Posted on: August 12, 2024
Jarved12
Verified ownerGames: 431 Reviews: 9
Completes the Cyberpunk Experience
In many ways this fleshes out Cyberpunk adding a shiny new ending, it doesn't expand the game - not really (seeing as how all the main gameplay revisions are included in the free downloadable patch - although first person drivinng is still atrocious). Dogtown is dark and murkey with little to explore outside the main quest- which for me took a while to get going. There's 9 new gigs - and the pitched street battles to wrestle control of dropped crates with goodies can be fun. But it's lacking. The atmosphere is there but playability can be limited - how to approach some missions is a little too prescriptive and the section ripped from "alien isolation" on one of the branching paths is nothing short of irritating. In places - the agency is removed a little too much for storytelling purposes. And the platforming at the start of the DLC -a huge mis-step. So why 5 stars? In a word - narrative. In the base game characters were a means to an end. True, there were some choices along the way but I didn't really care about any of them. Vox pops giving you gigs to do, other characters merely a means to move the story on. With Phantom Liberty CDPR have managed to write characters that I actually gave a damn about and a story I could get immersed in. Once you're past the initial presidential rescue things get a lot more interesting with a decision to be made about who to trust and who to betray later on (oh if only there could have been more of this in the main game). The narrative branches - with somewhat bittersweet endings (one that ends the game in a satisfactory way from a storytelling point of view) - made me feel I was truly in a sci-fi epic and its with this I can overlook all the other minor annoyances and gameplay quirks. And yes, there were moments when I wondered it the eddies had been worth it. Overall, I think the pay-off was woth it. Is it essential? no, but it is a worthwhile experience - when it gets going.
Is this helpful to you?
