It's a Cyberpunk review, so... bugs. I saw some. Naked T pose on the motorcycle cracks me up everytime it happens. I want CDPR to back rev a Geralt naked T pose on Roach back into W3. Maybe a Gwint card or two? Across a 90 hour completionist playthrough I had to restart the game once or twice due to a bugged out thing. Had some strange graphical glitches (Kerry Eurodyne's robe is possessed) that were distracting. No doubt another six months of polish was needed, but whatever. Call it 3/4 of a star gone from 5. The other 3/4 of a star (for an overall rating of 3.5, rounded up as explained below) goes due to the somewhat short main storyline that was largely detached from the rest of the game. It was good. Please don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the story but it is over and done in 20 hours of play. I was surprised when the game was over. The other 70 hours was a rabid competionist whack a mole playthrough that was good. The game mechanics are fun to play with. The action is solid. Gunplay, enjoyable. Riding bad ass cars through a lavish, beautiful city to shoot and loot from a massive collection of truly creepy bad guys was cool. Some great storytelling pieces here and there, along with some excellent moments (Johnny's responses as you chase a ever ellusive hacker who leaves behind routers were vintage CDPR and reminded me of the best parts of Witcher. But this isn't a five star game. Four star, maybe. If it had been more... together. So, three. And I'll toss a star back on the table in the hopes that the patching and DLC will pull together a solid game worthy of another playthrough or two at some point in the future. But a 3.5 star game is still better than raiding the Capital building in Washington and getting bean bag shot, so I think my December/January was well spent.
I know this view may be a bit contradictory to the other reviews here, but I still consider this game to be the pinnacle of the Sierra adventure game series era and an absolute grand slam. Sierra reached big with the final entry of the GK series and to me, they nailed it. Was the 3D environment a bit of a stretch? Sure. There were limitations that are glaringly obvious now after open world games have become commonplace but then? It was amazing. The story was enthralling and the puzzles were insane. You had to pay attention and work like a crazy person to nail this game. The mythology was massive, all encompassing and utterly unforgiving. But when you finally figured it all out? The Sydney puzzles? The church statues? Wow. And then the payoff, along with the big reveal to Gabriel's family history. Even at the time this game got knocked a bit but it was a final entry in the hard mode period of gaming when devs gave you a hard game so you got your money's worth. The fact that this was the last of the Sierra games only deepens my personal appreciation for the ambition, the overreaches, the struggle and the fun of this game. I hope Ms. Jensen gets another shot at GK4. When Grace walks back on screen after over a decade it's going to be the definitive sign that adventure games are back - and I can't wait.
