TL;DR: the way the game handles these well written characters is definitely something else. The game gives you choices which aren't good or bad, you can choose whatever suits you but it clearly affects the way these characters see you or how they behave towards you. It puts you in a rollercoaster of emotions in a pretty well designed city with a great atmosphere. Doing a second playthrough and it just keeps surprising me when picking other options. The thing that stands out for me in this game are definitely the people you meet in this game. Each person has it's own personality which defines how they judge your actions in this game. Added with some absolute great voiceacting it makes these characters feel alive. Aside from the regular interaction during (side)missions you get these small moments of contact with them through a phonecall or textmessage where you can also interact with them. It's very clever because it helps create a bond or a feeling of friendship for these NPCs. Some are suble and progress naturaly, some have a little more push to it. But overall each one of them are so very well made and i absolutely love it. The game itself is complex, you have different ways to play it as a character (from heavy gunning soldier to a sneaky hacking netrunner. You have different ways to handle outcome of some missions, without being clearly right or wrong. (sometimes yea, but you know when that happens). Most of the time you can just do what you feel is right for you, or you can set aside your own feelings and do what's best for your NPC friend. The city is fun. Past few updates brought it alive and there are a lot of random events or funny NPC dialogs you can listen to. With each part of the city having their own feel to it, it's a great city to wander about. 5/5 recommand, even if its just to meet the NPC's of Night City.
tl;dr, the game is a bit buggy sometimes, the city feels a bit empty, the engine isn't made for driving around too fast. But the storytelling of this game makes up for everything. The characters are well made, voiceacting is spot on and it feels quite dynamic. The gameplay it self has many aspects of it from gunplay, melee fighting or stealthy netrunning. Only showstopping bug was 1 sidequest not loading. At first glance when i started i was a bit afraid of the bugs. Few floating items, cars spawning out of nowhere... it got my a bit sceptical. Once into the game the first characters you encounter are quite interesting. Very convincing, they have this vivid feel about them. With the effort they put in the voiceacting and the dialog choices you get it really feels like a proper RPG. The gameplay is not too bad. You have different types of game you want to play and build a character as you see fit. So you can specialize in assaultrifles, pistols, hand-to-hand combat or just try to avoid direct violence. It's one of these skyrim kind of things where your ambition is to be a proper warrior but you end up as a stealth archer again. The city doesn't feel that much alive as it should be, the pedestrians are a bit clunky and if you go too fast through town the streets will be empty as the engine doesn't seem to handle it properly. The handling of the vehicles isn't that great either so the whole open world aspect does get a bit lost. It's nothing like GTA where you just cruise around for fun and enjoy the atmosphere. The city is itself is well made. Its vast and well designed. Too bad you just dont drive around for fun because of the bad handling of the cars and the emptyness of the streets. So if you can look past the bugs and appreciate a good story with well made characters. Definitely a recommandation.
TL:DR; the game plays a bit like an unpolished version of company of heroes in a dieselpunk alternative universe theme. The story isnt thát great but its enjoyable. The maps are fun enough, the alternative units are well made and the gameplay is varied. It also has some flaws but no showstoppers. Im a big fan of RTS games. It plays a bit like an old school rts like company of heroes where you have class based units which can counter other classes (infantry, mechs, etc). I like it how it's different but yet familiar. Instead of tanks you have mechs in all sizes. The bigger the mech, the more you can wreck. The story isn't thát great but the maps does offer a nice variety of plays. With base, without base, defense against waves, single hero missions etc. But the whole post ww1 setting with mechs as cavalry units is very nice. Something else than the standard light armored jeeps and slow heavy tanks. Keep the small and agile mechs to flank enemies while biggies blow everything up. Its quite satisfying. The unit cap prevents you from turtling and build a huge zerg of heavy units and the campaign maps are large enough that you can't maximum defend everything. So it's sort of challenging but not that hard. Here's the unpolished part, where in COH you could clear out an entire building with grenades, it takes a few. Fire sometimes kills all the units or something no one. The whole cover doesnt work out properly, if you have more than one unit selected only one will take over etc. This couldve been done better but its something you can get used to. As an RTS i do recommend it because it's fun, and finally a worthy RTS! Is it perfect? No but there is enough thought in this game to make it fun.
tl;dr: beautiful world, immersive story, very likeable protagonist, excellent voiceacting. Take your time if you want to play this. The game deserves it. If you like open world adventures, get this one. The game starts off quite easy going, introducing you to the maincharacter of the game, Aloy. She has a lot of questions which will not be answered right away. The game takes you in small steps through the beginning of her life. After that there are some minor introduction questions before the game actually starts. Since i suffer from fomo this took me about 3 hours because i wanted to explore everything. The world is just beautiful. Lot of different terrainlevels, random events, creatures, weather etc. There is a lot to explore and to find in the world. The settlements you find differs from mility outposts to developed cities. Small detail is that NPCs you pass by actually react to you. Fighting mechanics are not that hard, but it can be challenging depending on what difficulty you play. There are a lot of ways to take down enemies, from rushing down with melee attacks to stay hidden, set traps and lure them into them. And sometimes just take your loss and run as fast as you can. Moving through the world can sometimes be challenging, because you will run into huge beasts you cannot defeat (yet). Or hordes of smaller ones. You can walk around them, sneak by or engage them in combat. The loot system is fair. You need to craft your own ammo and such which you can make from stuff you can gather or loot from the animal corpses. For me it didnt feel like a real grind. Most rare items you need to get better equipment or upgrades. At some point fast travel is available, but i like wandering about too much so i just walk everywhere and take the slow approach for this game.
