuned down from what it was at release and makes sense now, the skill system is fun and can change a lot how you play your character and it rewards what you do in the game with extra points or other goodies regularly.

I can not say much about the story yet, but the situation V is currently in is interesting and I definitely want to see where they are going with it. I doubt a "good ending" is even possible, so I prepare myself for another heartbreak and some crying.

This game is so much fun and the people in it feel so "real" compared to Starfield. In this game people eat while they talk to me, they walk around, gesture, sit, stand, every time it is slightly different, while in Starfield the moment I engage in a conversation it's only a face that I look at and it feels flat even if the quest quality is comparable.

Starfield lacks cutscenes, and I don't mean the big ones, just the little things, like when someone gives me an item: In Starfield I get a "thing is in inventory" message, in CP 2077 I see the person either throwing the thing at me, dangling it in front of me for me to grab, or handing it to me like a gift... whatever the context is, and it makes a huge difference.

Starfield is not a bad game, but the amount of immersion I have to create myself while CP sucks me in makes the game tiring. At the moment I do not want to go back and I feel that I will have to play something between CP and Starfield to give Starfield a fair chance again.

One of my all-time favorite games - play it for yourself and find-out.

Gameplay:

• (0) Quit because the gameplay was so bad
• (1) Frustrating or annoying but something else about the game had me endure it
• (2) Boring - Unobtrusive but unremarkable
• (3) Entertaining - Not incredibly interesting or innovative, but good
• (4) Fun - Kept wanting more, time flew by while playing
• (5) Euphoric - Kept returning to the game just to waste time and play because it's so much fun

Story/world-building:

• (0) Quit because the story was so bad
• (1) Frustrating or annoying but something else about the game had me endure it
• (2) Boring - unobtrusive but unremarkable
• (3) Engaging - Kept me wanting to follow along
• (4) Commanding - Kept me on the edge of my seat to see what happened next
• (5) Enthralling - Occupied my thoughts long after the game was over, prompted me reading about the story and lore online, discussing it, dreaming about it

Music:

• (0) Quit because the music was so bad (can't imagine anything beign this bad!)
• (1) Muted the music because it was grating
• (2) Not noticeable - unobtrusive but unremarkable, never really noticed it
• (3) Noticeable - tracks were noticeable and enjoyable
• (4) Remarkable - Tracks stood out and had me looking the soundtrack up on Spotify
• (5) Astounding - Acquired the soundtrack and regularly listen to it in real life

Graphics/Presentation:

• (0) Quit because the graphics/presentation was so bad
• (1) Gameplay-inhibiting or otherwise bad but something else about the game had me endure it
• (2) Ugly - Noticeably bad-looking, but not inhibiting
• (3) Fine - completely standard-fare
• (4) Beautiful - Graphics/presentation had a wow-factor and were engrossing
• (5) Mesmerizing - Graphics/presentation was so good, I would idle in the world game to be in it longer

Technical/Performance Notes:

• Encountered one bug that prevented me from finishing a side-quest, but was able to resolve it after retrying a couple times.
• No other performance issues on Xbox Series S