3.5/5 ★ – Gibbs's review of Cyberpunk 2077.

Cyberpunk 2077 dares to ask the bold question - what if Bethesda games were good? Jokes aside, I was a bit worried starting this that I wouldn’t like this for the same reasons I don’t like Bethesda games. And to be honest, during act 1, I didn’t enjoy this for 2 main reasons. First of all, I’m just not super interested in big giant city maps with markers everywhere anymore. However, that’s no fault of the game, but more of a me thing. So I decided to just take it one step at a time and go for main missions for the most part. Secondly, I really don’t like first person shooters. I always find it so samey and boring. Shoot at a guy, hide behind cover, peek and shoot, move up to more cover. Rinse and repeat. And with the guns I was using, this fear was certainly true. But I kept it going. Making my way through and through, until a certain part of the game where Keanu Reeves is introduced. He wasn’t much more than a cool novelty at first, but things started to change, and before I knew it, I was really enjoying my time! Two reasons for this. The first being that the characters start to get super likeable, fun, layered and interesting. This was CDPR’s biggest strength in the Witcher 3 and they nailed it here too. Keanu also absolutely embodies this role; I really loved his portrayal of Johnny as the story progresses. Reason 2, I decided to abandon guns altogether and went full throwing knives and katana. Hacking both computer systems and limbs while stealthily crawling and throwing knives everywhere I went. And this changed so much. Sure, it’s not even fundamentally that different from using a gun, but it just FELT so much better to me. So once I got hooked by these characters and cyber ninja simulation, before I knew it I my opinion of the game did a compete turn around. I found myself seeking out side quests, and ended up completing all of them. When once I was dashing from map marker to map marker, I allowed myself to enjoy this insanely cool city I found myself in and appreciate every little sparking neon detail. But even really enjoying Cyberpunk 2077, I woudlnt say it’s the best game ever. This story is cool, filled with amazing stuff and great ideas, but I don’t think it’s as smoothly told as it could have been. Sometimes it felt a bit jumpy and arbitrary. Lots of stuff was incredibly cool upon understanding it all once you pick up on all the background and lore, but in the moment it can feel like just a bit of a ‘tour’. Some plot points and characters are definitely underwritten, and it feels like they’ve just tried to cram too much in. Too many talented ideas people not getting the right place to tell their concepts. I still enjoyed it, and having characters like Johnny with me the whole way made it fun, but I definitely think the Witcher 3 was more eloquently and purposefully written. The gameplay has cool stuff to play around with, but certainly isn’t breaking any ground, and ultimately the whole thing is not too far off your standard WRPG. A lot of these missions aren’t too far off of something like Call of Duty. I wish hacking was a little more than scan a camera to turn it off, or disable an enemy using a menu with a few options that all pretty much do the same thing. I wish the enemy AI was more adaptive. I wish the gun play and driving wasn’t so standard. But as a vector to exist in this world, it works well enough. Cyberpunk 2077 does a fantastic job of presenting you with cool idea after cool idea. I wish all of these ideas were dived into a little more in ways other than background lore, but if you treat Night City as the backdrop to an incredibly realised world, where you can play the way you want to, you’re going to have a good time. I’d like another go here - make it smaller and more focused, play into your strengths with this interesting world and lore, and give me more interesting gameplay and roleplaying mechanics and you’ve got something really special. I don’t think anything in this game but Night City’s design is truly incredible, but all of it does come together nicely as a sum of its parts. Extremely promising set-up if we ever return to Night City.