4.5/5 ★ – tunikb's review of Cyberpunk 2077.

Platform: PC Time to beat: 70hrs Recommended to anyone who is remotely into sci-fi or cyberpunk media and who likes story-driven action games with an open world backdrop So after a couple of weeks of everyone shit-storming everything and everyone that has to do with this game, I've finally finished it and feel conflicted. Cyberpunk has been my most anticipated game for quite a while and I was SO sure I was going to like it. And I did, a lot. Really a lot. But all the good moments I had with the game, should be overshadowed by the state in which the game was released and the ambition that clearly was in the way of making this a more streamlined experience, right? But they aren't. By now probably everyone heard of or has seen technical issues this game is plagued with. I think the majority of those are fixable issues, which over time should not be a problem anymore. And the weird thing is, I've encountered so few of these, that I somehow feel I've played a different game. I kept track of technical issues in my 70 hours and it amounted to 1 game-crash, 1 mission that was stuck and I had to reload the last save to continue, 2 circling cars (as you've probably seen in a vid) and one NPC doing the notorious t-pose. These are things that were really obvious, of course there were also some random weird things happening here and there if you looked long and close enough, but that's something I've come to expect in an open-world game. (disclaimer: I've played on a very powerful gaming pc) There are few issues in this game however, that will not be fixable easily. And why they make me so angry is, because those mechanics partly were not really necessary to be in the game at all imho. Let's start with the RPG elements. I've played through the game on very hard from the beginning and even early on I had no problems in any of those fights. The more I progressed in the game though, the more and more obvious it became to me how useless all of these perks were, because none of it really mattered. After I had found good guns, I was able to breeze through without having to have any sort of strategy. (The game is just far too easy) And I was fine with that, gunplay was fun enough to keep me engaged. But all the time and development that went into developing the skill-tree should've been time the devs spent on the more important parts. The same goes for crafting: usually I like to go the crafting route in games but here it really felt like the absolute waste of time and skill-points. Both of these facts really lead me to not spending any points in the late game at all and I didn't make a difference. A lot more time that could've went into polishing the good parts of the game. It's an open world game with a huge city, so we have to talk about crowd simulation and traffic. Thats the weakest point of the game, so weak even, I can't really believe how they could abandon something so fundamental. The AI is so terrible, it kills the immersion if you look at it for too long. This goes for enemy AI (rendering some of the fights and stealth gameplay unbearable) and NPCs on the street, as well as cars. It's practically non-existent in some cases and I'm not sure if this is something game devs can adress at this point, but it really hurts an otherwise unrivaled world-building. Cyberpunk wants to play in the same league as the best open world games and therefore has to be compared. And if you compare it to the best, it really falls short when it comes to those aforementioned basic things. Red dead felt much more alive and the NPCs all had some kind of personality, they reacted to you dynamically. Sure, the era it plays in really made it easier as cities where smaller and had much less people in it. But even GTA in a bigger city at least made it work to a certain degree and CDPR should've put much more resources in making these things believable. Also: the apartment was a missed opprtunity, as it has no use. As were the cars, they are designed so well, interior and exterior look absolutely stunning, but driving them is just not fun. When you sit in a car with an npc (which you do quite often), they handle the cars even clunkier. I also would've wished for more places to visit, play games or watch movies or something like that. And whether decisions make an impact or not, doesn't really matter while playing it, because you never really know if a certain outcome is linked to an action. The world doesn't really react much to the things you do. So, sounds like I don't like the game right? To be honest: I really love cyberpunk. Because it succeeds with so many other things. Let me say again, that I've been lucky enough to play it on a powerful gaming rig and with a really good pair of headphones. Obviously the graphics are the main selling point of the game, but the sound design is nothing short of being absolutely amazing. Walking down a street you are bombarded by such a rich sound scenery, it's unbelievably immersive. Deep bass penetrates the walls of a club you pass (by the way, all the clubs in this game are just breathtaking), flying cars make menacing sounds overhead and ads roar through loud speakers. There is so much going on, it's hard not to be immersed. The music selection in radios is superb, capturing exactly the variety of vibes I was expecting of a cyberpunk game. But also the soundtrack itself is absolutely stunning. The way some of the missions are accentuated by dark electronic and ambient soundscapes is just purely cinematic. When you now combine the top notch audio design with visuals that often time left me speechless, it's hard to not give the highest praise for the devs. To me, the way the city is build, even after 70hrs in it, is still unbelievable. The level of vertically and clutteredness is unseen in a game. Lighting, may it be the artificial neon lights everywhere that drench the city in colors, or the natural light changing the entire atmosphere from dusk till dawn and in the night. Reflections you see in puddles and on your car or windows. All of this is so beautiful (in parts thanks to raytracing features). I really felt like wandering through one of my favorite movies, blade runner. It is so beautiful, I really didn't want to use any fast travel, even though the driving mechanics, like i said earlier, are not really good. I used every opportunity to traverse the city by foot or car. I don't want to spoil too much, but a certain parade is one of most stunning set pieces I've ever seen in a video game or movie for that matter. Wandering through Japantown or through Little China, looking down from the high rises, are the most beautiful areas in an open world game I've ever explored. But there are so many more places, where I just had to stand still and soak it all in. Even the badlands are nailed well, especially when you drive out of the city into the sunset. There are just so many moments that feel to good to be true in a videogame. But this could just be a walking simulator, if all thats good in it, is the world to look at. And its not. Because the other part of this game being SO good, is the story and it's characters. RDR2 set the bar for how fleshed out characters and their relationships can be in an open world game that feels cinematic. Cyberpunk comes close, when it comes to delivering characters you feel invested to and missions that are written well and staged beautifully. Most of the characters you meet, feel unique and have personality and lore you find scattered across the world helps flesh out everything. Missions take you to a variety of distinct places, making sure you don't miss any of the beautiful sights this game has to offer. Often times you have conversations on rooftops or outside the city with insane views. You are on concerts, you see montages of drinking binges or flashbacks, Silverhand often seemlessly fades in and out of your vision commenting on a lot of the things going on around you. All of it is edited so nicely, feeling like scenes out of a movie. Not only the main story missions shine with great production values, but also almost all of the side missions are extensive and written so well, delivering some of the best moments this game has to offer. The main plot evolving around mega corporation Arasaka feels like a familiar story about intrigues and conspiracy’s, but what I found way more interesting is the development of the protagonist and a certain other individual. I really don't want to go into much detail, as I think it's best experienced on your own, but there are also tons of references to other popular media and very cool easter eggs. So where do I stand in terms of rating this game? Like I said in the beginning: i'm conflicted. Objectively it's a good, if not great, but no perfect game. And I think the game would have not received the same amount of hate, if the marketing and promises of the devs had not hyped it beyond realistic expectations. Saying that this game is outright bad though, is just wildly ignorant of the plenty good things you can find here and an exaggerated reaction imo. The game for me is a dream come true. So I am biased, i know. I really didn't want it to end and can't wait to visit again. So I should give a 10 out of 10. But the game should have been different as well. It should have been an action adventure, without the crafting, the items, the leveling, maybe more like a polished naughty dog game, with a smaller more scripted world, because the game shows, when you do, what they want you to do, it’s amazing. So for now I'll stick to a 9. I wish the devs would see this as the baseline for the world and stay with it for as long as hello games did with no mans sky. I think Night City has so much potential and a lot of great stories could be told in it. So I'd love the gaming community rather encourage the devs to explore more of this vision, rather than trashing them for bad decisions marketing and management made over the past years. I think it's something that can be seperated legitamitely. And I think the game can become an easy 10 in the future.