Cyberpunk 2077 Review thread - Umm....

[PsychedelicDiamond]

So, having just gotten to the point where the game really opens up (i.e. after the hotel heist and its immediate consequences) here are my impressions so far:

It's so far mostly really good. There are a few blemishes here and there but there is a lot to praise. It's the greatest leap when it comes to depicting a dense urban environment since GTA 4. Night City is an incredibly immersive setting, everything about the architecture, the ambient NPCs and the smallest props convey a place that is beautiful, vibrant and would absolutely suck to live in. The writing is, at it's worst, way above average for this kind of game and its best genuinely witty and emotional. I haven't met a single character so far that I didn't find memorable. Same goes for quest design, I feel like the game is at its best when it's doing its Deus Ex impression, the quests based on infiltrating a building in a reasonably open ended way. It usually does give you a decent array of options, sprinkles around pieces of flavortext, environmental storytelling and ambient dialogue to give narrative context, even the less narratively significant content makes its best effort to not feel like filler.

Tonally the game sits around midway on the Blade Runner to Idiocracy scale. It's a loud, colourful, Californian approach to the setting, much more Paul Verhoeven and Quentin Tarantino than Ridley Scott and Denis Villeneuve. So far it very rarely delved into the more cerebral side of the genre. I've been playing Deus Ex Human Revolution lately, a very straight laced and, excuse that expression, pretty damn kino futuristic spy thriller that does take a serious approach to the setting and feels much closer to the tone of the Blade Runner or Ghost in the Shell series. Tonally, Cyberpunk does resemble GTA quite a bit, actually, though closer to GTA 4 than to San Andreas or 5. A broadly satirical depiction of coastal urban America from the lense of a predominantly European studio mainly familiar with it through film and television that nevertheless treats its characters and themes with due respect.

Mixed feelings about the gameplay. Gunplay feels about like you'd expect from an RPG with first person shooting. If you've played any of the newer Fallout games, Outer Worlds or Borderlands you should have a general idea of what to expect. Melee feels slightly better than in a Bethesda game but that's setting the bar low. Hacking does actually offer a few neat options in various places, even playing a character that didn't put a lot of skillpoints into it. By which I mean, practically none.

Time for some actual criticisms: stealth is kinda rubbish. You see, the game has that thing where you have to grab enemies from behind before you can take them out (either lethally or non lethally but so far it has never made a difference). There are no immediate takedowns like, say, in the new Deus Exes and that annoys me to no end. I still don't exactly grasp the point of silencers, considering enemies, even if you shoot them in the head, take multiple shots to drop and I've never managed to kill a single one with a silenced gun without him alerting his mates anyway before he's dead. Maybe you have to specifically skill for that, but come on. Only thing I ever found silencers useful for is shooting out security cameras.

Also, I want it on record that while the character creation is overall pretty decent, I fundamentally disagree with the games definition of "big" breasts. Seems like the only kind of implants you can't get in Night City are breast implants.

Don't have any performance issues, can play it at a good framerate at maxed out settings but I do have a pretty beefy PC so take that with a grain of salt. I feel like a lot of complaints about bugs are somewhat exaggerated. They are there and you will notice them but so far there was nothing that genuinely soured my experience. A few occasions of enemy AI getting the hiccups, one occasion where pants didn't show up on my character until unequipping and equipping them again. Worst thing that happened to me once was an NPC dissapearing that I was supposed to follow in a mainquest, but reloading my last save was all I needed to sort that out. The game is still very playable. For context, I recently played Watch Dogs Legion and that game gave me way more issues, despite being way less sophisticated. Unlike WDL, Cyberpunk at least hasn't crashed on me so far.

The direction of the game is very good, especially considering it never breaks first person mode, but it has a habit of getting a bit overbearing. During some of the story setpieces I felt a bit like I was playing a David Cage game. Actually, sequence at the end of the first act resembles one from Detroit: Become Human quite a bit.

Also, what the hell is it with dystopian RPGs where the protagonist survives a shot to the head? This one, New Vegas, Deus Ex: Human Revolution...

So far I consider it along the same lines as New Vegas, Morrowind and Witcher 3 when it comes to open world ARPGs. Yes, they have some glaring flaws, but also, you're hard pressed to find anything better in the genre.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

So, having just gotten to the point where the game really opens up (i.e. after the hotel heist and its immediate consequences) here are my impressions so far:

It's so far mostly really good. There are a few blemishes here and there but there is a lot to praise. It's the greatest leap when it comes to depicting a dense urban environment since GTA 4. Night City is an incredibly immersive setting, everything about the architecture, the ambient NPCs and the smallest props convey a place that is beautiful, vibrant and would absolutely suck to live in. The writing is, at it's worst, way above average for this kind of game and its best genuinely witty and emotional. I haven't met a single character so far that I didn't find memorable. Same goes for quest design, I feel like the game is at its best when it's doing its Deus Ex impression, the quests based on infiltrating a building in a reasonably open ended way. It usually does give you a decent array of options, sprinkles around pieces of flavortext, environmental storytelling and ambient dialogue to give narrative context, even the less narratively significant content makes its best effort to not feel like filler.

Tonally the game sits around midway on the Blade Runner to Idiocracy scale. It's a loud, colourful, Californian approach to the setting, much more Paul Verhoeven and Quentin Tarantino than Ridley Scott and Denis Villeneuve. So far it very rarely delved into the more cerebral side of the genre. I've been playing Deus Ex Human Revolution lately, a very straight laced and, excuse that expression, pretty damn kino futuristic spy thriller that does take a serious approach to the setting and feels much closer to the tone of the Blade Runner or Ghost in the Shell series. Tonally, Cyberpunk does resemble GTA quite a bit, actually, though closer to GTA 4 than to San Andreas or 5. A broadly satirical depiction of coastal urban America from the lense of a predominantly European studio mainly familiar with it through film and television that nevertheless treats its characters and themes with due respect.

Mixed feelings about the gameplay. Gunplay feels about like you'd expect from an RPG with first person shooting. If you've played any of the newer Fallout games, Outer Worlds or Borderlands you should have a general idea of what to expect. Melee feels slightly better than in a Bethesda game but that's setting the bar low. Hacking does actually offer a few neat options in various places, even playing a character that didn't put a lot of skillpoints into it. By which I mean, practically none.

Time for some actual criticisms: stealth is kinda rubbish. You see, the game has that thing where you have to grab enemies from behind before you can take them out (either lethally or non lethally but so far it has never made a difference). There are no immediate takedowns like, say, in the new Deus Exes and that annoys me to no end. I still don't exactly grasp the point of silencers, considering enemies, even if you shoot them in the head, take multiple shots to drop and I've never managed to kill a single one with a silenced gun without him alerting his mates anyway before he's dead. Maybe you have to specifically skill for that, but come on. Only thing I ever found silencers useful for is shooting out security cameras.

Also, I want it on record that while the character creation is overall pretty decent, I fundamentally disagree with the games definition of "big" breasts. Seems like the only kind of implants you can't get in Night City are breast implants.

Don't have any performance issues, can play it at a good framerate at maxed out settings but I do have a pretty beefy PC so take that with a grain of salt. I feel like a lot of complaints about bugs are somewhat exaggerated. They are there and you will notice them but so far there was nothing that genuinely soured my experience. A few occasions of enemy AI getting the hiccups, one occasion where pants didn't show up on my character until unequipping and equipping them again. Worst thing that happened to me once was an NPC dissapearing that I was supposed to follow in a mainquest, but reloading my last save was all I needed to sort that out. The game is still very playable. For context, I recently played Watch Dogs Legion and that game gave me way more issues, despite being way less sophisticated. Unlike WDL, Cyberpunk at least hasn't crashed on me so far.

The direction of the game is very good, especially considering it never breaks first person mode, but it has a habit of getting a bit overbearing. During some of the story setpieces I felt a bit like I was playing a David Cage game. Actually, sequence at the end of the first act resembles one from Detroit: Become Human quite a bit.

Also, what the hell is it with dystopian RPGs where the protagonist survives a shot to the head? This one, New Vegas, Deus Ex: Human Revolution...

So far I consider it along the same lines as New Vegas, Morrowind and Witcher 3 when it comes to open world ARPGs. Yes, they have some glaring flaws, but also, you're hard pressed to find anything better in the genre.

That summary does increase my desire to buy the game relatively soon rather than in 6 months. It does sound like their patches are fixing things.

The stealth bit I'm in 2 minds about. Stealthy sniper is my preferred way of playing RPGs and games where you can't do that I find significantly less fun. But at the same time it's easily justifiable in universe. Headshots were super deadly in the PnP, one hit do the dome with a 9mm could instakill you, but subdermal armour and skinweave were a thing, and I can't see why anyone who was going to get involved in gunfights (and had the cash) wouldn't get them as a matter of priority. But yeah, streetgang mooks probably shouldn't be able to afford that shit, you should be able to cap some people in the head and take them out instantly.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Zykon TheLich]

As someone who's doing a stealth/handgun build I'll heavily disagree. You're right that you need to do some speccing before stealth really becomes viable, but once you are there it goes sheer cray-cray. Getting the damage multiplier skills from the Cool/Stealth tree and the Headshot skill from Reflex/Handguns means you can easily deal headshot damages in the thousands. As an example, I've got a revolver with 2x headshot damage, +50% headshot damage from skills, x2.5 times damage from stealth attacks due to suppressor and another +50% stealth damage (I believe) from skills. An ordinary shot with that revolver will deal about 200 damage, with a stealth headshot it goes into 2k+ directly with crits in the 6.5k area. My MO for doing those quick street violence events is to crouch and then just put a headshot in each dude in the area, most of the time they'll still be in search mode by the time the last one drops. I've even done a few events with skull marked (ie. waaaaay above my level) enemies this way, because my stealth headshots are just that insane.



Sniper Rifles are really rare and so far the only one I've found that's been silenced is as a quest reward that you can get, at earliest, about 15 hours in. They are absolutely insane though.

I can deal with handguns and smgs. Stealth assassin works too as a close second. Can you do the same thing with smgs as handguns?

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

I'm also not entirely sure if Keanu Reeves was a great casting decision for Johnny. There are roles in which I like Reeves just fine, mainly those that complemented his, to say the least, very understated acting, i.e. stoic, unemotional action hero roles like John Wick or Neo. I mean, I know he has also done comedy but let's be honest, it wasn't exactly his talent as a comedic actor that held up the Bill and Ted movies. But for a character who is, as I understand, basically a cross between Mick Jagger and Che Guevara I feel overacting would have been more appropriate than underacting. Reeves has the coolness but I have the impression the role would have called for someone more hotheaded.

 

[happyninja42]

I'm also not entirely sure if Keanu Reeves was a great casting decision for Johnny. There are roles in which I like Reeves just fine, mainly those that complemented his, to say the least, very understated acting, i.e. stoic, unemotional action hero roles like John Wick or Neo. I mean, I know he has also done comedy but let's be honest, it wasn't exactly his talent as a comedic actor that held up the Bill and Ted movies. But for a character who is, as I understand, basically a cross between Mick Jagger and Che Guevara I feel overacting would have been more appropriate than underacting. Reeves has the coolness but I have the impression the role would have called for someone more hotheaded.

Yeah I think they picked him for a mixture of "everyone currently loves Keanu" so it's massive free publicity. Just look at his presentation at that E3 for evidence of how much his involvement blew up the game in the social spheres.

And also his physical similarity to the character, coupled with his history in the genre of cyberpunk.

Which, I get, but, yeah he's not a great actor. At least not if you need someone to actually emote well...emotions. Really nice guy, think he's super cool, and very chill, just don't think he's actually a good actor, or maybe better to say, he's not an actor with a wide range.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[ObsidianJones]

I will never stop quoting Abed on this: "Is [Nic Cage] the bad kind of good like Johnny Depp or the good kind of bad like Keanu Reeves?". Reeves does stoic, pent up action hero really well and he's got a physicality to his acting that really sells him as a action hero. Wide range he doesn't have though and Johnny Silverhand (or games) just isn't a good fit for an actor who does a lot of their acting with subtle gestures and posture.

There's a lot I agree with you in life. If you were offering Sage classes, I would totally Zoom in.

But when we're talking about him as an action hero, are we talking about his one on one martial art skills?

Because I'm going to tap into my fellow martial artists of the forum to ask how they rate Reeves' abilities. I applaud his dedication in trying. But his performances... leave me a little cold.

 

[MrCalavera]

I might get the game in a year, when it comes in the unpatched, DLC packed version, and i own a rig that can run it properly. Whichever comes first.
Wouldn't be different from all the other CDPR games that i also got a while after the release(like most games i buy... damn), once they polished them.

Because of the reasons listed above, i can't really speak from a high horse, but... in addition the atrociously executed production(crunch, delays... all for nothing?), also left me with very little desire to give CDPR money right now.



Also, since people were recommerding cyberpunk like properties some pages ago, here's my very short and entry level list of stuff that illustrates what the genre is about:

Johnny Mnemonic
Strange Days
Shadowrun: Dragonfall & Hong Kong - mix of cyberpunk and fantasy, has both in spades
Deus Ex(the first one)
AKIRA
Anything William Gibson

Blade Runner - known from codyfying "cyberpunk" looks, but both movies are a mix of cyberpunk and general dystopian sci-fi tropes, rather a straight cp property: The corporate hellscape and enviromental collapse is there, but transhumanism has been replaced with manufactured slave force, and cyberspace, or anything similar, is never really brought up. (Still, i heavily recommend watching BOTH movies)

Gattaca and Repo-Men replace "cyber" with "bio", but are worth watching nonetheless, especially the first one. Repo, is mostly fun shlock imo.

Ghost in the Shell - would rather fall under post-punk i think. Plus told from a POV of Section 9 members, who are essentionaly supercops, lacks the anti-authoritarian perspective; in other words "punk" element. Still, worth watching because of the transhumanist angle.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Casual Shinji]

There's a lot I agree with you in life. If you were offering Sage classes, I would totally Zoom in.

But when we're talking about him as an action hero, are we talking about his one on one martial art skills?

Because I'm going to tap into my fellow martial artists of the forum to ask how they rate Reeves' abilities. I applaud his dedication in trying. But his performances... leave me a little cold.

Not everyone can be Michelle Yeoh.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

There's a lot I agree with you in life. If you were offering Sage classes, I would totally Zoom in.

But when we're talking about him as an action hero, are we talking about his one on one martial art skills?

Because I'm going to tap into my fellow martial artists of the forum to ask how they rate Reeves' abilities. I applaud his dedication in trying. But his performances... leave me a little cold.

I feel being a good martial artist on film isn't too much about their real life martial arts capabilities, it's more about their physical coordination and capabilities. Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh were both dancers, not world champion martial artists. If you have physical ability to do the moves and do them smoothly, that's what it's about. Uma Thurman worked her ass off for Kill Bill and she did a solid job but she's just probably never going to be as natural and smooth as Michelle Yeoh. I'd put Keanu at a 7-8/10 in regards to physical ability.

 

[Dreiko]

I can deal with handguns and smgs. Stealth assassin works too as a close second. Can you do the same thing with smgs as handguns?

Handguns and smgs fall under the skill tree that also benefits blades (reflexes, kinda like dexterity in a normal rpg setting) which is what I'm mainly using so I've been having fun with those. Stealth has kind of its own thing, which is paired with a new type of stat called Cold Blood that gives you passive buffs the more people you kill, it's kinda intricate and will take a while to fully implement in your playstyle but it's very cool.

And the main thing with the stealth in this game is that you can grab someone from behind but you don't need to instantly kill em, you can use em as a human shield and there's perks that let you do more actions while having someone grappled, it's kinda like MGS4. So there's many uses for stealth.

So far though, and since I'm playing it on hard, I just use stealth to kill the stronger enemy in a group before everyone notices me. Also there's some super high level enemies you just can't grapple even while hidden, so you wanna be able to actually fight too.

 

[ObsidianJones]

When I talk about him as an action hero I do it in the way that I can't tell if he's a good martial artist (going to assume he's not though, seeing as how what looks good on camera and what is good self defense are two different things), but he has a physical presence and a grace about his movement that totally sells him. Doesn't matter if it is confident swagger into the lobby in the Matrix or the flow in his movements in John Wick. Add to that that Reeves can really sell (to borrow Wrestling lingo) getting hit, being hurt and being in pain and you've got someone who makes it believable that he's just taken the beating of a life time only to get up and get even.

That's actually what I was talking about. The Grace part. His stif... His rigi... Oh, hell, I'll just go back to 'stiffness' is very noticeable to me.

With a handgun and how he trains, yeah, he's definitely got the action star chops down. I've seen the videos of him training. He gives a good performance on the screen with gun play.

Now, I obviously can't speak to how authentic that is. All I have is a few hours at range time, and I wasn't trained to be a soldier. Someone who served can best rate that. But it's comparing his seemingly fluid gun play to his fighting ability that always struck me as off.

Pre-requisite fanboying, because hell yeah I love Keanu Reeves. And thank you for clarifying about what you meant. I understand a little better and can get on board.

I feel being a good martial artist on film isn't too much about their real life martial arts capabilities, it's more about their physical coordination and capabilities. Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh were both dancers, not world champion martial artists. If you have physical ability to do the moves and do them smoothly, that's what it's about. Uma Thurman worked her ass off for Kill Bill and she did a solid job but she's just probably never going to be as natural and smooth as Michelle Yeoh. I'd put Keanu at a 7-8/10 in regards to physical ability.

Oh, I know. I made that point with Ron Smoorenburg. "Who Am I" was his first movie, and while he has extension and control for days, he couldn't keep up the pace with Jackie.

Moving to Muay Thai and other strictly combat arts, I've lost a lot of the dance part that I used to do. I probably don't look graceful in terms of "Oh, it looks like poetry" that you'd see in Wushu and Wuxia movies. I'll never disparage the work he puts in. In fact, I applauded it. But I never understood it in the Matrix. It always looked off to me. And I can't understand it why I seem to be the only one who sees it.

 

[meiam]

I will never stop quoting Abed on this: "Is [Nic Cage] the bad kind of good like Johnny Depp or the good kind of bad like Keanu Reeves?". Reeves does stoic, pent up action hero really well and he's got a physicality to his acting that really sells him as a action hero. Wide range he doesn't have though and Johnny Silverhand (or games) just isn't a good fit for an actor who does a lot of their acting with subtle gestures and posture.

Maybe Cage would have worked great for the role, I'm sure he would have said yes.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I hate the male voice actor. He sounds like Itsagundam.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Well that's certainly taken a turn.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

As someone who's doing a stealth/handgun build I'll heavily disagree. You're right that you need to do some speccing before stealth really becomes viable, but once you are there it goes sheer cray-cray. Getting the damage multiplier skills from the Cool/Stealth tree and the Headshot skill from Reflex/Handguns means you can easily deal headshot damages in the thousands. As an example, I've got a revolver with 2x headshot damage, +50% headshot damage from skills, x2.5 times damage from stealth attacks due to suppressor and another +50% stealth damage (I believe) from skills. An ordinary shot with that revolver will deal about 200 damage, with a stealth headshot it goes into 2k+ directly with crits in the 6.5k area. My MO for doing those quick street violence events is to crouch and then just put a headshot in each dude in the area, most of the time they'll still be in search mode by the time the last one drops. I've even done a few events with skull marked (ie. waaaaay above my level) enemies this way, because my stealth headshots are just that insane.



Sniper Rifles are really rare and so far the only one I've found that's been silenced is as a quest reward that you can get, at earliest, about 15 hours in. They are absolutely insane though.

Disappointing it sounds like they’re using the same dated leveling system as The Witcher 3, where at least in my experience the game will often default my progression to quests far above (skulls) my current level. Also it seems like it’ll be annoying that so much is tied to numerical stats here. Like, do you really need to level up a hand cannon before a one hit headshot is possible?

The problem with modern RPG design is too often the unnecessary padding in its systems with no practical benefit to the player, which in effect is simply wasting their time.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Disappointing it sounds like they’re using the same dated leveling system as The Witcher 3, where at least in my experience the game will often default my progression to quests far above (skulls) my current level. Also it seems like it’ll be annoying that so much is tied to numerical stats here. Like, do you really need to level up a hand cannon before a one hit headshot is possible?

The problem with modern RPG design is too often the unnecessary padding in its systems with no practical benefit to the player, which in effect is simply wasting their time.

Yeah i gotta be honest. The more i play the more im not having fun. It is an fps game with a confusing story. Like i said before it throws out all these terms and names at you and just kind of expect you to pick up whats going on and it doesnt do a good job of building characters as real identifiable people. Instead its just names and jibberish.

I am really sad because i kind of really dont like this anymore.

 

[Dreiko]

Disappointing it sounds like they’re using the same dated leveling system as The Witcher 3, where at least in my experience the game will often default my progression to quests far above (skulls) my current level. Also it seems like it’ll be annoying that so much is tied to numerical stats here. Like, do you really need to level up a hand cannon before a one hit headshot is possible?

The problem with modern RPG design is too often the unnecessary padding in its systems with no practical benefit to the player, which in effect is simply wasting their time.

Headshots in this game just do a damage modifier, this is not an fps. Some guns have better and some have worse modifiers but about a 2x mod is the average for headshots. So yeah it's just like 2 bodyshots, not that big of a deal.


And I mean, the stats mattering is kinda the point of an rpg. You gotta level up and get the appropriate perks if you wanna be strong. It's a normal component.


I think too many people think this is an fps and not an rpg so their expectations are wrong.


So far I tend to beat most enemies in 3-4 katana slashes unless it's those mini metal gears or some super high level enemy because I specced for that kinda thing.