Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is a good game, not a great game, but good. And that's with factoring in all the bugs. The story exists and stands on its own but falls short of being memorable or thought provoking. It's just a story, and that's okay. PC controls are horrible, most keys are not remappable and finding them comes down to assuming that "j" is for journal and "i" will open up your inventory. Then there's the mouse acceleration that you can't turn off. The RPG abilities are mediocre and play more like skill flavoring than anything very playstyle defining. The decision to make equipment looter/shooter was an interesting choice. It's much less like Division 2 and much more like Borderlands 1 + weapon mods that do not clearly state what they can be used on and don't heavily impact the weapon performance. Crafting is useless. Driving is a core mechanic of the game and is the weakest part of its mechanics. Use a controller to drive if you have the choice. Too many bugs to list, I'd take away a star and a half if I could. You could almost believe this was a Bethesda launch. The stars here are the characters, voice acting, and the vibrancy of Night City. CP2077 doesnt play like a game that has been 8 years in development.

I'm not going to go over every issue I came across. Plenty of other reviews will point out the same things. I'm sure after some patching this game will be much better, but having pre-ordered it, and where it currently is, I'm not feeling great about this purchase. I'm sure that in a year it will probably be awesome... and at a discount. For now I'm just going to uninstall it, let it sit in my library, and come back to it someday. I hope I'll have fun with it, but for now it'll serve as another reminder to stop pre-ordering AAA titles. Mega64 was right; I should have waited for the "play date".

Within two minutes of gameplay I encountered my first bug. Let that sink in as you think about how many months of crunch CDPR subjected their employees to only to release an unfinished product. Hilarious bugs of all types, none game breaking from my personal experience, yet. ugly textures, pop ins, wonky AI. unpleasant feeling controls... This game needed another 6 months oven at least. Will change my review if issues are addressed.

Game-play and story are decent, with depth to them. Characters stand out, like in previous CDPR games. Gunplay is OK, driving pretty bad. Performance and optimization are horrible, which probably won't change in future. Game is riddled with bug, but they might fix them eventually.

First let me begin with I will not discuss story as I do not want to spoil and I am not very far into the story. Let's begin. You better have a VERY good rig. I mean VERY good. My 6700k paired with a GTX 1080ti and M.2 SSD is chugging along at around 30-35 fps at ultra 1440p (this is over their recommended specs for this res @ ultra). If you don't have a very good rig, or even if you do, GSYNC is a must. It is the only thing saving this performance disaster. Additionally, pop-in is horrendous. Mouths don't move when non key (so like 90%) NPCs speak. Bugs at every turn. You will not go more than 5 minutes with out an immersion breaking bug. The good news is that I have not run into any game breaking bugs. Well done, I guess? Now the open world. This is an empty open world. It is massive. It is filled with hundreds of NPCs that appear out of thin air sometimes (only a handful of character models unfortunately). Shops everywhere. Food stands. Bars. Massage parlors. Night clubs. And you can't interact with any of them. You can't go buy a hotdog. Can't grab a drink. Can't sit down on a bench, chair, or anywhere that is not a designated mission objective that requires you to sit. It is filled with things to do but you can only look and not touch. I still support CDPR because of their consumer friendly business practices, but man this is rough. And it is rough not because of the performance, although that contributes; it is rough because there is nothing to do or interact with outside of "missions". Such a shame for such a beautiful open world.