Solid first entry into a new IP but it's pretty heavily front loaded and there are a lot of missed opportunities that stop it from being great. Take Lizzy Wizzy as an example: created for the video game, used in trailers, great design, intriguing character, but used for a single short boring quest in the main game and a cameo in the DLC. The lore is that she poisoned herself at a huge concert and got fully chromed up live on stage as part of the performance, how cool would it have been to actually experience that instead of being relegated to text. The same thing happens throughout the game with various characters/groups/corps that I was really hoping to sink my teeth into because they sound super interesting for the world building but most of the time they're a one and done quest at best and just text that has no impact on the actual game at worst Cyberpunk is my favourite genre and I enjoyed the vast majority of my time with there being too many positives to fit in the word limit. I’m really looking forward to how the series is handled, especially if the quality increases are anything like the Witcher trilogy.
This game faces the same conundrum as every post apocalyptic setting: how do you make a wasteland that isn't barren and boring? They succeed for the most part by having great traversal with really well done old world landmarks/objects in various states of decay, a beautiful (mostly) desert biome, and some solid world building aided by environmental storytelling. The car, and my boy Chumbucket, are the real stars of the game. Driving around feels excellent, vehicle combat is quite fun, the racecourses are mostly good with a mandatory story track being the worst. Unfortunately variety is the game's biggest weakness. Maybe 1/2 or 2/3 of the inhabited camps are extremely similar ramshackle heaps that blend together after a while when doing a full playthrough. Enemies types are lacking and the different factions as well as the bosses and just reskins. Would have loved a few more strongholds scattered about because they contain the most interesting character models that scratch the apocalyptic weirdo itch I crave. I'm on a massive Mad Max kick right now so the rating is probably more generous and bias than it objectively should be
Love the art style and overall aesthetic, the madness/fear implementations like ghost ships, and of course the Lovecraftian inspirations. Equipment upgrades enabling more and better fishing really scratches the serotonin part of my brain and so does the inventory management and mini-games.
An improvement to SoC in just about every facet, I played through this one on Master too and it was far more enjoyable with hardly any annoying jank. You can get access to weapons that aren't terrible very quickly, the atmosphere is even better (keep the dynamic music off), using the different detectors was fun, and everyone hunkering down during an emission really drew me in
Great environments, cool enemy designs but I've never experienced an aiming reticle mean so little in an FPS. Watched a few videos about the franchise over the years and one of the things that stuck with me was they all said to play on the hardest difficulty so maybe that damaged my first time experience.
Thoroughly played through Control and figured it was finally time to play this after watching my brother for a bit back on the 360. Growing up in the PNW and currently living near a region that looks similar to the game's setting I really enjoyed the locations and atmosphere. The writing and world building was great and about what I expected, although having great bits of story being locked behind collectibles is a shame instead of incorporating everything into the unmissable main story. The character movement is often janky and the combat is extremely repetitive and largely unenjoyable with the flashlight mechanic getting old after an hour. Absolutely worth experiencing but I probably won't replay it like I do for almost all my game purchases.
You start off actually feeling like a dread filled and spooked outsider then it turns into a pretty miserable excuse for a shooter with terrible "puzzle" sections. Most of the designs are very run of the mill/stereotypical Lovecraft and some are downright bad. I enjoyed some of the voice acting and being able to click on a lot of places to hear our character's thoughts. Best to skip this unless you're trying to collect and play most of the Lovecraftian games out there like I am lol
I'd say this the clear second best Lovecraftian game, that I've played, behind Bloodborne. Incorporating a multitude of Lovecraft's stories, from direct references to neat little nods. Detective work is pretty standard fare but works really well in the setting and the flashback mechanic where you piece the event together was fun touch. Early on I was expecting to get annoyed with having to go to the various archives (news, police, city hall, hospital) but it's actually great for character immersion. Overall the writing that's there is solid and better than the usual overdone cliches of the genre and the environmental storytelling is really good, especially in the side quests. The city was a great idea and the atmosphere is top notch, although it could have gone further with the various factions considering how many macabre lookin cultists are openly walking around. Most of the music is good and fits, it's pure bliss when that smokey noir jazz track hits while wandering the city and I wish there could have been more songs like that. Combat is nothing great but can be a good and/or satisfyingly tense time. I discovered early on you can essentially stunlock enemy attacks, save for the largest baddie, with melee to save on expendable resources. Hopefully in the sequel they cut the size of the map in half and make each district more varied in appearance because while what we got is aesthetically great it's way too massive to the point of visual redundancy when the size serves no purpose beyond infrastructural realism. You can only enter a handful of places per zone and most of the interiors are copy-pasted with only minor variation, the first side quest interior I went into was an exact copy of the first main quest residence. The fast travel system also suffers because of the size when you're forced to re-walk/jog through familiar neighbourhoods with nothing to do instead of being able to just open the map and travel to previously discovered places.
If you're getting an almost instant crash like I did this worked for me https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019775837?product=gog There is some great art direction, atmosphere, and voice acting sprinkled about but overall it's extremely mediocre with a fair share of jank like inconsistent audio levels, goofy enemy AI, and downright silly writing at times. So unless you're big on Lovecraftian/cosmic horror and all it's trapping it's probably best to avoid this game
The atmosphere and reactive soundtrack are the best parts of this short game but interiors get repetitive and despite the weapon variety combat feels very samey for the most part. Worth a playthrough though if you like the Victorian vampire aesthetic
