CP2077 was never going to live up to unrealistic expectations of a futuristic life sim. But CDPR marketed it as a highly immersive open world RPG, and delivered something different. Instead, we got a story based linear shooter with all the tired old tropes of that genre. Press X to sit. Press X to hand object to NPC. Select from three samey dialogue choices. Now shoot 10 NPCs in the head and advance to the next cutscene, where your character will pretend to have human emotions despite being a homicidal maniac. Much has been said about the game's AI & physics. I think it is unfixable. Even if improved in future updates, it will still be at a level of sophistication that *might* have been state of the art in the 1990s. Mario Kart 64 had better AI! This is at the level of Microsoft Clippy. Either the game engine is incapable of supporting dynamic AI behavior, or CDPR's devs just don't have the skills required to code it. CDPR has promised to fix these problems. The only way to truly fix them is to import the raw assets into Unity or Unreal and start over from scratch. *** This wouldn't be so bad if there was a well crafted story and characters - as in the Witcher series. YMMV here, but I wasn't impressed. Plot summary: "hang out with Keanu Reeves and shoot people. Oh noes evil corp!". Cheap motivation is provided by the two Designated Player Girlfriends and some abused women to get protective over. Still better than, say, Bethesda's awful writing but CDPR has done better in the past. The overall tone isn't really that mature - the evil corp plot, family friendly lack of nudity & perversity (IMO) make it play like some direct-to-video YA movie. *** This review has been pretty harsh. What about the good things? The world design, lighting and sound are superb. 10/10 here. Also, I laughed at the "Milfguard" posters. I believe that CDPR will make a great game again, but this isn't it.
