Cyberpunk 2077

Is it a good game? Yes. Does it live up to its hype and promises? No. Scenes that were seen in previews are not in, things that have been promised and talked about, never were in place. Classes that seemed fun to me and I actually planned to play were taken out. The AI is dumb AF. Police is ridiculous. The story is excellent though, the graphics nice and the characters likable and fun.

The bare bones of a game are there, and the world is pretty. Still plenty of bugs, but what can't be fixed is how devoid of any care, soul, or life the game seems to be.

I preordered the game. Decided not to play it at release due to to all the bugs. Controversies aside, I said to myself I won't refund and I'll give it a year, let the dust settle and give them a chance to fix it, for old times sake. I've been playing their games since the witcher 1 came out. I'll say I'm extremely dissapointed. After a year and a half, I get to the tutorial. In part where you learn how to sneak, one of the AI robots I need to sneak past just registers as dead while standing right in front of me. I can loot his weapons. Randomly he goes in and out of the T pose. I get through that part and get stuck in the melee section where you have to "block a strong attack 2x". The AI controlled robot is in the defensive pose, not attacking, also randomy T posing for a split second. After all this time, they weren't able to fix even the tutorial section. I have no whish to go any further because I have no reason to believe the rest of the game is any better. You would expect they at least made sure that the part in the beginning is polished by now.

Came back to the game in 2022 after having played and completed it at launch, just to see if things have improved at all. Sad to say the game feels even glitchier and more frustrating than ever. The glitches I encountered are numerous and distracting. They take you right out of the story and the experience. Whether it be floating, t-posing character models in certain cut scenes, character facial animation not playing correctly (voice acting playing, but lips not moving), characters floating around in a seated position even though they're supposed to be standing and walking across the room. At a certain point pre-Johnny I just gave up and uninstalled the game. It might be just me but I feel like there were less glitches at launch. Now it feels frustratingly broken instead of just haha broken. I can't recommend.

This game is (still) a bit of a mess. It's not without merit, however it feels like every positive comes with an associated "but". Or several. Mostly several. For example, the city is beautifully designed, but it's like they went out of their way to ensure it's difficult to immerse yourself in it. While it's not as bad as it used to be, where everyone might despawn the moment you turned your back on them, people still happily fade in and out in front of you. If you break the law, the police will instantly teleport to your location, but on the other hand the city is filled with robberies and shootouts where the police is nowhere to be seen. I found the gameplay to be.. OK. I enjoyed the game the most when ignoring the main story and exploring the city and its side quests and gigs. There are some truly entertaining moments to be had. The main story suffers from what most major titles seem to do these days, in that it mostly consists of "hit F to continue conversation". I had moments of "finally, I get to actually play the game again" only to be allowed a whopping five seconds (in at least one case, literally) before triggering the next story segment. I genuinely think it would have been a better game for me if it had an option to replace all the story segments with a paragraph of text summarizing the events. At least the voice acting is generally excellent. Bottom line, it's an OK game. I don't think it will age particularly well. It doesn't break new ground in any area. It's an average shooter with very limited RPG elements. Worth the buy at a significant discount, but only just.