I guess I'm just not smart enough for the game. 9 hours and 15 deaths in the first act (I hear there's more to the game) I gave up. At one point or the other luck's going to run out and you end up with a bad draw or two that screws you over. Two stars for the decently fun part of the game that it lets me play. Might give one star more if I didn't know that I'm missing two thirds of the game (seen plenty of recommendations saying to stick with it, it'll get better later). Sigh... This is why I don't play Dark Souls either. Some games make you feel powerful, some smart, some scared, some sad. This just made me feel dumb. Would not recommend this to anyone.
I'm a latecomer to this bandwagon. Bought the game almost a year after it's initial launch, which apparently wasn't so great. Reading thru the early reviews I have to say that I'm not seeing almost any of the complaints people were making, so the game must've changed a LOT during the year. (Also as a disclaimer I have to say that A) I'm a huge Far Cry fan and B) I haven't played Witcher 3.) Cons: - Graphical glitches galore. It usually doesn't take more than 5mins to come across a graphical glitch of some sort in the game. Usually items/cars/people hanging in air or embedded into walls/floor. Sometimes they're funny, sometimes they're immersion breaking, but every 5mins didn't bother me much. - Voice acting director should look for a new job. For a triple A game like this the voice acting DIRECTING is horrendous. There's very little thought given to continuity of emotion in voice acting. As single lines the delivery ranges from good to bad, but the flow with multiple choices is sometimes very jarring. And to have Silverhand played by such talent which is wasted by poor directing is just a crying shame. - Vehicle handling. I think the creators meant to distinguish vehicles from one another with distinctly different acceleration, breaks and handling, but oh boy did they go over board with handling. Some cheaper vehicles are insanely difficult drive because of their handling. In the beginning I thought that the designers had just bongled up the entire vehicle system in the game, but after finding the few vehicles that drive like normal cars/bikes I understood that it seems to have been a design choice to nerf cheaper vehicles with useless handling (and other stats as well). - As a city as vibrant and chock full of people as NC, it's a shame that there's so little random NPC chatter, you can't really strike up meaningless conversations with random strangers. Not a huge con, but it would've been a nice-to-have. - No vehicle customization. This was a weird thing to omit from the game. Especially after designers doubling down on vehicle stats being so varied. I would've wanted an option to tune and paint the vehicles. Not a big loss though. - Diablo-like item progression. I found it comical how you come up with better items in the game. As you're constantly gaining levels and loot seems to progress with level, you constantly check if this pistol is better than the one you use, or if these pants offer more armour than your current ones. Found it silly. Also more common clothing mods would've been welcome. Currently I find very few clothing mods compared to cyberwear- and weapons mods. Which means that I'm stuck longer with some silly hat or jacket that offers me some ridiculous Crit Bonus, making my character look like a clown most of the time. Not in the spirit of Cyberpunk (style before function). Would've solved the issue with set bonuses, like having arasaka armour items have an arasaka armour multiplier that keeps adding up exponentially for each piece. Also would've like to see some corpo/street/nomad-stats for clothing to A) have access to special areas and B) enable you to use your background dialog options. Pros: - Perfect blend of FPS & RPG. This is a purely subjective opinion, but for me the game hits the sweet spot of FPS and RPG. Character actually aims and shoots like you want to (like Far Cry), and doesn't penalize you for having a character with a poor shooting skill (like Fallout). I really liked that you don't have to start out as a completely helpless whelp, and while some skill trees (for my eye at least) seem a lot better than others I like the fact that you can take your character in some many different directions and play styles (going only thru my first play through with only 75hrs at this point). - Gorgeous imagining of Night City. The city is huge with a lot of character. I really loved how you can see, hear and feel (and almost smell) the different sections of the city without ever feeling that something is out of place (except see my first con). Gangs feel different (some of them a bit lazily done, but some have a lot of character). Graphics in the city are amazing. I sometimes just like to take a bike and drive around the city enjoying the sites. The vibes of the world of Cyberpunk 2020 are seeping thru as well. Sometimes I'm even taken aback by the characters and events, and I used to play the TTRPG back in the day. I'm also very impressed with how little of the city feels copy/pasted. Compared to Elder Scrolls for example, every location in NC feels fresh and new (although the same 20 electrical items that are found everywhere do start to feel bland), so much so that several times when running towards a side job, I just had to take de-tour and go wonder around some sites that I was running thru. - City filled with stuff to do. This one was a bit of a puzzler to me. When I read the early reviews of the game there were a lot of complaints about how empty and dead the whole city felt. My experience is totally the opposite. With the map constantly showing you stuff to do crimes and side jobs are everywhere. The game really has a strong "just one more thing" pull to it. All in all I really like the game. Will try it out several times for sure (this is a rare event indeed, only a handful of games I'm willing to give several goes).
TLDR; BUY. THIS. GAME. I'm one the Kickstarter backers from 2013. I've been playing since first public alpha release (ver. 0.1 IIRC). Cannot recommend this game enough. Replayability and longevity are out of this world. Estimated 500 hours clocked in, and I haven't even tried mods (or Royalty patch) yet. I'm a big fan of emergent storytelling (ie. stories that are created out of circumstances of the game, not by deliberate design), and RimWorld delivers in spades. Try to build the best base you can, or set yourself up for a glorious defeat with single minded ***holes and pensioners. Which ever way you choose to play, it'll be fun to watch these tortured creatures trying to make a life for themselves in an unforgiving world (or a lot more forgiving, depending on your settings). I would recommend you to buy this game.
