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Couple of days ago I have finished Cyberpunk 2077, an action rpg game from Polish developer, CD Projekt Red.
Before I share my thoughts about the game, some points of clarification:
1. Things that are fantastic, and are the strongest aspect of the game
Overall rating: 8/10
Story: 9/10
World: 8/10
Visuals: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Performance: 7/10
Before I share my thoughts about the game, some points of clarification:
- I have played on a fairly good PC, most of the settings set as High, with just a few as Medium
- I have played the game on patch 1.5 (with the update to 1.52 in the middle of playthrough)
- I always wanted to play this game, but after my disappointment with The Witcher 3, I was not particularly hyped.
- There may be some story spoilers in my review, although I'll try to limit those as much as possible. Still, be warned!
1. Things that are fantastic, and are the strongest aspect of the game
- Main story and NPC quests - this is where the game truly shines, and I felt it right from the start. This is why I closed all the side activities before and saved the main story for the end. All main story characters and most of the minor (yet important) ones are brilliantly voice acted and have their agendas well set. There are some, though, that excel, like Johnny Silverhand (Keanu really is breathtaking), Panam or River. What I lack a bit is that there were practically no twists that would make me feel surprised. Don't make me wrong, the story was very well written, but I miss WTF moments experienced in other games. There were many funny moments (conversations with Johnny, interaction with talking vending machine) or touching moments (hanging out with Panam and Aldecaldos, the bro talk with River). There were moment where the idea was great, but execution was so-so (diving with Judy). All in all, I am really satisfied with CP2077 story. Good job, CDPR!
- Night City design and size - the city is beautiful and huge. At first, I was a bit overwhelmed, driving around the city and admiring how good it looks. Each district looks different, and the Badlands looks great too. I always felt creating a compelling giant futuristic city would be much more difficult than creating a fantasy open world, but CDPR did a good job here too.
- Combat - I was afraid this will be something that I won't like, but I'm happy to say, I was wrong. It was actually one of the most fun gameplay aspects of the game. What I was impressed the most is how different all the guns in the game shoot. Each weapon is completely different, even guns within the same category feels completely different. I was having a blast trying out different weapons, even if my preferred strategy was sneaking in and incapacitate enemies with netrunning tricks.
- Some side quests - there are some side quests that are very interesting and one that is very disturbing for me personally (well, maybe not the quest per see, but the execution). The fact that some side quests are memorable, is enough for me to say CDPR did a good job here.
- The look of vehicles: there are quite a lot of vehicles available to buy or steal in the game, and most of them are looking great. I particularly liked driving motorbikes.
- The first person view - I must say I was not convinced the first person view in CP2077 will be something I would enjoy that much. But I did, it works! The problem with first person view in the game that tries to be as much immersive as possible is that the execution needs to be stellar. And here, unfortunately, it is not. While the feeling of immersion is there, the animation are often ruining this immersion - things like V reaching for the glass and actually not holding the glass, it is magically lifted towards his mouth. But I will write about it more later, when I come to the bad things. Overall, I cannot imagine playing CP2077 in FPP, though.
- The rest of side quests and all other activities - well, with broken heart I must say that aside of main story and some side quests the most of the activities in CP2077 are repetitive and boring. There are only few things you can do actually: gigs - all of them boil down to enter a hostile area and kill a target, rescue someone or steal something. And the story is basically presented in the form of conversation in data shard or email in the computer, somewhere in the hostile area; cyberpsycho sightings - it all comes down to incapacitate a raging person, without killing her (well, you can kill her, but it's not preferable). Some encounters are more interesting than others, though; NCPD Scanner - those are mostly boring, all comes down to clear an area of enemies and find some data shard or other info. And there are tons of those on the map; shops - you can visit few types of shops: weapon vendor, clothing vendor, netrunners, ripperdocs, junk vendors and med vendors. And that is basically it. You cannot really perform any other activities. And it really gets boring quickly.
- The inhabitants of the Night City - well, CDPR tries to make Night City alive and bustling with activity, but... it isn't. While there are people strolling on the side walks, but it looks like they are walking without any purpose. It's like an artificial crowd (well, it's not even a crowd). And the people in the back alleys and inside locales are always glued to one place, doing the same things or even nothing. It's the thing that ruined the immersion for me the most. While the looks and design of the city is great, population is not. Well, all those people that are connected with main and side missions are well done and behave natural, but the all others are just standing and walking there. Truly missed potential here.
- Driving vehicles - well, the physics of driving a vehicle is... bad. It does not feel natural at all. Here is where the lack of CDPR experience shows. I liked driving because the city is great, but not because I liked the feeling of driving. This is why I actually preferred to drive motorbikes, the steering felt much better that with cars.
- Bugs, graphical glitches and technical aspect of the game - there is a reason why I waited almost a year and a half to play CP2077. I thought that with patch 1.5 most of the major bugs are squashed, and I could play the game comfortably. While I haven't experience game breaking bugs, that prevented me to finish a quest, I did experience embarrassingly huge amount of graphical glitches, textures that are not loading on time, funny bugs like my car literally fall down through a solid street into the abyss causing my main character's death, or having a significant amount of grass suddenly appeared on the street while driving. Seeing all those bugs a year and a half after release, after a couple of bigger and lesser patches, is really unforgivable. I tend to pay no attention to those with time, because I enjoyed most of the game a lot, but really. This should be punishable.
Overall rating: 8/10
Story: 9/10
World: 8/10
Visuals: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Performance: 7/10
