Cyberpunk 2077 Review thread - Umm....

[Gordon_4]

Normally in a sci fi RPG hacking is a skill that strongly shifts your playstyle towards methodical stealth that gradually turns the environment and enemies on each other, or bypasses them entirely. In Cyberpunk going pure Netrunner actually turns you into a very loud character who resolves encounters with mildly interesting direct debuffs and hails of cranium-seeking bullets. This is not necessarily for the worse because you can't reliably drop enemies with headshots anyway, and there aren't enough hackable environmental hazards to make up for this. The upshot is that twenty hours in I rather wish I'd instead sunk my skill points into being a sword wielding physical adept so my bloodbaths could be a bit more engaging, because the close combat system is really rather good.

Look I'll be honest, based on what I've seen with the original tabletop, being a Netrunner is a largely static role in terms of 'combat', which their field utility being limited to helping Solos or other combat characters gain entry to areas with electronic systems or getting information out of computers on missions. Any DM with a heart will allow all characters who aren't pure solos to put a few points into Combat Sense (the special skill, essentially a free boost to initiative) as long as their backstory can support it.

So when playing 2077, its best to square with the fact that V is, and always has been, a Solo who invested in cross skilling.

 

[09philj]

Things I actually do like:
- all the technology is very well rendered
- the overturned nomad modified vehicles are great fun to drive and look fantastic
- Skippy the sentient gun is funny
- Judy is a good character, I like her
- the smart sawed off double barrelled shotgun is a gleefully oxymoronic head exploder
- being able to double jump and that being useful for traversal

Additional thing I do not like:
- the mission where you rescue Evelyn from the xbd set crosses a line into genuine nastiness that feels really crass and exploitative, and not in the low level kind of fun way the game is normally at, particularly since this is the second mandatory instance where you carry a barely clothed unconscious woman out of a very bad place

 

[Gordon_4]

Things I actually do like:
- all the technology is very well rendered
- the overturned nomad modified vehicles are great fun to drive and look fantastic
- Skippy the sentient gun is funny
- Judy is a good character, I like her
- the smart sawed off double barrelled shotgun is a gleefully oxymoronic head exploder
- being able to double jump and that being useful for traversal

Additional thing I do not like:
- the mission where you rescue Evelyn from the xbd set crosses a line into genuine nastiness that feels really crass and exploitative, and not in the low level kind of fun way the game is normally at, particularly since this is the second mandatory instance where you carry a barely clothed unconscious woman out of a very bad place

It is nasty. Its incredibly nasty. In fact it is downright fuckin' vile. And it's supposed to be. And if it feels crass and exploitative, then congratulations its because that's exactly what the Scavs are being, to the most heinous degree possible. I've played that mission over ten times as part of Judy's story. And by the time I'm done, there's not a single living gangoon left in that building. And if the game would let me, I'd set it the fuck on fire. And don't forget most of what happened to Evelyn was down to the Voodoo Boys not liking that an outsider double dealed them.

And Night City doesn't stop there. There's a father and son team scrolling that same shit down by the docks - protected by Maelstrom I think - who you hunt down on behalf of a victim's parents and when you first confront them, assuming you don't just lob a grenade into the room and search it, they ask you to be more specific about the xBD of the murdered and tortured child because they've done so many. Oh and there's the Tyger Claw boss Jotaro Shobo; his computer makes for interesting and nauseating reading. Then there's what's going on with that upper class couple where the husband is running for mayor and there appears to be an entire aparatus dedicated to rewriting his goddamn mind. Lets see, uh, there's also the serial killer 'Peter Pan' in River's side story which is some shit straight out of Se7en. Also who can forget Joshua, the crook who found religion and wants you to help crucify him as part of some deranged repentance so that others may be inspired by his example.


Long story short, these are the events in the game that bring the cartoonish work-a-day violence V does into sharp relief. And suddenly the city stops being some kind of zany theme park full of colourful villains. It becomes the massive monument to human suffering and social decay it was alwasys intended to be, and honestly without these examples (and more) the game would be a poorer experience overall.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Long story short, these are the events in the game that bring the cartoonish work-a-day violence V does into sharp relief. And suddenly the city stops being some kind of zany theme park full of colourful villains. It becomes the massive monument to human suffering and social decay it was alwasys intended to be, and honestly without these examples (and more) the game would be a poorer experience overall.

It's these dark, gut-punch events that underline you're not just playing a chromed up GTA clone.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

This is not necessarily for the worse because you can't reliably drop enemies with headshots anyway,

Maybe they completely rebalanced the game, but when I played it on release it was actually very easy to make a build that reliably killed with headshots. I sleepwalked through the game using a silenced revolver and killed most enemies with a single tap to the head.

I rather wish I'd instead sunk my skill points into being a sword wielding physical adept so my bloodbaths could be a bit more engaging, because the close combat system is really rather good.

And on launch the melee combat was rather shit. Only marginally better than Skyrim, which isn't saying much.

 

[Satinavian]

Maybe they completely rebalanced the game,

They did. On release weapons had a level just like the character and it was always set to around character level when picket up. Damage scaled massively with that level meaning every few levels all your weapons were worthless. You could upgrade the special ones at least for a price, but it was still stupid. Enemy health scaled massively as well but their stats depended on area, not your level. So if you moved in a neighborhood beyond your intended level, even your most powerful weapons wouldn't do much even with headshots.

It was overall really stupid. Many people resorted to cheating/grinding to max level with respawning gangers before playing huge parts of the game just to get out of the gear threadmill (and to unlock cool clothes in shops). The system at release was simple a horrible match for the intended genre, even if it works in some other games.

 

[09philj]

It's these dark, gut-punch events that underline you're not just playing a chromed up GTA clone.

In GTA V you help the CIA torture a terror suspect.

 

[Gordon_4]

In GTA V you help the CIA torture a terror suspect.

Which, sadly, seems rather lowbrow compared to this shit.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Look I'll be honest, based on what I've seen with the original tabletop, being a Netrunner is a largely static role in terms of 'combat', which their field utility being limited to helping Solos or other combat characters gain entry to areas with electronic systems or getting information out of computers on missions. Any DM with a heart will allow all characters who aren't pure solos to put a few points into Combat Sense (the special skill, essentially a free boost to initiative) as long as their backstory can support it.

So when playing 2077, its best to square with the fact that V is, and always has been, a Solo who invested in cross skilling.

CP2077 netrunning is basically the "control remote" function of a CP2020 cyberdeck, very simple shit that any character could do.

Actual netrunning in 2020 was a totally different kettle of fish and tended not to gel very well with the real world play.

 

[Gordon_4]

CP2077 netrunning is basically the "control remote" function of a CP2020 cyberdeck, very simple shit that any character could do.

Actual netrunning in 2020 was a totally different kettle of fish and tended not to gel very well with the real world play.

Netrunning is almost a different game in and of itself.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Netrunning is almost a different game in and of itself.

Ok, we need to do a netrun... everyone who isn't a netrunner might as well go and order pizza and have a few beers... I can see why they did away with the net and tried something new in V3, sucky as it turned out.

I suppose CP2020's late 80s/early 90s vision of the virtual reality internet probably looks a bit cheesy today and would probably require a lot of extra effort to implement.

 

[BrawlMan]

I'm not interested personally, but good on the fans.

Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a live-action adaptation

There’s more Cyberpunk to look forward to.

www.theverge.com

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

I'm not interested personally, but good on the fans.

Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a live-action adaptation

There’s more Cyberpunk to look forward to.

www.theverge.com

At least it sounds like it’ll be a brand new story, just within the game world. I’ll look out for it because it could be cool if done well.

 

[Gordon_4]

At least it sounds like it’ll be a brand new story, just within the game world. I’ll look out for it because it could be cool if done well.

That's the best thing about Cyberpunk 2020/2077. Its greatest strength is the setting. Edgerunners exploited it - even if David and Lucy were morons - to great effect. Aside from some core characters responsible for the game's major events, which you don't need to involve yourself with at all, its open slather. Make whatever and whomever you want.

 

[BrawlMan]

Sphere with a new review on the update.

​

 

[meiam]

We're finally getting a metro system! It was already half implemented, with station already all over the map and sky rail to carry them, but they understandably pushed it way down their priority list. But apparently the game is getting one last big patch which will include metro. I think the best part of the game is just travelling the map so that's an awesome addition in my book.

I really wish more game did serious overhaul of their base feature like this, so many game are close to being really good and just need a bit more, but more often than not they're just killed instead of fixed...

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Ok, so I finally finished the main story, a mere 2 years after buying the game.

Very vague spoilers.

Having had a day to digest it, I think what disappointed me the most outside of it not being Fallout CP2020 edition, which it was never going to be, and I knew that, so wasn't really a "disappointment" as such, was that the story was very much a straight line. It was a good straight line, but it kind of felt at odds with the open world RPG that it presented itself as.
In the early stages where you get the 3 different missions to progress with the chip; Takemura, Rogue and The Voodoo boys I thought this was where it was going to start branching and you could kind of go off and do your thing and interact with the world. Go with Takemura/Arasaka (Corp route storyline), Rogue who introduces you to the Aldecaldos (Nomad adventures) or Voodoo boys (Streetkid route). But they converged again pretty soon thereafter...it wasn't like a faction system set in a wider world, it was just 3 relatively short (albeit very cool) missions that met up again at a single point afterwards and then the only choice was right at the end with the last mission to go with Arasaka or the Nomads.
The other characters again, although they were well done didn't have a huge amount of choice in what you could do with them. There was a set story with them, you could choose if you wanted to bang them if they were up for it, but otherwise the choice in dialogue didn't really do much, the end result was the same.

The world felt like window dressing really, a shame. It left me wanting more though, so mission accomplished on that score for CDPR.

 

[meiam]

Ok, so I finally finished the main story, a mere 2 years after buying the game.

Very vague spoilers.

Having had a day to digest it, I think what disappointed me the most outside of it not being Fallout CP2020 edition, which it was never going to be, and I knew that, so wasn't really a "disappointment" as such, was that the story was very much a straight line. It was a good straight line, but it kind of felt at odds with the open world RPG that it presented itself as.
In the early stages where you get the 3 different missions to progress with the chip; Takemura, Rogue and The Voodoo boys I thought this was where it was going to start branching and you could kind of go off and do your thing and interact with the world. Go with Takemura/Arasaka (Corp route storyline), Rogue who introduces you to the Aldecaldos (Nomad adventures) or Voodoo boys (Streetkid route). But they converged again pretty soon thereafter...it wasn't like a faction system set in a wider world, it was just 3 relatively short (albeit very cool) missions that met up again at a single point afterwards and then the only choice was right at the end with the last mission to go with Arasaka or the Nomads.
The other characters again, although they were well done didn't have a huge amount of choice in what you could do with them. There was a set story with them, you could choose if you wanted to bang them if they were up for it, but otherwise the choice in dialogue didn't really do much, the end result was the same.

The world felt like window dressing really, a shame. It left me wanting more though, so mission accomplished on that score for CDPR.

Yeah the main story doesn't quite work, I'd say the game really peak in the first act when you try to setup the heist and I would have preferred the rest was like it rather than this linear story where you have to fully explore every option before picking one (not that it matter much, all the ending kinda have the same outcome).

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Yeah the main story doesn't quite work, I'd say the game really peak in the first act when you try to setup the heist and I would have preferred the rest was like it rather than this linear story where you have to fully explore every option before picking one (not that it matter much, all the ending kinda have the same outcome).

And unfortunately it kills a lot of the replay value for me. I've already seen the story, there's not really anything else to see that might entice me to play with a different character build.
Phantom Liberty is a guaranteed purchase at 50% steam sale though.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Hmm, it looks like devs really are trying to make up for the launch disaster. And you know what? They get kudos from me. I mean fixing bugs is one thing, but adding back all the promised feature is a dedication that I think we're seeing less of these days