Posted July 20, 2023
Cyberpunk 2077
It's basically GTA with hacking and implants.... yep...
Story-wise, V (the main character) gets saddled with stealing a high value chip from a large corporation. But through a series of events, ends up having to rely on the chip to keep him alive, even as it seems to be killing him. So most of the main storyline is around investigating a way to safely remove the chip before it kills him.
Honestly though the missions and fixers and terminology reminds me more of Shadowrun than it does GTA. Generally you can go a tech route (hacking, making your own gear, net attacking, etc), a brick grunt route (guns knives fists), or stealth. At 50th level you can get 2/3 branches.
Graphics: Near photo realistic. Assuming you turn off features until you can get it to consistently run 60fps it looks and feels really decently. Note, there is gory sections too (in scav dens half mutilated bodies, etc).
Audio/Voice Acting: Very well done, Fixers and main characters especially well done. Some acting is a bit flat, but it sounds natural with a 'English isn't their first language' so it's fine. All in all well done.
Music: Bit heavier on the metal and stuff i don't care for.
Gameplay/Mechanics: First part is it's a FPS game, with futuristic weapons. Well some futuristic, there's also a lot of them grounded in reality too.
Breech - A minigame where you can affect the battlefield, by unlocking Daemons you can make quick-hacks cheaper faster, or more effective. Same mini-game is used when hacking to get additional money at hotspots and some free programs/hacks.
The minigame itself is pretty simple, you have to enter a sequence of numbers, usually 1C 55 E9 FF in some combination in a grid, but it alternates horizontal and vertical, so you zig-zag to complete the sequence. Some sequences can overlap, so if something ends with E9, it can carry over skipping that entry if one starts with E9.
QuickHacking - With your cyberdeck you select programs/hacks, these are basically all offensive (or some disabling), be it short-circuit, rebooting synoptic (blind for a few seconds), or even ones like reboot that shut then down. A handful of ones for machines like 'distract' or 'open/close/on/off' to disable security or distract a nearby NPC to sneak past them.
Crafting - Get raw parts either from disassembling items like junk or weapons, or buy them. Though from what i see, selling and buying components generally is more efficient, and disassembling should only happen when you're overburdened. Regardless, you can make weapons and upgrade, but unless it's to make a final weapon it seems a waste, you'll keep finding weapons to keep up with your level as you go.
Cyberware - Buy hardware and install it for semi-permanent upgrades. Ranging from getting feedback from smart-weapons, to gorilla arms that help you with strength based obstacles, to once-every-60-seconds abilities like healing or active camo.
Honestly, if you have the eddies, buy the cyberware you're interested in at the highest level even if you can't put it on. When you get your stats up you can then install them, rather than having to scour all the 8 different ripperdocs to get the piece you wanted.
Laptops - usually you can just access a laptop, email/messages, local network to turn on/off security, and a handful of fixed web pages.
Quality levels - You have common (grey), uncommon (Green), Rare (Blue) and Legendary (Red or Orange). So the color tells you a bit, but also shows up on the map with downed enemies so you can hopefully loot everything.
Story: The story is okay overall, either the random missions where 'these people are stuck in a shelter because the entire outside is a minefield' to reading shards. Though while buildings are locked you can't get in unless you're doing some type of story (NCPD calls or fixer mission) otherwise other than dynamic/random events it's pretty well written and laid out.
Honestly as i was going i was caring more and more for some characters, and even making decisions not as them NPC's but as people. That doesn't happen often. So kudos for that.
Regardless, the premise that you have like 2 weeks or something to live (they aren't sure) ties into everything being done. But other than main story missions you won't be puking blood or glitching out.
Annoyances Money value is too low for most weapons/items. You really expect me to sell guns for $28 at the beginning? Half the value would be better, though a mod can fix this.
You can upgrade armor/weapons but not hacks. Why?
Starting routes/backgrounds are all assholes. Nomad is probably the most neutral.
Cyberware too limited. I would have liked to see various levels of cyberware keep going up and up, some cyberware only stops at uncommon for some minor bonuses. Most of the legendary stuff would need a 15+ of some stat, be it body or reflexes or something. I'd have preferred a 'custom order' or something to optimize cyberware if i could afford it rather than fixed limited selection.
Cyberdeck too limited. The max RAM in a deck is 11, and you can only have up to 6 shortcuts of quickhacks.
With Quickhacks you also can't double up and have multiple useful ones like short-circuit so while one is cooling you can go with a different one.
End game there's mostly bad ends, with a couple okay-ish ones. Giving him 6 months to live doesn't bode well either.
Jonny is a massive dick. Though he's just bareable if you get him to like you.
Low content after romance missions are done. You basically get occational texts of 'thinking of you'. Would have liked to have a few more romance scenes or shared missions. And when you visit them you don't get any useful options other than 'how are you doing?' basically.
Breech minigame gets tedius after the 50th time you do it, sometimes 3 in the same mission.
Some bugs, like elevator i can't press a button and am stuck. Controller 'skip scene' is the same button as 'crouch' so i try to uncrouch only to skip some dialog i'm trying to pay attention to. And i can't change it either.
Graphics: 5/5
Audio/Voice: 4.5/5
Music: 3/5
Mechanics: 6/10 (2 breech stuff, 4.5 everything else)
Story: 4.5/5
Annoyances: -3.5
Total: 20/30, 6.6/10, 3.3/5
It's basically GTA with hacking and implants.... yep...
Story-wise, V (the main character) gets saddled with stealing a high value chip from a large corporation. But through a series of events, ends up having to rely on the chip to keep him alive, even as it seems to be killing him. So most of the main storyline is around investigating a way to safely remove the chip before it kills him.
Honestly though the missions and fixers and terminology reminds me more of Shadowrun than it does GTA. Generally you can go a tech route (hacking, making your own gear, net attacking, etc), a brick grunt route (guns knives fists), or stealth. At 50th level you can get 2/3 branches.
Graphics: Near photo realistic. Assuming you turn off features until you can get it to consistently run 60fps it looks and feels really decently. Note, there is gory sections too (in scav dens half mutilated bodies, etc).
Audio/Voice Acting: Very well done, Fixers and main characters especially well done. Some acting is a bit flat, but it sounds natural with a 'English isn't their first language' so it's fine. All in all well done.
Music: Bit heavier on the metal and stuff i don't care for.
Gameplay/Mechanics: First part is it's a FPS game, with futuristic weapons. Well some futuristic, there's also a lot of them grounded in reality too.
Breech - A minigame where you can affect the battlefield, by unlocking Daemons you can make quick-hacks cheaper faster, or more effective. Same mini-game is used when hacking to get additional money at hotspots and some free programs/hacks.
The minigame itself is pretty simple, you have to enter a sequence of numbers, usually 1C 55 E9 FF in some combination in a grid, but it alternates horizontal and vertical, so you zig-zag to complete the sequence. Some sequences can overlap, so if something ends with E9, it can carry over skipping that entry if one starts with E9.
QuickHacking - With your cyberdeck you select programs/hacks, these are basically all offensive (or some disabling), be it short-circuit, rebooting synoptic (blind for a few seconds), or even ones like reboot that shut then down. A handful of ones for machines like 'distract' or 'open/close/on/off' to disable security or distract a nearby NPC to sneak past them.
Crafting - Get raw parts either from disassembling items like junk or weapons, or buy them. Though from what i see, selling and buying components generally is more efficient, and disassembling should only happen when you're overburdened. Regardless, you can make weapons and upgrade, but unless it's to make a final weapon it seems a waste, you'll keep finding weapons to keep up with your level as you go.
Cyberware - Buy hardware and install it for semi-permanent upgrades. Ranging from getting feedback from smart-weapons, to gorilla arms that help you with strength based obstacles, to once-every-60-seconds abilities like healing or active camo.
Honestly, if you have the eddies, buy the cyberware you're interested in at the highest level even if you can't put it on. When you get your stats up you can then install them, rather than having to scour all the 8 different ripperdocs to get the piece you wanted.
Laptops - usually you can just access a laptop, email/messages, local network to turn on/off security, and a handful of fixed web pages.
Quality levels - You have common (grey), uncommon (Green), Rare (Blue) and Legendary (Red or Orange). So the color tells you a bit, but also shows up on the map with downed enemies so you can hopefully loot everything.
Story: The story is okay overall, either the random missions where 'these people are stuck in a shelter because the entire outside is a minefield' to reading shards. Though while buildings are locked you can't get in unless you're doing some type of story (NCPD calls or fixer mission) otherwise other than dynamic/random events it's pretty well written and laid out.
Honestly as i was going i was caring more and more for some characters, and even making decisions not as them NPC's but as people. That doesn't happen often. So kudos for that.
Regardless, the premise that you have like 2 weeks or something to live (they aren't sure) ties into everything being done. But other than main story missions you won't be puking blood or glitching out.
Annoyances Money value is too low for most weapons/items. You really expect me to sell guns for $28 at the beginning? Half the value would be better, though a mod can fix this.
You can upgrade armor/weapons but not hacks. Why?
Starting routes/backgrounds are all assholes. Nomad is probably the most neutral.
Cyberware too limited. I would have liked to see various levels of cyberware keep going up and up, some cyberware only stops at uncommon for some minor bonuses. Most of the legendary stuff would need a 15+ of some stat, be it body or reflexes or something. I'd have preferred a 'custom order' or something to optimize cyberware if i could afford it rather than fixed limited selection.
Cyberdeck too limited. The max RAM in a deck is 11, and you can only have up to 6 shortcuts of quickhacks.
With Quickhacks you also can't double up and have multiple useful ones like short-circuit so while one is cooling you can go with a different one.
End game there's mostly bad ends, with a couple okay-ish ones. Giving him 6 months to live doesn't bode well either.
Jonny is a massive dick. Though he's just bareable if you get him to like you.
Low content after romance missions are done. You basically get occational texts of 'thinking of you'. Would have liked to have a few more romance scenes or shared missions. And when you visit them you don't get any useful options other than 'how are you doing?' basically.
Breech minigame gets tedius after the 50th time you do it, sometimes 3 in the same mission.
Some bugs, like elevator i can't press a button and am stuck. Controller 'skip scene' is the same button as 'crouch' so i try to uncrouch only to skip some dialog i'm trying to pay attention to. And i can't change it either.
Graphics: 5/5
Audio/Voice: 4.5/5
Music: 3/5
Mechanics: 6/10 (2 breech stuff, 4.5 everything else)
Story: 4.5/5
Annoyances: -3.5
Total: 20/30, 6.6/10, 3.3/5