Cyberpunk 2077

For me, this game has completely redeemed itself.

From playing it at launch I was thoroughly disappointed. With all the glitches and bugs I just kept forcing myself to enjoy it, but I've given it another go on Xbox Series S and it is like a brand new game. I feel like this is what the game was supposed to be like when it first got released. The graphics are smooth, no bugs/glitches; you get the odd visual glitch where something won't render in but for me that is very rare. I'm loving this game at the moment and I'm starting a brand new save for the third time now. Give this game the hype it deserves.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a game that was obviously conjured up to be a huge platinum, AAA hit and that, for not totally clear reasons, it fell very short of achieving that.

The best way I could describe it would be this: imagine that the game was very well thought-out, a lot of resources and creativity put into it to make sure good ideas were concepted and developed, a very solid base laid out in terms of the overarching structure and design of the whole product but that, at some point, the budget was pulled from the game and developers ordered to wrap it up for deployment in the cheapest, quickest way possible with whatever resources they had at the time.

The whole game and most individual aspects of it feel wide but not deep. Everything about Cyberpunk 2077 feels fine but very few things feel fully realized.

Let's take Night City, the actual place the story takes place in, as an example. When you are in the outskirts of town and you look at the city from afar, it looks majestic. When you get close to that cityscape and look the faces of those very same buildings from a close distance, things start to feel off. When you are down on street level and look up towards the tall skyscrapers all the way from below, it looks amazing but when you actually want to climb or interact with those skyscrapers, you're denied of that. At first glance, everything is nicely-modeled, detailed, realistic, intriguing and inviting but on closer inspection, disappointment takes the wheel. Even the initial quests and introductory areas really conjure up the notion that you're in a vast, unexplored world that's alive and that has a ton of things to see and experiences to enjoy. A few minutes later, however, when you actually walk down the streets of the town and are left to free roam, everything feels incredibly generic and empty. In the first firefight, the level layout is engaging, there are many tactics to approach it and there's a sense of imminent danger. When bullets start flying, you can shoot pieces of plaster and concrete off the walls really allowing you to appreciate a sophisticated and promising physics systems that would make any battle much more interesting and satisfying. Yet all of these promises get diluted very quickly and the rest of the game has nothing to do with the initial impressions.

It's hard to put a finger on what exactly creates this disappointing vibe. Whatever the cause, I take a look at the game world and it's very clear that this was set up to be a huge game with a lot of content and high quality subsystems but for some reason this vision was left unrealized. All pedestrians do one thing: walk in a straight line, 90% of the buildings you can't go into, as if they were made of cardboard, highways and avenues are, at times, populated with only one or two cars and so on and so forth.

This phenomenon also trickles down to the actual missions and gameplay content. Most side-missions are just 'steal that', 'hack this computer', 'kill this NPC' and they become stale, repetitive, very easily. Also, they have pretty much no impact on anything tangible other than the self-contained experience of completing that mission. Dialogues? More of the same: most conversation choices are absolutely irrelevant and seemingly penned in as an after-thought to create some illusion of player interaction and choice. Even on missions where you are required to do things stealthily, if you don't, the only consequence is the quest-giver saying "hey, you're a disappointment" but rewarding you (albeit with a bit less money) for finishing the mission and calling it complete regardless.

Character development? Same deal-o. Yes, there was clearly some thought put into romance routes with different characters but all those scenarios feel like sketches of what they were meant to be. You can romance a character, have sex with them and all but confess your love for them and a couple hours later they are with you on the phone speaking distantly as if you had just met. Skill trees and character customization? Yup! There's like 10, 12 different skill trees and, save a few notable exceptions, they sure as hell don't feel like they mold or specialize your character into anything separate from any other character.

Let me beat the proverbial dead horse for the last time: there's this quest, right? One of those staple secondary questlines in modern RPGs you are introduced to very early on in the game, a pursue-at-your-own-leisure type of deal. We all know the kind. In this particular one, you have to fight a bunch of different opponents in street fights and, eventually, reach a big bad boss. When you finally beat him, nothing really happens. Yes, you are given some money. Yes, one NPC says "hey, good job!", but that's it. Even the NPC that hands you the quest and keeps tabs on progress through it all says absolutely nothing at the culmination of it. It's so abrupt and anticlimactic that a lot of people took to Google in search for answers having the same thoughts: "the quest must have bugged out" or "there must be a glitch where the dialogue for the finishing of the quest didn't trigger". But no: it's just the way it is haphazardly implemented.

There's definitely a pattern: the foundations for most aspects of the game are great and solid but something happened along the way and Cyberpunk 2077 became a rushed, unfinished, empty product instead of an honest labor of love. By the way, this company clearly knows how to make a hugely successful, beautiful game: they've done it with the The Witcher series. It's clearly not a matter of expertise or know-how. What's also clear is that the game was going to be bigger and better than what we actually got.

Having said all this, I still believe you should play this game through, at least once, if nothing else, for the main story.

From a technical standpoint, we all know the release for this game was awful and unplayable for some people, but as of today, in patch version 1.3 the game is playable. It still is glitchy and frustrating at times, but it's stable: just had literally two crashes in more than 60 or 70 hours of playtime and I could finish all content in the game without having to do crazy workarounds to finish missions (okay, maybe once).

Incomplete as it might feel, what's present in Cyberpunk 2077 can be fun. Depending on the playstyle, the basic gameplay loop can be pretty rewarding for quite a few hours, particularly if you can jive with the main narrative from a storytelling point of view.

Speaking of the story, I would venture to say that the main selling point of the whole shebang is the plot. It's interesting, it's more or less well narrated and structured and the interactions between the main cast and the world around them are, for the most part, compelling enough to leave you hungry for more. Hell, I'll say this: Keanu even had me in (very manly) tears a couple of times.

Now for some hyper-specific personal recommendations that most people will hate, but hey, who's writing this review?

1) Play the game in Japanese with English subs.

Don't ask me why, but it works. I never do this in any game, but there's something about the general aesthetic of Cyberpunk 2077 that lends itself to this. Feels much closer to the anime Akira and Ghost in the Shell than Bladerunner and Total Recall. It just makes the whole experience feel much more natural, engaging and immersive than hearing the English voiceovers.

2) If on PC, get the mod "Muted Markers".

Default loot visibility is weird and annoying, since you have to constantly be spamming your scanner for item markers to pop up and, even so, it glitches out and you might miss important loot. This mod fixes this and is the #1 quality of life improvement I can think of.

2b) If on PC, also get the mod "Annoy Me No More".

Removes fall damage (come on, people have cyberlegs and can telepathically hack into stuff but they die if they drop from a 20-feet-high ledge?). Other very good quality-of-life fixes that you'll probably want to install are bundled in this very same mod as well.

2c) If on PC, also get the mod "Holster by Tap". Whoever designed the holster/weapon cycling for the PC version was a sadist.

3) Play a Netrunner.

The whole playstyle revolves around hacking people and devices while remaining more or less away from the action. It starts out a little slow and it's a bit gear-dependant, but, after a while, the way you can control and dominate multiple enemies instantly and safely with quickhacks becomes pretty fun and unique to this game so it's probably something you want to experience to some extent in your playthrough.

4) Play a time-stopping Samurai.

Grab a katana, the Qiant Sandevistan Mk. 4 "Warp Dancer" cyberware (don't punch Fingers!) and 3 Sandevistan heatsinks. This is one of (if not *the* most) fun builds in the game. If on PC, there's an essential mod that really fixes the mechanics in this build to what it should've been by default: it's called "Better Melee". It contains not only fundamental fixes, but it there's also a module that gives Mantis Blade functionality (basically a leap-to-enemy attack) to any melee weapon, which makes katana builds super fun. Very highly recommended.

4b) If on PC, get a trainer that has a 'no cooldown on skills' option.

Being able to use your Sandevistan to time-stop constantly, combined with the "Better Melee" addon turns you into an anime Samurai. Freezing time, rushing a room slashing through and leaping to every enemy and thawing time to watch them all get dismembered simultaneously is oh-so-satisfying.

6) Play a knife-throwing ninja.

By default, the knife-throwing system is ridiculous and unusable, but if you're on PC you can get a mod called 'Enhanced Throwing Knives' that makes knife-throwing absolutely viable as a build and while the stealth shenanigans are not great in the game because of AI and the skill tree, it's still fun and a decent option if you prefer a less direct approach.

CyberPunk 2077 is one of the most immersive games I've played in the past year, it is also the buggiest game I've played in a long time. The game doesn't feel finished, it has pop in issues, cars blowing up for no reason, I can't see my own guns half the time, I've seen more trees in the game than I have in real life, that is exaggerated but I can see trees across the world from me as they exist on this plane of sight that is jaw dropping in it's stupidity and also in my 25 hours of gameplay I've experienced 5 crashes. I'm amazed as to how a game can be in development for so long and turn out this way and I can't recommend it at the current $60 asking price for PC. I can't imagine what it's like on console. I would pass until they've fixed the bugs and issues that are in the game.

I'm aware that I'm playing it on the Xbox One and my processing power is not up to where it should be for that seamless experience. This game is meant for Next Gen consoles, which is a struggle since not everyone can afford or even get a new system with them selling out like crazy. Gameplay wise the exploration and depth is fantastic and the blurriness of an Xbox One vs the new systems, is distracting but not a deal breaker. What is frustrating is how many times I've crashed and have had to redo missions but that also gives a fun change to approach the same mission in a new way. It's a complete, polished, and super detailed game but I wish it would run better on Xbox One and PS4.

I'd put the Witcher 3 up there with my top ten games of all times, a serious contender for the best written RPG I've ever played, competing against Planescape: Torment and Knights of the Old Republic 2.

After the triumph of Wild Hunt, the hype for this new release of CD Projekt RED was insane, which is leading to strongly mixed reactions. Eight MILLION preorders is an incredible result; however, a certain part of the fandom seems to be receiving this as well as the last season of Game of Thrones, churning out scornful memes at impressive speed.

I've read console versions have important issues in terms of visuals and stability. On my PC no complaints on the matter, the game looks neat and I've encountered no major bugs.

More than a cyberpunk Witcher 3, however, this feels like Deus Ex: Night City.

Writing is typically fine, both in the main and secondary quests, with memorable characters and solid dialogues anchored by strong voice acting. CD Projekt RED has a knack for creating NPCs far more interesting than the usual quest-delivering puppets.

What doesn't work? Well, the open world sandbox element of the game lacks immersion and feels rushed compared to, say, Red Dead Redemption 2, which came out two years ago. Night City is vast and looks impressive (I particularly like its verticality) but kinda feels empty, because NPC (and vehicle) AI is lacking and, well, there's not a lot to do other than quests. Some features reek of cutting corners, like the awful police AI: when a crime is committed a bunch of angry cops will spawn behind you like law-enforcing, trigger-happy ghosts and start shooting. It's so rough compared to the sophisticated reactions of lawmen in RDR2.

My advice: if you liked, say, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and want to play this on PC for the story and characters, Cyberpunk is strongly recommended. If you crave an immersive sandbox cyberpunk experience ("GTA 2077: Blade Runner"), wait for new patches and see.