Cyberpunk 2077

You've probably heard all about the bugs by now. My biggest problem with the game is that it is incomplete in many regards. Lots of discussed and promised features are either lacking or wholly absent. AI drivers have literally 0 autonomy, they follow a line. If you block it, they just sit there and wait. Look away, and CD Project Red programme them to literally just dissapear. The same thing happens if you scare NPCs (similarly without intelligent AI). V's dialogue lines are worse than Fallout 4's sole survivor. In other words, you won't even feel like roleplaying is very possible. Also, choices are incredibly lackluster. You won't see much that comes anywhere close to the worst of The Witcher 3. But then again, CD Project Red's real problem isn't shoddy craftsmanship, it's the crunch culture that led to most of The Witcher 3's developers to burn out and leave the company. The same crunch culture led to creating this incomplete bug ridden mess. The only real solution would be a change in management.

Don't get me wrong, Cyberpunk 2077 is still a good game but nowhere near the quality of the Witcher 3. 1. I play on Shadow, the performance is great but I also encountered bugs. Items on the ground which you cannot pick up, the characters going into the T shape, etc. 2. Especially in the beginning it feels like your dialogue choices do not really matter. This turned me off a lot but got a bit better in other missions. 3. The controls are messy, I am using my PS4 controller because it's obviously designed with consoles in mind, until I need to use guns. I have tried to adjust the sensivities but can't get it right. Also the key or button for grabbing items is being used in dialogue sequences, so you might choose an answer you didn't intend to. 4. The city feels alive but it's shallow. The city doesn't feel dangerous and we are talking about Night City here. The AI is simply not on par with other games in that regard. 5. As far as I understand PS4 and Xbox reviews were restricted and there was no real transparency around the messy situation. As a PC gamer it does not concern me, but I pre-ordered because I believed in CDPR. I ordered merchandise, bought Witcher games multiple times for various platforms. I can tell you this will never happen again. Fricking stock market, shareholders, investors, and what not. I had rather waited 2-5 more years for the Witcher 2 and 3 type of experience which blew me away. For now I feel betrayed and can only recommend to wait and see.

It's a joke. All the promisses and it ended up as mediocre. Bugs everywhere. Blowing up cars for no reason, falling under the floor, missing sounds, can't scroll in the menu or the menu will go crazy, not moving lips npcs, invisible hats and hair in the mirror, overstearing fast cars, no option to change appearance after initial character creation (options here are a bit lacking), npcs nac follow you after the mission making stealth approach impossible. There really aren't that many options in the dialog or in the story. It's almost COD linear. Granted, I'm in the act 2 now so I have hope that it will change and I'll be able to choose more frequently. You can't even choose a reaction, no sarcasm, no anger, no asskissing, no seducing, no hackng and no gun pulling, except for story reasons when you're prompted to do so. There are no "talking" talents to learn in this "RPG". The npcs are dead inside. All that you can hear from them is one or two lines of looped small talk. There is no reason to talk to any of them if they are no quest related. NONE. They only exist to make background noise. The lack of basic gameplay conveniences that exist in older games (even from CDPR), hurts. It was supposed to be so good. Unfortunately there aren't many positive points. The game works on older, medium specs, the story is ok, nothing mindblowing with a few exceptions. Graphics are nice but it's not Ghost of Tsushima nice. I'm disappointed, to be honest.

Beautiful game with great story, acting, voice acting, and immersion. Incredible in scope, really. Some of the expected features aren't there, but that's ok, because it still goes beyond what you'd want or expect from an RPG. Every few minutes, the game might get choppy for a few seconds. Every hour or two you might see a funny clipping issue, a bystander in T-Pose, or physics might break for something. This is entirely compensated for with the quality and immersion of everything else, and I know the patches for the game will continue. If you're a stickler for performance or specifics, maybe give this game a month or two for more patching. If you can forgive a few small oddities, and are open to good RPGs, jump on in!

To review this game honestly, one really has to be honest with themselves. Is this a good game? Sure it's not bad. There is plenty to do and the dialogue and story is not bad. It plays similiar to Watch Dogs which is a good and a bad thing. Personally, I hate Watch Dogs but I know some people like it. Now for the tough question. Is it what was promised? Is Night City a living and breathing world with NPCs who have their own day/night cycle? HELL. NO. They straight up lied guys. People aren't upset because they had false expectations of the game. They are upset because CD Project Red just straight up lied in their marketing. This city is not a breathing world with endless things to do. There are a grand total of 5 copy and pasted things to do. Main mission, crimes (super boring and the same thing over and over again), random side missions that are icons on the map where you just break in somewhere and grab something for a client (all copy and pasted again), fights (good god what a terrible melee combat system) and then actual side missions with real characters that are actually fun. This game just really isn't what we were told as consumers. I'm putting aside all of the bugs which are sometimes gamebreaking and really being honest with myself. Sure you can buy this and still have fun with the game. That's not the problem. It's that I was sold by the marketing team a spoonful of garbage about how this would be the best open world in any game and that the RPG elements would be amazing. Don't even get me started on how your starting life choice doesn't mean jack shit 2 hours into the game. Just..... go into it with different expectations is all. It's not what anyone thought and I am super dissapointed.