The game was simply NOT ready to be released. The story/characters and graphics are quite good actually and this is what has kept me hooked so far, but everything else falls apart: bugs, glitches, stupid AI, short lifepaths, boring game design, unfulfilled promises overall... you name it. I've had better luck (and more fun) playing Baldur's Gate III than this piece of disappointment. It can still be saved from this mess but it's going to need NMS scale patches to be honest. These are not "simple" bugs but even basic systems are broken or barebones. On a side note, whoever at CDPR tried driving in this game with KB&M and thought "it's okay", send that person my regards...
I bought "Whispers of a Machine" on launch day without barely knowing a single thing about it. I've enjoyed in the past games like "Technobabylon" and this aesthetic is right up my alley. I just finished it and, while I found this one enjoyable as well thanks to its fair puzzles, its story felt like a recap or a homage of the latest Blade Runner movie (which I adore by the way) or many cyberpunk plots in one game better said. For that reason, there wasn't a single moment where I genuinely felt surprised by the plot. On top of that, I didn't get attached to anyone of the cast: they were alright, don't get me wrong, but I couldn't get emotional about their struggles. Maybe if it was a bit longer or had a better pace in order to develop more the characters? I do not know to be honest. Although this might be my fault as the same thing happened with Shardlight's characters too for instance. And I must admit that I liked the idea of having different augmentations depending on your personality (and also different outcomes for the ending as well as different solutions for some puzzles, not at "I have no mouth and I must scream" levels of variety and importance though) and I'd love to see this idea expanded in another game. All in all it is a good adventure graphic game that tries to add some interesting mechanics, but it is not groundbreaking (and I don't think it's trying to be either) and probably, after playing some similar games, this one feels a bit more samey. I still have to see another ending, so my opinion might vary if that one is completely different to the one I chose.
