The basic premise of the Cyberpunk Universe is the "Anit-Establishment" struggle. That being said, the storyline does a pretty good job of keeping to that, -Especially- when it comes to the interpretation of Johnny Silverhand.
The band Samurai: What a joke! They sound like some crappy '80s Hairband like Keel or Triumph or something (a keyboardist, are you kidding me?) I envisioned Samurai as a band like: Rage Against the Machine, Rancid or maybe even Soulfly.
...As a kid playing the Cyberpunk tabletop RPG, and being a now broken-body headbanger, I was super excited about what they would make Samurai into. What a monumental disappointment.
So you're V and you're thrown in the world.
The game gives you no choice but to follow a predetermined path. Occasionally you have to press F to continue and may be able to skip neverending bla bla bla with Y.
So that's what i'm doing the most: Hammering F and Y together to skip endless awful dialogues that i don't care about at all, because the story is shallow. Most of the time you listen to boring character #213612 in endless dialogues which stop you from playing. Do this, press F to continue, listen to endless dialogue #85421 which you are unable to skip and which isn't interesting at all.
It's only frustrating, but i give one star for the effort which was put in graphics and especially the cars, which have a nice design.
Other than that it's just a bad game with no choices at all. I'ts no game at all, it's an interactive movie.
Press F to continue
The game is truly great in terms of atmosphere, world building, story, side content and graphics. Gameplay is really great too.
Are there bugs? Sure there are but if you are playing on a good PC you will encounter less of them.
This is a great foundation for great DLCs and Expansions. I have faith in CDPR that they will patch all problems and ease up on the requirements for a good performance on even older hardware.
As it stands this is one of the best if not the best open world game. Every main mission and side quest are expertly written, voice acted and ooze with personality and atmosphere. There are many things to do and see in this world.
I am already 27 hours in and I have barely even touched the main campaign. No cookie cutter side missions here and no repeatable fetch quests or kill x amount of y. This is a true single player experience through and through, CDPR learned from their previous games and every side activity is meaningful and adds to the sense of existing in this large world.
Gunplay feels great and the first person gameplay adds to the whole immersion.
Do yourself a favour and experience this great world unbiased from the 'professional white knight reviewers' and the previous gen console whiners who expected a next gen game running at 60fps on 7 year old hardware. Things will surely get better with time. CDPR has already proven this with the Witcher 3 (bugs on launch and performance issues which were ironed out for every platform, post release with numerous patches).
While there are admittedly a few issues, it seems like a LOT of people are rating this after their incredibly in depth review of... 5 minutes of gameplay.
Unfortunately, these people are going to play it for a few minutes, give it a poor rating, and then go back to whatever ios games they play in their normal rotation, leaving the stain of their useless review on a great work from a great company.
Now, enough of the ranting:
OVERVIEW:
The game is pretty much a crossover between GTA-style driving and storyline with Bethesda-style FPS gameplay and a pretty deep cyberware/skills menu and its own brand of Cyberpunk window dressing.
If you are a fan of either, you'll do well here. If neither sounds like your cup of tea, perhaps you'd rather just watch others play it.
It's pretty standard gameplay, perhaps only a 4/5 were it the next Fallout or Elder Scrolls, but it takes Cyberpunk property into the mix, making it a 5/5 for me.
PROS
+multiple storylines that ACTUALLY make a difference. No red/blue/green endings here, even if some of the earlier events don't seem to make much of an impact at first.
+none of the glitches I'm seeing reported, and the standard desktop PC can easily run it without any issues. My kids' computer can run it fine on max settings.
+the graphics are pretty decent considering the level of interaction and the large play area.
+the gunplay is decent and makes you really want to use cyberware, unlike many pause-and-aim tactics or snap-on-targeting games.
CONS
-the controls feel as if keyboard was pushed aside to make controller play feel better at times. You can of course redefine mouse and keyboard parameters, but it should be set up nicely standard out of the box.
-gameplay-wise, it's just another FPS RPG with some name-brand storyline. If the older titles weren't your thing, some new graphics and future setting likely won't change that much.
