I was intrigued, albeit skeptical, to revisit Cyberpunk after the disasterous launch, since a concerted marketing effort along with several patches and a paid DLC had entirely swayed the opinions of the masses -- in an extremely amusing show of how fickle people can be! Imagine my surprise when the game barely feels different. Graphical issues including very weird paper particle effects and a crash to desktop in the first 30 mins (although I'll concede that I'm probably 15 hours in now and haven't had one since). The police/crime system is definitely better now but since it essentially didn't *exist* in the first place, that's not a huge milestone. Bugs and half complete things abound. One entire leveling system, Street Cred, is entirely pointless. So too is the in-game economy, with me immediately hoarding loads of cash and not being able to find anything to buy except cars and apartments and, as before, you already start the game with a sports car and apartment (the latter of which there's still no reason to actually visit). The game is full of shops for weapons, clothing to fill your large number of outfit slots, food shops and drink shops. No reason to visit any of them. The clothing system is still a massive missed opportunity with clothing essentially only being cosmetic aside from a select few items with very very minor buffs on them -- they really, REALLY should have gamified this. Not just for stat bonuses, but also a gamified fashion system, or reactions to the way you dress. Cyberware systems have finally actually been implemented (compared with the barebones system the game shipped with) and they're really good -- no criticism there. Skill trees redone but lacking synergy across trees. "Stash" shows unique weapons collected but... actually doesn't due to known old bug! Hit word limit. Summary: avg story, good cutscenes, fun gameplay, still half-baked.
Elex 2 is a technical marvel. For a team of 30ish people to create a game on this scale in a completely in-house engine, with this graphical fidelity, in which you can literally soar along through the sky like Iron Man with no loading screens, is a truly amazing feat. It's a pity they sacrificed everything else that mattered in order to pull it off. PB's desire to break into the mainstream and compete with AAA titles has resulted in further and further watering down of their games, ultimately leaving us with titles that will please nobody -- too generic and poorly balanced for core fans, and never going to be polished enough for average gamers. Here are some of the problems with Elex 2: - Very little personality/charm/humour -- staples that held together the messes that were Risen 2 and 3 - Stats like str/con/int etc. increase your damage/health by such a tiny amount as to be functionally meaningless, despite promises from the devs. I'll put it in perspective: to double your damage with an end-game weapon, you would need to invest all stat points in strength for about 850 level ups in a row -- you will finish the game around level 40. - The world is about 6x bigger than it needs to be, resulting in lots of generic nothingness. Enemies respawn everywhere so you don't actually need to explore to level up. There is very little by way of interesting loot, other than fuel upgrades for your jetpack, which admittedly are very fun to find while they last - Unfortunately, in one of the most self-destructive game design decisions I've ever seen, they severely limited the amount you can upgrade your jetpack so that you will cap it out by early/mid-game -- you won't be able to fly the way you can in the trailer, and without the incentive of finding fuel, exploration starts to feel pointless - Magic/2-handers don't work with jetpack, so you will always end up using 1h weapons regardless of build - Magic balancing is awful - oh no I'm out of characters to complain with
