Cyberpunk 2077 Review thread - Umm....

Phoenixmgs

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And Cyberpunk is a shooter more than it is an rpg.
From all I've seen about Cyberpunk from reviews like SkillUp and you guys posting about it here, I very much doubt Cyberpunk is an RPG. It seems like the world is very static along with very few opportunities to "craft" your character or make story decisions.


Uhhh lets see, Horizon 2, Bloodlines 2, Elden Rings, Psychonauts 2, Resident Evil another one and Far Cry another one, and probably a Halo game.
Horizon is at least a really solid foundation to build off of so the sequel should be at least on par with the 1st game with regards to gameplay, story is always an unknown variable. So it's just more Horizon, hopefully a bit better. Elden Ring has no gameplay footage so what would any hype or excitement be about? Halo, Resident Evil, and FarCry are known things so you should know what to expect, why would people hype them? I don't think many people would be interested in the type of game Psychonauts is anyway, kinda why the 1st game didn't sell well. Bloodlines 2 will be a hard game to pull off as it at least should be attempting to do the actual hard RPG stuff (player choice and all) so the chances of it delivering will probably on the lower end, so why would it get hyped?

I guess I don't really get hype. Are most people new to gaming and don't know what games are generally capable of? Because it's pretty easily to tell what a game will be like before you get your hands on it.
 

CriticalGaming

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Elden Ring has no gameplay footage so what would any hype or excitement be about?
Miazaki's name is on it and it's FromSoft, which people have a huge hype boner for. So what could possibly go Cyberpunk with Fromsoft and Miazaki behind it?...oh..

I don't think many people would be interested in the type of game Psychonauts is anyway, kinda why the 1st game didn't sell well.
Psychonauts is a cult hit and nothing more, the sequel will be the same. Maybe not even that far because it's been so fucking long since the first game that people may have grown up and moved on. Kinda like how nobody gave a shit about Shenmue 3.

Bloodlines 2
From everything that has come out about that game, it looks to be in the same situation Cyberpunk was. Development hell, with directors and writers bailing on the studio mid development. Constant delays. There is no fucking chance this game comes out to be any good.
 

stroopwafel

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Miazaki's name is on it and it's FromSoft, which people have a huge hype boner for. So what could possibly go Cyberpunk with Fromsoft and Miazaki behind it?...oh..
When has Miyazaki ever disappointed us? Even Activision's usual scummy practices didn't stand a chance with him.
 

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I think that had a lot to do about Shenmue not being very good.
That, and the Yakuza series have already done what Shenmue tried to do, but a million times better. I remember one user on the V1 form got pissy with me about it and the hardcore fans threw a biatch fit when Jim Sterling made the comparison.
 
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CriticalGaming

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That, and the Yakuza series have already done what Shenmue tried to do, but a million times better. I remember one user on the V1 form got pissy with me about it and the hardcorefans threw a biatch fit when Jim Sterling made the comparison.
Yakuza7 was so awesome that I bought all the games on ps4 and have been playing Yakuza 0 obessively all weekend. Yakuza games are criminally underrrated.
 

Phoenixmgs

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From everything that has come out about [Bloodlines 2], it looks to be in the same situation Cyberpunk was. Development hell, with directors and writers bailing on the studio mid development. Constant delays. There is no fucking chance this game comes out to be any good.
Sounds pretty bad then. Even with an ideal development, it was going to be a tall order. You can see the writing on the walls just about all the time, just pay attention. Dev interviews trying to talk up how awesome their games are can usually be quite "informative" if you read between the lines. Neil Druckmann's interview on IGN (IIRC) shed light on TLOU2 probably not going to be too good. Bungie at E3 talking about the 1st Destiny set off major warning lights.

When has Miyazaki ever disappointed us? Even Activision's usual scummy practices didn't stand a chance with him.
He's disappointed me more often than not, especially due to what the community described Souls games to be. He's really only good with atmosphere and level design (assuming that it's him that is responsible for that). He's not very good at all with game general game design or mechanics. I was shocked how a few things in Dark Souls made it past pre-production let alone into the final game, and Dark Souls was the 2nd Souls game so I expect better refinement. What RPG has released with a core stat/attribute that does nothing outside of Dark Souls? Sekiro has more in common with Shadow of the Colossus than it does with Souls yet Souls design is used in Sekiro just because that's all Miyazaki/From know how to do? Bloodborne is the best game I've played from Miyazaki mainly because it removes things that don't work in Souls; it still uses Souls game design even though it's a new IP, again, cuz that's all he knows how to do? And the combat that is average to decent has the cardinal sin of starting out basic and staying basic for the entire game. You only upgrade your attributes or weapon to increase its DPS and nothing else, it still plays exactly the same the whole game. Why even have progression if it takes say 3 hits to kill regular enemies whether you're at the 1st area or the final area (nothing has changed but numbers)? At least Sekiro had new abilities gained as you played.
 

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Yakuza7 was so awesome that I bought all the games on ps4 and have been playing Yakuza 0 obessively all weekend. Yakuza games are criminally underrrated.
I wouldn't go too far. While the franchise is still a newer series, the game have been suddenly getting more recognition since the third and fourth game. With 0 giving a big newbie boom. they're a lot more people to know about the Yakuza series now than they did back in the PS2 days. Hell, I still remember some of the advertisement when the Yakuza series first premiered in the US. Yakuza 0 is on the PlayStation greatest hits label, so it definitely sold some fine numbers. A lot of goodwill and high quality content will do that. I couldn't get into the series personally, but I respect the Yakuza team for what they do.
 
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yet Souls design is used in Sekiro just because that's all Miyazaki/From know how to do?
I'm not asking From_Software to be like their old selves again, but can they bring back some of their older franchises or do something different. I liked it when they had these weird, quirky, jank/semi-jank games. They've pretty much turn into a Souls Borne factory. Shit, bring back Armored Core. Just don't let the Switch have all of the mech games.
 
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SilentPony

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I guess I don't really get hype. Are most people new to gaming and don't know what games are generally capable of? Because it's pretty easily to tell what a game will be like before you get your hands on it.
I would say gamers are such a desperate breed to see a game they like getting released that they willingly forgive and forget all the times they've been slapped in the face. Like take the Dawn of War series. DoW 3 is hated by 40k fans and all but destroyed the franchise, but if they announced DoW 4 I'd be excited as fuck.
Take that need for a good game, remove the franchise uniqueness of 40k and just apply it to entire genres like RPG or FPS. That's where most gamers are, and in part I don't blame them for wanting good games in genres they like. That's a reasonable expectation. The problem is they're willing to overlook poor games and bad showings by game devs and publishers to maintain that wanting.
If CDPR survives this punk fiasco I guarantee their next game will be just as hyped, sell just as many pre-orders and no one will have learned a thing, especially if its Witcher 4
 

stroopwafel

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He's disappointed me more often than not, especially due to what the community described Souls games to be. He's really only good with atmosphere and level design (assuming that it's him that is responsible for that). He's not very good at all with game general game design or mechanics. I was shocked how a few things in Dark Souls made it past pre-production let alone into the final game, and Dark Souls was the 2nd Souls game so I expect better refinement. What RPG has released with a core stat/attribute that does nothing outside of Dark Souls? Sekiro has more in common with Shadow of the Colossus than it does with Souls yet Souls design is used in Sekiro just because that's all Miyazaki/From know how to do? Bloodborne is the best game I've played from Miyazaki mainly because it removes things that don't work in Souls; it still uses Souls game design even though it's a new IP, again, cuz that's all he knows how to do? And the combat that is average to decent has the cardinal sin of starting out basic and staying basic for the entire game. You only upgrade your attributes or weapon to increase its DPS and nothing else, it still plays exactly the same the whole game. Why even have progression if it takes say 3 hits to kill regular enemies whether you're at the 1st area or the final area (nothing has changed but numbers)? At least Sekiro had new abilities gained as you played.
The games Miyazaki directed are my most favorite games of all time so I wouldn't even want him to change what I love so much about his games. Taste is subjective, that is not the point here. Dragon Quest has been the same since the '80s and still has huge amounts of fans(particularly in Japan). You can tinker around with mechanics and structure but ultimately it's about meeting fan expectations. That is precisely what CDPR failed to do here. If I didn't like open world RPG games I wouldn't be disappointed because the game didn't cater to me anyway, no matter how good it was(similarly with you and Souls). With Cyber dildo 2077 fans expected an open world RPG game but what they got was a mediocre looter shooter with T-posing NPCs in their underwear that crashes every 5 minutes. That is completely different than just not liking a certain style of game.

Yakuza7 was so awesome that I bought all the games on ps4 and have been playing Yakuza 0 obessively all weekend. Yakuza games are criminally underrrated.
The stories are great and Kamurocho never gets old but I find the combat in Yakuza really repetitive(haven't played Yakuza 7). Yakuza 0 is my favorite, followed by Judgement and Yakuza 1. Currently about 1/3 in Yakuza 2.
 

Phoenixmgs

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If CDPR survives this punk fiasco I guarantee their next game will be just as hyped, sell just as many pre-orders and no one will have learned a thing, especially if its Witcher 4
I'm sure their next game will get hyped as either say Cyberpunk 2 doing Cyberpunk "right" this time or another Witcher game and going back to their roots. Yet everyone ignores what CDPR has yet to do well and just assumes that they will magically get good at the stuff they don't do well. If you want the next Cyberpunk to have better stealth, better immersive sim elements, and a more interactive world, I don't know why you'd just think that's a given when CDPR has yet to prove they can accomplish that. For me, it's 1st prove it to me that you can do XYZ, then I will expect that but not before you prove yourself.

The games Miyazaki directed are my most favorite games of all time so I wouldn't even want him to change what I love so much about his games. Taste is subjective, that is not the point here. Dragon Quest has been the same since the '80s and still has huge amounts of fans(particularly in Japan). You can tinker around with mechanics and structure but ultimately it's about meeting fan expectations. That is precisely what CDPR failed to do here. If I didn't like open world RPG games I wouldn't be disappointed because the game didn't cater to me anyway, no matter how good it was(similarly with you and Souls). With Cyber dildo 2077 fans expected an open world RPG game but what they got was a mediocre looter shooter with T-posing NPCs in their underwear that crashes every 5 minutes. That is completely different than just not liking a certain style of game.
My tastes don't preclude me from enjoying a dungeon crawler or else I wouldn't have played 2 Souls games. Some stuff doesn't even make sense at this point like why would you create the estus flask system that fixes farming for health items and then go backwards (blood vials in Bloodborne or spirit things in Sekiro)? There's things that Souls objectively does poorly. Either get good at those things or remove those things (a bit like Bloodborne with shields and magic) and double down on what you do great and just give me that. Miyazaki seems great at level design and atmosphere so why not make a game that's basically an environmental puzzler eschewing most of the combat as it overstays its welcome with the huge number of enemies you face, less enemies equals less time engaging with something that's OK and more time with something that's great plus less overall enemies would ramp up the overall tension. Or you can improve that by making a game where enemies aren't mindless undead husks and actually fight smartly with actual tactics like a guy running away from you trying to bait you into a trap. Doesn't that fit the general tenet of Souls better (figuring out the unknowable and the obtuse)?

Repeating anything has diminishing returns and that especially applies to Souls because it's no longer something new and obtuse to figure out. Lastly, some of the best stuff (regardless of medium) is the stuff that is great that you didn't even know you wanted until you experienced it. Playing say a 5th game of a series that barely changes closes the door on playing that next "special" game.
 

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Admittedly i probably wouldnt have enjoyed much about this game even if it wasnt a buggy mess. The time i did get to play it, which consists of the entire first act across all three starting stories, found me rather lacking.

While i dont mind a good first person rpg, im not much of a first person shooter fan and very few shooters keep my attention (boarderlands for example). And Cyberpunk is a shooter more than it is an rpg. The skills are not really designed for play style and instead just have the player choosing which gun type they want to be the best at. The hacking and crafting talents are just flat with hacking boiling down to just being able to take out one or two guys before the whole army is shooting at you. This isnt Deus Ex where there are multiple approaches, i dont think a full stealth no kill run is possible here, its always going to become a shoot em all, unless the game drastically changes post act 2.

Crafting talents add convenience but nothing more.

So its a shooter with and rpg style story. Like boarderlands. But the biggest problem with Cyberpunk is that the characters have no charisma. From the side characters to V themself, everyone is just kind of an asshole. They wanted to make Jackie your bestest friend but by the end of act 1 i still dont give a shit about him because he is just a jackass. Maybe if that montage at the begining was playable, because it clearly wants to introduce you to a ton of characters that the game expects you to care about later, then maybe it would be different but the once the real game starts you are just in it with these people and there is no real connection for the player to make.

So, yeah...it really sucks at how bummed i am about this game. Oh well.

Whats next on the overhyped list?
I think where you went wrong is replaying the first act so many times, which is the most scripted part of the game and allows the least amount of variation in play style.

I do think that the stealth in this game is not great, but it's serviceable. You can absolutely do missions completely in stealth, and there are some missions which are specifically built for stealth and which reward you for going through the mission without setting off alarms, and it definitely is possible. I haven't put any points into stealth, and I'm still able to sneak through some missions without killing anyone if the mission gives me something extra for the trouble.

There's a side mission that I just did that involved rescuing a hostage from a gangster hide out. I parkoured up to the roof, used the skylight to scout all of the enemy positions and mark all the enemies and cameras. Then I dropped in, snuck through the area hacking cameras as I went. I think in total I knocked out 2 enemies and killed 0 (and I only knocked out 2 because I thought they would be in the way when bringing the hostage back out). If your strength or engineering skill is high enough you can just force open the back door and walk in and cut out half the level, or you can go in through the front guns blazing. The game gives you options.

I really like the design of the city, and I really like how much of it is climbable and how you can parkour over the rooftops and get into unexpected places. It's fun to be a sniper, get up to a rooftop and start sniping people from outside of the combat area (there's even perks for that), and getting the leg implants that allow double jumping or super jumping opens things like that even more.

There's definitely downsides to the game though. So far my choices haven't seemed very meaningful. The city is really cool, but the further you get away from the city center the more empty and lifeless it feels. The driving feels bad. All of the car's have different performance and handle differently, but I can't be bothered because they all drive really badly with a mouse and keyboard. The police AI is terrible and you can get away from the cops by jump running 2 blocks away because they don't have AI to chase you making the wanted levels meaningless. The performance isn't good (I can't get the game locked to 60fps, and I don't think anyone else can either. Even with a 3080 at 1440p you get dips into the 50s from what I've seen of Gamer's Nexus testing the game), and there are a lot of both major and minor bugs. I've been lucky in that I've mostly run into just visual bugs, that are distracting but don't affect my game experience.

There's a lot of good in this game, but it's definitely unfinished, unpolished and unbalanced. Weirdly enough that tends to bother me a lot more in other games than it does here. If I was getting tons of crashes like some other people I'd be totally livid, but I'm not so I'm just enjoying the game for what it is, which is pretty fun and a fairly decent shooter.

Here's some of the stuff I'm talking about:



The game definitely needs updates to where I would actually be able to call it a good game or recommend it to people. Other than stability issues and glitches I think they really need to overhaul enemy AI, driving, and re-balance all the skill trees, but the bones of a good game are here. There are times when I'm playing the game, and everything is coming together and working great and I'm having tons of fun (and then a gig bugs out and becomes uncompleteable because of course it does).
 

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There is a first for everything...fucking sadly.
Well, there is the massive question mark that Elden Ring is/will be. Nobody fucking knows so everyone is just making stuff up to suit their dreams.

Which is totally not gonna disappoint a bunch of people who just want Dark Souls to continue forever
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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Well my Cyberpunk 2077 play sessions are being put on indefinite hold. The game now crashes to a grinding halt when taking screenshots. It worked since I’ve been in Night City but the game in general seems to run choppier than it did when I last played. Maybe more of the city is opening up or something and it’s really starting to add up idk. CPU usage was in the high 80’s on my 7th gen i7. Could be good or bad, but considering the game’s history so far I’m gonna shelve it for at least a few months.
 
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Buyetyen

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So despite crunching their devs during a goddamn global pandemic, Cyberpunk 2077 turned out to be a buggy, borderline unplayable mess. The crunch only made things worse and now the game has been pulled from the PlayStation 4. On top of that, investors are now contemplating taking legal action against the studio for false advertising.

Everyone who told me that the crunch was a good thing and totally necessary: how does my ass taste?
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Trying the fully understand this one. I’ve only played a few hours literally, and have no idea if any of the preset customizations matter or mean anything other than frivolous character stylings, so perhaps they could’ve done more with them in a respectful or meaningful way.

Having said that, it prompts contemplation over what exactly the boundaries or guidelines are for appropriation accusations.

If I get Mexican for dinner is that an example?

Or would it be if rich white folk do so?

What about white people acting black in terms of language or mannerisms?

What if it only involves distinct ethnic groups of different backgrounds, like say a Native American and an Asian?


Curious what others think.