This is at best an early access right now & if you don't have high end hardware then forget enjoying this game right now. Even the recommended hardware specs can't acheive stable 60 fps with everything at low. Wait until game gets optimized for older hardwares & then buy.
NPCs are lifeless & buggy as hell. There are quest breaking bugs & immersion breaking bugs.
Game mechanics like weapon system feels like looter-shooter, no barbers incase you want to change your hairstyles, driving controls are a mess and don't give enough feedback.
(DEC 2021)BOTTOM LINE.
The story is really all you can rate as a positive here and that's pushing it. If it's cheap... meh... still kind of recommend not grabbing it... just watch a playthrough.
THE BREAKDOWN:
I will keep it simple,
- the voice acting is top notch
-the story is suuuper edge-lord cringe
-the world's concepts and character mind set is... weird.(everyone says they have to burn the world down including the hookers).
-some strong character moments.
-the gunplay is a bit above average due to the movement and melee combat... kind of
-stealth is broken(either due to crap AI for or glitchy mechanics and animations)
-the physics is still busted...
-the visuals can be nice when something silly isn't happening... but its rare that your just not confused by AI pathing choices or lack-there-of.
-cops still spawn behind you LMAOOO
-driving still floaty
There's a ton more... this game is broken(still, dec 2021). The story is cringe as hell with occasional strong character moments... but those can be totally ruined by graphical glitches(i.e. Jackie's death scene ruined because his gun was clipping through his face the whole moment). The graphics are gorgeous, when not in motion... and the optimized the performance allowing a stable 60fps on ultra finally.
The point...
The story was not my taste but it might be yours. I can say it's good, but I was not into it... but make no mistake... this game is still broken with no plan to fix it or restore it. On low its still visually nice so you can enjoy the visuals if you lack whatever...
The game does a few things well, but is plagged by systemic issues which are unlikely to be solved:
+ Main quests is interesting.
+ Character interactions
+ Night City looks great.
- Lifepath has barely any impact in the game: feels like related quests and content where cut out of the game.
- Barely functional AI makes night city feel soulless.
- Most of the secondary quests are filler.
- Random open world events are basic and uninteresting.
- RPG mechanics barely impact gameplay and feel lackluster.
- Itemization is horrendous: you are showered by huge ammounts of barely better loot.
I had enough faith in CD Projekt Red to pre-order a game, but it turns out that was a terrible decision. I'm disappointed by all their awful recent managerial decisions and my heart goes out all the developers who had to work overtime for so long to make this game. And that makes it even harder to say that the final product simply isn't good.
At its best (or rather: at times) the game is a pretty looking first person shooter with a fun story.
But as an RPG it's bad. Character customization is incredibly limited, with no options to change your appearance in any way after creation. Skill trees are expansive, but most skills on it are very uninteresting. All the story-telling happens in overly long cut scenes and conversations that the player has barely any influence on.
On top of that there's the numerous, sometimes gamebreaking bugs; the NPC's terrible AI and an open world that is mostly void of things to do and feels surprisingly lifeless for a cyberpunk dystopia among other things.
All of the above is disregarding all the features mentioned during development that haven't been realised. I understand that not all content can make it into the final game, but it's embarrassing to see how barebones it all is when so much had been promised.
Cyberpunk shouldn't have been released like this. As it is, this game just makes me wish I had picked up E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy instead.
I guess i'm in the small minority that has been lucky enough to be able to play the game in a high quality, it looks great and runs okay, i've had small audio issues that were easily solved with a load of an autosave.
But with the game being very playable on my end it has made some of the omissions in this game pretty glaring.
-The driving is pretty bad. not the worst but it takes a solid 15 hours to get used to.
-The NPCs absolutely DO NOT have a daily routine, the ones you interact with like fixers, and vendors are always there. same with all TWO of the joy toys in the game (this one's not a huge deal but to think there are two joytoys in a city like night city is weird) and the non-interactive NPCs walking around seem to just walk in lines and I consistently see the same person walking right b ehind themselves.
-You cannot play braindances outside of missions at all. you can buy them from the vendors, you have a BD headset but nothing will play on it. in fact there are some missions where you just steal a BD and send it to someone else to watch and tell you about it.
-There are no activities do to in Night City at all. the races, shooting, and boxing contests are all side missions with story lines to them. you can not play pool, basketball, arcade games, you can't even sit down in chairs to just watch peopel go by. I havent even seen an option to watch BDs in the strip club where they are most often talked about.
honestly it feels like it was so rushed that they totally skipped over the QA portion of development and even removed a lot of the talked about features just to have something ready for day one.
