God himself would have fallen short of the hype generated around Cyberpunk 2077. The game has some annoying glitches with visuals and physics. I've also hit upon a few audio bugs—e.g. lines triggering over one another, crackling after controller disconnects. Driving—it is a mixed bag. Cars and trucks lack a sense of mass and momentum, while motorcycles seem okay. :\ The player character, V, is less Dragonborn and more Geralt. You are operating within an established personality, rather than building a blank slate from the ground up. Consequently, the scope of choice in the game is limited and, at times, disappointing. The big open world is ... a bit inert. Given its enormity, I'm not too bothered by this, but there are AI deficiencies that drag the illusion down. NPC motorists are brain dead. Worse, there are no "wanted levels" or pursuits. Rather, angry cops just spawn wherever you run to and start shooting. It's goofy, and I hope this whole system gets reworked. At the time of this writing, there are some wacky balance issues. All that said, none of the problems I've encountered are game-breaking, and there's a lot of good here. The aforementioned open world, while in dire need of some help, is dense and beautiful. Wandering about Night City can be an awe-inspiring experience, maybe the best urban visuals ever crafted inside a game. Combat is weighty, responsive and fun, with an interesting skill tree and hacking. CDPR did quite well with FPS elements. Good sound and voice across the board. Female V is great. As anyone who has played the Witcher franchise should expect, the characters and writing are of a high quality. I haven't seen the main story's ending yet, but even if it burns on landing, the ride was grand. Throw in dozens of hours' worth of side quests and gigs, and I'm finding it rather hard to jump on the outrage bandwagon. Problems aside, it's a great game, and CDPR's history of support bodes well for the future of Cyberpunk 2077.
I really want to love Rebel Galaxy, and I suppose I do on some level. It's a space trading and fighting game in the vein of Freelancer that looks great, runs great and does a lot of things right. Trading in particular is an amusing diversion, especially when you choose to engage in smuggling and wind up fleeing from overzealous enforcers. The story so far (a few missions in) is passable, and might yet prove interesting enough to keep me playing, and the cowboy-esque sci-fi universe is charming. Sadly, the naval-style combat and lack of Z-axis player movement are massive sources of frustration—very near dealbreaking frustration, if I'm totally honest. As a result of this design choice, the camera is highly restricted and behaves in a wonky manner when tracking enemies. Smaller varieties of baddies (the majority) are perfectly able to zip around your floating brick of a ship in three dimensions, as well as attack from above and below. If the developers had set the game on a water planet, with ships and submarines instead of spacecraft, maybe things would be different, but the science geek in me just can't get over the "space is an ocean" trope. I tentatively recommend Rebel Galaxy on the basis of everything except the movement and combat. Sadly, movement and combat permeate almost every aspect of the game, and these things never improve no matter how good the rest of the experience is.
