Cyberpunk 2077 Review thread - Umm....

Dirty Hipsters

This is how we praise the sun!
Legacy
Feb 7, 2011
8,549
3,062
118
Country
'Merica
Gender
3 children in a trench coat
Just from that early level they demoed (what my quote from v1 forum was referring to), the shooting looked better than the melee combat played in Witcher 3. From gameplay videos I've seen (review footage and glitch videos), I can see there's leaning (which not even COD has); does the game still have a slide mechanic / the ability to dash around (like Shadow Warrior)?
Sort of.

The slide is still in as are the dashes but both are a little awkward. The slide isn't as snappy as the knee slide in titanfall or call of duty, and the momentum of it just feels off. The dashes are very short and don't feel impactful. They're more useful for the melee combat than the gunplay. There's perks that make the slide and dash better by allowing you to ADS during them and there's implants that let you bullet-time while sliding or dashing, but I've found the double jump ability to overall be more useful (I like double jumping over enemies that are behind cover and shooting them in the back or in the head as I'm over them).

Leaning is contextual and only works when you're in cover (being in cover is also contextual) and also only some cover so you can't really rely on it. I don't think I've actually used it once because I find running and gunning much more fun. I guess if you're doing a stealth build that's all about headshotting enemies with silenced weapons from behind cover then you would probably use the lean features more but I haven't bothered with it.
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,243
12,203
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
Admittedly, some of those bugs were pretty hilarious. Too bad the game isn't meant to be in that way.
Granted, I'm probably never touching the game, but I disagree with dunkey on the game having characters more charismatic or personality than Ghost of Tsushima. I'm not saying Cyberpunk doesn't have characters or personality, but I feel he's selling Ghosts of Tsushima really short.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Dalisclock

Dalisclock

Making lemons combustible again
Legacy
Escapist +
Feb 9, 2008
11,286
7,081
118
A Barrel In the Marketplace
Country
Eagleland
Gender
Male
Granted, I'm probably never touching the game, but I disagree with dunkey on the game having characters more charismatic or personality than ghost of tsushima. I'm not saying cyberpunk doesn't have characters or personality, but I feel he's selling ghosts of Tsushma really short.
So I haven't played so I can't tell how accurate this take is, but this guy(whose opinion I generally respect) had some interesting things to say about one particular bit of the game.


Anyone who's played the arc/mission want to comment on it?
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

CriticalGaming

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2017
11,199
5,671
118
Granted, I'm probably never touching the game, but I disagree with dunkey on the game having characters more charismatic or personality than ghost of tsushima. I'm not saying cyberpunk doesn't have characters or personality, but I feel he's selling ghosts of Tsushma really short.
Dunkey's opinions on games seem very contrary most of the time. I feel like he clicks qith a very specific type of game and anything outside of that he just rails on.

Either that or he deliberately hates games people love and loves games people hate.
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,243
12,203
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
Dunkey's opinions on games seem very contrary most of the time. I feel like he clicks qith a very specific type of game and anything outside of that he just rails on.

Either that or he deliberately hates games people love and loves games people hate.
I've noticed. In his Devil May Cry 5 review, he praised the hell out of it. When he posted his LOUS2 video, he claimed that nothing happened story wise in DMC5 and many other AAA released in the last year compared to LOUS2. If he doesn't like the story, that's fine but a lot of important things happened in DMC5, and I found it much more enjoyable and meaningful than LOUS2. The fact that DMC 5 was able to tell more within a 6 to 8 hour game than LOUS2 20+ hours says a lot. 5's story is not as good as DMC3's, but it's almost just as good. Most importantly, it does not waste my time!
 

Dirty Hipsters

This is how we praise the sun!
Legacy
Feb 7, 2011
8,549
3,062
118
Country
'Merica
Gender
3 children in a trench coat
I've noticed. In his Devil May Cry 5 review, he praised the hell out of it. When he posted his LOUS2 video, he claimed that nothing happened story wise in DMC5 and many other AAA released in the last year compared to LOUS2. If he doesn't like the story, that's fine but a lot of important things happened in DMC5, and I found it much more enjoyable and meaningful than LOUS2. The fact that DMC 5 was able to tell more within a 6 to 8 hour game than LOUS2 20+ hours says a lot. 5's story is not as good as DMC3's, but it's almost just as good. Most importantly, it does not waste my time!
His opinion on DMC5 doesn't seem contradictory to me at all.

DMC5 was a great game that I enjoyed. The DMC storyline is also incredibly silly and stupid, and the stories are supremely trashy and sometimes incoherent. They are incredibly well made and fun enjoyable trash though.

I would say that criticism can be leveled at most anime and character action style games though. It's part of their style and charm.

DMC5 is like pizza. You can eat a lot of it, and enjoy it and it's cheap and good. Even the best pizza is not a gourmet meal though. There's nothing wrong with saying that you love pizza while also saying that it lacks substance.
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,243
12,203
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
The DMC storyline is also incredibly silly and stupid, and the stories are supremely trashy and sometimes incoherent. They are incredibly well made and fun enjoyable trash though.
I enjoy the games and they have their intentional and unintentional fun moments, but I don't consider them trash nor fun trash. The only trash I am talking about are 2's gameplay and story, or DmC's (2013) failure of a story. The gameplay was just alright, but major improvements in the Definitive Edition.

There's nothing wrong with saying that you love pizza while also saying that it lacks substance.
Except DMC5, and most of the franchise as a whole, has plenty of substance. The only thing DMC5's falters slightly is that the level design gets samey at a certain point between ruined city and demon womb tree. The substance lies in how far these characters have developed and bounce off one another so well.

 

Dirty Hipsters

This is how we praise the sun!
Legacy
Feb 7, 2011
8,549
3,062
118
Country
'Merica
Gender
3 children in a trench coat
I enjoy the games and they have their intentional and unintentional fun moments, but I don't consider them trash nor fun trash. The only trash I am talking about are 2's gameplay and story, or DmC's (2013) failure of a story. The gameplay was just alright, but major improvements in the Definitive Edition.


Except DMC5, and most of the franchise as a whole, has plenty of substance. The only thing DMC5's falters slightly is that the level design gets samey at a certain point between ruined city and demon womb tree. The substance lies in how far these characters have developed and bounce off one another so well.

Oh no, I've played all the DMC games, and I get the character beats in all of them. I just don't actually find them particularly impressive.

Not that I found the story of Last of Us 2 impressive either. I really liked DMC5 whereas I found Last of Us 2 to be "fine" but the attempted story of The Last of Us 2 is more ambitiously presented than DMC.

DMC is pizza and the Last of Us 2 is a steak...except the chef overcooked the steak and the people defending it don't understand that liking your steak well-done makes you a subhuman trash person (come at me).
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,243
12,203
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
Oh no, I've played all the DMC games, and I get the character beats in all of them. I just don't actually find them particularly impressive.
I do. Especially for an action game of this caliber. Not many long runnning game franchises can do that; especially these days.

I found Last of Us 2 to be "fine" but the attempted story of The Last of Us 2 is more ambitiously presented than DMC.
Highly debatable and I strongly disagree. When you're ambition is just "edgy", darker than the first game, and extra grim and gritty with misery porn on top while acting like you have something say, when it is not, ambition is a compliment you do not deserve. DMC5 was just picking up where it should have left off in 2013, instead of a reboot no one was asking for. Nothing more, nothing less. It has ambition, but that is not the main driving force and it's more honest and open about it.

DMC is pizza and the Last of Us 2 is a steak...except the chef overcooked the steak and the people defending it don't understand that liking your steak well-done makes you a subhuman trash person (come at me).
Your food analogy reminds me Max's from last year.

 

Dirty Hipsters

This is how we praise the sun!
Legacy
Feb 7, 2011
8,549
3,062
118
Country
'Merica
Gender
3 children in a trench coat
I do. Especially for an action game of this caliber. Not many long runnning game franchises can do that; especially these days.
I can agree with that. For a character action game, the DMC storyline is great. This is less to do with the DMC storyline being good though and more to do with character action games generally being trashy.

The stories are never meant to be the focus though, they're all about the gameplay. And again, there's nothing wrong with a fun trashy story (after all, I enjoy the Marvel movies and they aren't exactly highbrow cinema).

Same thing with fighting games. There is not a single fighting game series where the story is actually good, but that's entirely not the point of those games.

The story is the point of The Last of Us 2, so the fact that it failed in that regard is more damning to the game overall.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Phoenixmgs

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,243
12,203
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
(after all, I enjoy the Marvel movies and they aren't exactly highbrow cinema).
No and they don't need to be, but a good amount of them have depth and at least makes you think on some level.

There is not a single fighting game series where the story is actually good,
There are a couple with good stories by the way. Bloody Roar was doing fine starting at 2 until the 4th game..... No one likes talking about it. MK was going in a decent direction until they fucked up with MK11, but I thought endings in the DLC were good. Just a shame it was all hidden behind DLC and season passes. While Street Fighter's story tends to be all over the place, it gets around this by having good or subtle character moments. SFV takes this even further with the personal story chapter. This is even more noticeable if the character is from the Final Fight series or is a closure or an ending in their story arc. SFV's personal stories are better than the main plot where almost nothing is happening. That was the main problem with a lot of fighting games this generation trying to copy Netherealm/WB's story modes near verbatim. Tekken 7 suffered from it too.

The story is the point of The Last of Us 2, so the fact that it failed in that regard is more damning to the game overall.
Exactly. They should have just dropped the old cast (or put them in a minor cameo) and had a different location with new characters in the same world ending apocalypse.
 

Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
Legacy
Jul 18, 2009
20,079
4,830
118
Exactly. They should have just dropped the old cast (or put them in a minor cameo) and had a different location with new characters in the same world ending apocalypse.
I doubt that would've fixed the game's "attitude", since it's this attitude of 'Dude, pain and suffering, right? I bet you never thought about that, huh?' that makes the story so obnoxious. You could've had different characters, but the urge to misery porn it up would've still likely been the focus. Though the fact that they did this with the old cast makes it sting that much more, ontop of semi-ruining the original game. But then at the same time a lot of this could've been eleviated if the characters weren't so fucking boring; TLoU2 's story failure is a sticky web.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,243
12,203
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
Though the fact that they did this with the old cast makes it sting that much more, on top of semi-ruining the original game.
Yep. There still would have been complaints and problems regardless, but the cast from the first game would be mostly safe and away from the bullshit had they decided just do a completely new cast.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
9,570
825
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
Being a good video game critic is the hardest of all the critics. You have to know game design/mechanics across pretty much every genre + you have to be great at literary analysis too. That's why I'm so harsh on "professional" critics because they're maybe average at the video game half and mainly dogshit at the other half. I admittedly suck at being able to explain why I like/dislike the story and characters so I'm pretty bad at the literally analysis part (though I like to believe I'm good discerning between the bad and good).

---

Sort of.

The slide is still in as are the dashes but both are a little awkward. The slide isn't as snappy as the knee slide in titanfall or call of duty, and the momentum of it just feels off. The dashes are very short and don't feel impactful. They're more useful for the melee combat than the gunplay. There's perks that make the slide and dash better by allowing you to ADS during them and there's implants that let you bullet-time while sliding or dashing, but I've found the double jump ability to overall be more useful (I like double jumping over enemies that are behind cover and shooting them in the back or in the head as I'm over them).

Leaning is contextual and only works when you're in cover (being in cover is also contextual) and also only some cover so you can't really rely on it. I don't think I've actually used it once because I find running and gunning much more fun. I guess if you're doing a stealth build that's all about headshotting enemies with silenced weapons from behind cover then you would probably use the lean features more but I haven't bothered with it.
That's kinda disappointing, I love a good slide. I did find Horizon's ability to slow down time while sliding/jumping one of the very best abilities in the game. Yuck, I hate contextual cover, really any contextual controls. Leaning isn't that important against AI opponents as I doubt it affects their accuracy in hitting you like a human opponent would in an online shooter. Sliding also may not be as impactful vs AI, though it is always great fun.
 

Dirty Hipsters

This is how we praise the sun!
Legacy
Feb 7, 2011
8,549
3,062
118
Country
'Merica
Gender
3 children in a trench coat
That's kinda disappointing, I love a good slide. I did find Horizon's ability to slow down time while sliding/jumping one of the very best abilities in the game. Yuck, I hate contextual cover, really any contextual controls. Leaning isn't that important against AI opponents as I doubt it affects their accuracy in hitting you like a human opponent would in an online shooter. Sliding also may not be as impactful vs AI, though it is always great fun.
The dodge and slide supposedly provides a buff to your evasion stat, which affects enemy accuracy, so in theory doing them is useful when fighting AI enemies. I say supposedly because that's what the game tells me, but the game's stats say a lot of things that aren't remotely true.

Like for example, the game says that using the gorilla arms augmentation lets you rip open locked doors. This actually isn't true. Turns out that was changed and folded into the general "body" stat so anyone can do it if they've dumped enough experience points into that stat, but the gorilla arms mod still has that text, they just never updated it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Phoenixmgs