Saturday Morning Gaming: Cyberpunk 2077’s Full Review
Okay. We’ve talked about Cyberpunk 2077 three times so far. There was the thread where we talked about the political considerations of the game here. There was the “First Impressions” thread of the game here. And then there was the early review of the game where I had played through about 75% of the side quests and 25% of the main quests here.
This is the review of the game from someone who has done more than 90% of the side quests and most of the main quests (though, granted, has not yet actually *FINISHED* the game).
There are a lot of little quests. Most of these are quests where you have to do nothing there but show up and incapacitate people who, if you read the logs after the fact, were really antisocial. There are a bunch of little quests where you have to do nothing more than show up and read the log of whatever happened 5 minutes before you showed up. These quests aren’t voice acted beyond the angry shouts of the bad guys. On top of that, there are a bunch of missions that involve nothing more than buying a car.
I’ve probably beaten a little over half of these missions. Seriously, there are a *LOT* of them. Just like there are a lot of cars to buy. I’ve bought a handful of cars and there are still *23* that I haven’t bought yet. And while the different cars vary in appearance, there’s not a whole lot of difference between them for someone who isn’t a carhead. Sure, even someone like me can look at the different cars and say “ooooh, that one is sexy!” or “that’s just a regular old warhorse” but the majority of my car use is little more than getting from Point A to Point B.
Which may be a metaphor for the entire game. If you *LOVE* cars, you’ll have not only opportunities to buy them but opportunities to collect them. And you’ll get everything from a lowly Trabant to a Rayfield Aerondight S9 ‘Guinevere’. Even *I* know that the Guinevere is a sexy car.
But I’m not a car guy. So I look at it and say “oooh, sweet” and then want to get back to the “real” part of the game.
The “real” part of the game involves the Main Quest and the Side Quests Proper (like, non-mandatory quests that are voice acted and have arcs and storylines that tie into the main story). And, lemme tell ya, THESE QUESTS ARE AWESOME. There’s one that involves a discussion of theology (and, seriously, we could have a good argument over whether it’s blasphemous or merely heretical). There’s one that involves a serial killer of teenaged-children that is as disturbing as a season of True Detective. There’s one that involves an AI taxi company that is having trouble with a handful of cabs that have started disagreeing with home base. Each one of these side quests is engaging and could easily have been a one-shot session of a tabletop Cyberpunk game.
But, seriously, some of these stories are *DARK*. Like, World of Darkness Tzimisce missions-level dark. A list of Content Warnings for this game would include stuff like self-harm, suicide, graphic depictions of violence against innocent people, graphic depictions of the techniques that the serial killer used to pick and groom his victims. Seriously dark stuff. During different parts of the game I was angered, disgusted, and found myself asking “how did this get into the game?”
Which is another way of saying “holy cow, I was engaged”. The side quests in this game were very well-written and did little tricks where they tied into the larger world. You’ll see a handful of ads for a product and then, after the side quest, you’ll say “HOLY COW! I WAS THERE!”
As such, the world is interactive to a degree I didn’t expect. The first, oh, 10 hours with the game had the city feel like a setting. Then it felt like a city I was in. And now, as I wander toward the end of the game, it feels like a city that I’m part of. A city that I’m leaving my mark on.
As for the main quest… holy cow. There are two main quests that are intertwined. They both involve the Heist That Went Wrong at the beginning of the game and the problems that follow. There is the external problem of the crime you witnessed in the middle of your heist, there is the internal problem that follows from how you made the Heist succeed. And both of these intertwine together and have tendrils that reach out into the various side quests in the game. And each of these main quests in the game felt organic (impressive for Cyberpunk!) and the ones that felt like they weren’t tied into the main story established that, no, they were setting the stage for what was to come.
This game has about a dozen Chekov’s guns and while there are a couple of misfires, they’re more than overcome by the number of bullseyes.
The main thing that I’d warn about is that this is not a game for kids. Heck, it’s probably not a game for teenagers. This is a game that has earned its M+ rating. This game is a hard R. There is strong language in the game. There is graphic violence in the game. There is disturbing content in the game. There is sex in the game. There is nudity in the game. And that’s without getting into the blasphemy versus heresy debate. (And *THAT* is without getting into the various real life arguments about how the game handles issues of gender.) More than that, not all of them are off to the side and easily avoidable. Sure, you can avoid this or that side quest and there are a couple of moments even within the side quests that ask “hey, are you sure you want to go through with this?” but, dang. The game has some bleak stuff in there.
Which goes back to the whole Cyberpunk thing, I guess. On the surface, it looks like it’s got really cool technology and really sexy surface stuff but, underneath the chrome, wounds fester.
I think that the game is absolutely brilliant and provides a surprisingly strong critique against the modern world (and not just a criticism of the retrofuture it imagined back in the 80’s). But, dang. It’s not a light and fluffy game with a lotta rock and roll and Keanu Reeves shows up… well, I suppose, on the surface it’s that.
If you read Neuromancer as a teenager, you probably thought that all of that stuff was cool. Going back and re-reading it as an adult has you notice how awful the world it depicts is. How horrible.
This is a game that explores that dichotomy and, if that’s not what you’re looking for, you need to run, not walk, away from this game. If, however, you find the evolution of how you felt about Cyberpunk back in the 80’s versus how you feel about it today to be something interesting? This game has a lot of really, really good stuff under the chrome.
If you were worried that the writers of this game wouldn’t get it, I’ve got good news. They got it. They *NAILED* it. This game discusses everything from religion to sex to politics and its intersection with technology and acceleration and, yes, even Capitalism the way that the best Cyberpunk stories do and it is something that you’re going to want to argue about for years. (Pity that it’s unplayable for so many people.)
So… what are you playing?
It’s like a reverse Red Dead Redemption 2. Where RDR2 had the main story be depressing and ham-handed but it had the finest little side quests and most amazing chance interactions, Cyberpunk has somewhat unrewarding filler quests but the most amazing main story I’ve played in years.
I went from being disappointed by the game to being amazed by it.
I’m never going to play Red Dead Redemption 2 again… but I will play this again when the DLC comes out. Holy cow, what an amazing game.Report
Are there issues with the gameplay? Yes. Absolutely. Driving is not that great for how much of it you do. (I find myself driving to fast travel points a lot.)
Doing stuff like “mastering headshots with a sniper rifle” makes upgrading weapons unnecessary. What’s the difference between doing 6000 and 7000 points of damage when you’re fighting a guy with 2000 hit points?
I’ve upgraded my outfits a handful of times and alternated between playing Dolly Dress Up and looking absolutely perfect in my perfect outfit and playing Min-Max and walking around with a space helmet and a jumpsuit because it was .4 armor points better than the other stuff I had.
Oh, and you have the opportunity to find a named character’s artifact clothing that is a solid B+ on the armor scale and it looks good too so… why not wear that character’s clothing?
One thing that the game did well was that I died a *LOT* at low levels and now I walk around and can kill groups of bad guys just by looking at them funny. You feel like your character progresses from wimpy guy who has lost everything to demigod by the time you get to the end of the game.
But the game is also overstuffed. There’s a swimming mechanic in the game. Like, oxygen and whatnot. I think I’ve used it… twice? Why did they go to so much trouble to put that in there? I’ve mentioned the food and drink the game has… dozens and dozens of types of food and drink and all of them do the exact same thing. Hours and hours spent on the descriptions of the items and, at the end of the day, you get 450 seconds’ worth of nourishment/hydration out of them, no matter what it is.
You customize your character at the beginning and you can never again change what you look like. What a missed opportunity!
But the plot is good. The theme is strong. The game is amazing. This game captures why I play video games and a game like this only rarely comes out.
But, dang. I could see how someone else might play this and say “THIS IS BULLCRAP! THIS GAME SUCKS!”
For me? This game is downright perfect. Exceeds expectations. (And my expectations were *HIGH*.)Report
I was typing my main reply and didn’t see this comment, but you identified the same issues here that I did.Report
I am playing Divinity: Original Sin 2 – almost done with it, just gotta beat the big bad.
I needed a break from that, so I found Journey to the Savage Planet on Game Pass and started that. It’s fun. A bit of a FPS/platformer. It’s not the best shooter, which is fine, as I always have a hard time playing shooters with the XBox controllers (I much prefer a mouse for those). It has a lot of similarities to The Outer Worlds (over the top incompetent corporations), but with the tongue hitting the cheek a lot harder (you work for Kindred Aerospace, the 4th best aerospace company; your companion AI has a lot more snark with an actual voice actor doing a really good job).
So not as dark as Outer Worlds. Discovering and cataloging new things is actually interesting, as well as killing them to see what kinds of resources you can get for upgrades.
Anyway, not doing a full review here, but it’s fun, and on Game Pass, and if you have Game Pass, check it out.
One of these days I’ll get a new gaming rig built and hit my Steam library again.Report
I’m really enjoying it too and agree with most of your comments.
What I really enjoy is how the game breaks the traditional split between main and side quests and content. While technically optional, not doing the side quests will dramatically affect how the main storyline proceeds and ends. And how you do those “side” quests has a similarly large effect. It’s great going into that largely blind because you don’t know what decisions you make will have on the course of the main story, so it encourages players who have the willpower not to google for the optimal or completionist playthrough to really consider their choices and what kind of V they want to be. And that’s another great thing about the game is that you have a wider variety of options for how to play your V than is the case with most games.
The quests and story are really the highlights of this game though. I’ve played the disturbing ones you mentioned and can confirm they are really disturbing! And some of the short one-off side quests that you think are one-and-done may not be or may influence a choice later on.
There is also at least one secret quest that doesn’t appear on the map and doesn’t tell you where to go. You find what appears to be a typical garage with stuff to loot but there’s a picture there and a databank with more info. This is actually a quest but it doesn’t appear in your quest log or on the map. If you are familiar enough with night city, you can look at the picture, figure out where it was taken, go to that spot, and initiate a chain of events and an actual quest. I would think there is more than one of these, but I only know about this particular one.
I also agree about the filler quests – some are great for loot, but most are just the usual filler typical of RPG’s.
Here are some specific criticisms I have of the game that are in addition to the ones discussed in your earlier posts (like character creation and bugs):
The game systems and mechanics are deep and interesting but completely unbalanced, especially if you invest heavily into the technical tree for crafting. This makes the power/difficulty curve in the game rather absurd. In the early game, even on normal difficulty, you’re super weak and you get excited for a weapon upgrade from an enemy you might have killed.
But by level 20, or even earlier if you know what you’re doing, you can become god-like. My level 45 character is basically unkillable except by mines, which are strangely insta-kill, or fall damage. Some of the boss fights require a bit of finesse but don’t pose much of a challenge, even on harder difficulties. I have a tech pistol, for example, that will one-shot any non-boss enemy in the game and can shoot through walls. My silenced pistol for stealth will similarly drop any regular mob with a headshot. Even though I’ve put zero points into melee weapons, I can 1-3 shot any regular enemy with my iconic legendary upgraded baseball bat. Meanwhile, my armor and cyberware make most weapons in the game feel like mosquito bites.
All that power is fun for a while and makes plowing through filler content easy, but it’s another sign that this game wasn’t properly tested and is horribly unbalanced.
The loot is mostly uninteresting and pointless. There’s tons of different kinds of food and drinks in the game, but they serve zero useful purposes and just end up taking inventory space. Fortunately, they don’t weigh anything, but they are also a PITA to sell because the shop interface is poorly designed and slow. Bulk selling of items in a game where you pick up a ton of bulk items is an annoying oversight.
Maybe it’s different for characters who don’t spec into crafting, but I stopped caring about all the weapon drops by about level 15. They just turned into a source of parts to upgrade my existing weapons, which are all iconics.
Mods and stats for gear and weapons appear to be very buggy. Some do not appear to work at all and for others like items don’t appear to stack effects, but the items and UI don’t tell you this.
I think I’ve only bought 2 or 3 cars. One was accidental, I happened to click on it and instinctively hit the “f” key. The time and effort put into the cars in pretty amazing – especially the interiors. But the sad reality is that it’s impossible to competently drive in this game in the first-person view that would allow you to see all the beautiful detail. Plust there are a ton of free vehicles – I think have six or 7 free ones now.
And with the exception of one bit of dialog in one quest, vehicles don’t have any other effect on the game or interactions. I still prefer Jackie’s Arch motorcycle for road driving because it’s so much easier to drive in traffic. For off-road, there’s a nomad motorcycle that is perfect off-road. I don’t really need or care about the other vehicles.
Confirming my earlier suspicions, the life-paths don’t have any meaningful effect on the game except in one instance that I’ve found. Playing as a nomad, I’m pretty sure that picking one of the nomad options with a major side-quest character can ruin your chance to romance them. But it’s at least nice to know that picking the life-path dialog option is not always the best choice.
Speaking of romances, the actual quests for that are great. What is disappointing is that once the questline is complete there’s basically no significant further interaction with that character until late in the main story. They stay in the same spot have the same three blue dialog options and answers. Adding even a tiny bit more depth to this would keep these characters alive and interesting. As it stands, I have no reason to go see the woman I supposedly love because there’s no way to interact with her.
This game has had a pretty rough start, but I think the bones and foundations are solid enough to make it a truly great game. I was an early fan of the cyberpunk genre and the environments and storytelling in this game hit that nostalgia button pretty hard. That probably biases me to look past some of the game’s flaws and there are, no doubt, some big ones. But the technical and balance problems are fixable and the incredible and vibrant world they created will make for practically endless DLC possibilities.Report
They put so much loving detail into so much stuff but then it’s got no effect on the game. What’s the difference between driving a Yaris and a Corvette in real life? NIGHT AND DAY. What’s the difference in the game? Nothing, really.
The gameplay wavers between 4/10 and 6/10 and the story is 11/10.
It’s almost comic.Report
That’s a good way to put it.
One positive thing I forgot to mention is the level design is very good IMO and supports a variety of playstyles – quite unlike the Witcher for example. Having an open world that really does support stealth, melee, and – in theory – tanky or glass-cannon play is actually pretty remarkable and difficult to do well.
It’s too bad the power imbalance distorts that so much and negates the need to make playstyle choices and tradeoffs. Why bother carefully stealthing or hacking through a mission when I can kill everyone in the complex in 30 seconds at no risk? Why choose to be a tank or glass cannon when I can do both and still hack decently?
In the heist mission at the beginning, it felt like the opposite. My stealth didn’t work, I couldn’t tank, my firepower was too weak to glass cannon. Hacking was too weak to do much. I got through the long battle through the hotel via the liberal use of cover and by exploiting the terrible AI. I probably should have done more side content and leveled more before starting that one.Report
i’ve put this one down for now as the bugs get worked out and am deciding whether it is something I will pick up again or not. From what I’ve read, if you play V as a female, you have a fair number of chances at having a lesbian affairs with a few NPC. I can’t tell whether this is mature or “mature” as an option. There is stuff some are willing to give credit to as world building in cyberpunk future but still seems more like Sinemax levels of pornography and titillation to me. There are a lot of things in the game which feel like they belong in the ‘just because you can, doesn’t mean you should’ level of options and everyone neglecting the second part.Report
I got hit on as a guy, by a guy. There is also a brothel where you’re doing detective work earlier in the game and you have an option between two sex workers, one of either gender.
I don’t know that it’s particularly edgy, anymore, to have same-sex sex as an option in games where you can romance others.
(I will say that the game does a spectacular job of making the sex acts not particularly sexy. I don’t know if that’s a design choice or a failure, though.)Report
The sex “scenes” aren’t any different from Witcher 3 except the graphics have more fidelity. The scenes in the Witcher are more “romantic” IMO.
Like Witcher 3, there’s at least one short “hook up” quest, plus the ability to just go pay for sex, but those are entirely optional.
The world itself is certainly very sexualized in some ways (advertisements and sex stores mainly), but it’s not as in-your-face as I was expecting. Sex and sexuality doesn’t play any real role in the story at all. Nudity can be turned off in the options and it’s possible to play through the game with very little sexual content.
I agree with Jaybird that the sex acts aren’t particularly sexy or titillating, but I haven’t seen them all yet.
*possible spoiler alert*
It’s probably obvious that there are a limited number of NPC story arcs that can lead to a romance (I won’t say how many, but it’s not as many as I’d like). These romanceable NPC’s have preferences that depend on whether you pick a male/female body type and male/female voice for your character. If you don’t have the body and voice type that the NPC likes, then you can’t romance them no matter what you do.
You can fully complete all these story arcs (and I’d encourage anyone playing to do so because they are all very) without any romance at all. The only difference these NPC preferences make is who you could end up being able to have sex with at the end of the questline. As far as I can tell, choosing (or failing) to romance anyone doesn’t have any significant effect on the game.Report
“Like Witcher 3, there’s at least one short “hook up” quest, plus the ability to just go pay for sex, but those are entirely optional.”
Yes, but one of the clever things that Witcher had was, in Blood and Wine, if you went to the bordello, the girls assumed your were “playing the role of the witcher” and we just an ordinary guy–and that costs more than a simple “bang and bail”. Geralt has to explain is really IS the witcher the Duchess hired. That was unique.Report
And you haven’t even reached the ending!
Depending on your choices throughout, your ending will change, and they will hit hard.
Most immersive game I’ve played.Report
I’m currently sitting on the roof, giving a phonecall to Panam.
Woke her up, apparently.Report
Did you find the boxing quests as annoying as I did? I haven’t done any of them actually – that’s one area that’s not power creeped.Report
I did the first one (against the twins).
Other than that… no.
I might go back and do them after everything. (Or, maybe, on a second playthrough once the DLC comes out.)Report
I decided to give Fallout New Vegas another run, what can I say, it’s a classic.Report
Okay. I beat it.
Whew.
This game left me satisfied.Report
Okay, I slept on it.
I realized that the ending loops back around to the beginning.
It comes out and asks you “how do you want to do this?” and gives you three options: Corporation, Street Kid, and Nomad.
Additionally, I put more than 80 hours into the game since December 10th and the game still feels “short”. Which is crazy.Report
From previous comments, it sounds like you did the Panam ending? That’s what I ended up doing, though I tried out a couple of other options as well after I completed that one.
I agree with you to an extent about a return to the beginning. As a nomad male character, the Panam ending was by far the best in terms of a total character arc as well as ultimate resolution compared to all the other alternatives. The “corpo” and “street kid” alternative beginnings and endings plus picking something besides a male hetero character result in endings that are not nearly as good IMO, and require more sacrifices and tradeoffs. I think that’s a pretty major missed opportunity and/or oversight. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some political criticism of this as more people play and finish the game.
It is appropriate, in keeping with the dark tone of the game, there’s the very, very dark ending… I can see why there are zero incentives from the story to take that ending – I guess promoting that resolution was probably a bridge too far, even considering the sinnerman quest.
I put about 110 hours into the game which includes doing all the side-content as well as a lot of exploring. I actually did the boxing quests this weekend, but cheesed them with an exploit that lets you use a melee weapon. Even after doing all that content plus a lot of the procedural content (police missions/assaults that pop up), I started at the point-of-no-return at level 48 and hit 49 before the epilogue. And I was so powerful at that point that the end missions weren’t a challenge. Again, another balance issue. Another problem is that it’s very easy to not complete the Eurodyne questline before the point of no return. I ended up skipping time for several days until I was sure I had completed everything. From a story perspective, it makes sense to have his questline late in the game, but it’s still a problem in terms of pacing.
Anyway, overall I really enjoyed the game. I look forward to the fixes and DLC, but I’m shelving it for now. The story, characters and environment are definitely the highlights for me. I think once they fix the technical issues and some of the glaring gameplay problems that this could be one of the best RPG’s ever made. Considering the variety of endings, it will be interesting to see what the DLC will cover.Report
Street Kid ending. I went to the bar and talked to my fixer and we replayed one of the flashback scenes from early in the game.
Yeah, I’m shelving it for at least a year. I was tempted to fiddle with this or that ending but…
You know what? I’m good. This was a perfect meal, imperfectly prepared and imperfectly plated but I left full and satisfied.
I can’t wait until the first DLC shows up and the devs start handing notes to their favorite, trusted modders.Report
There was a Reddit thread over the weekend, since deleted, purporting to be from a frustrated developer with “inside” information on the future of the game. CDPR is supposedly planning to save the game by following the “No Man’s Sky” model with the first major changes coming in June.
It also had a discussion of the huge amount of content that was cut from the final game.
I think this person is credible because the cut content makes sense based on the current state of the game and some weird things missing from the game and some of the quests.
I also read a history of the game’s development and didn’t realize just how many Witcher developers left the company during Cyberpunk’s development and how disconnected the Execs and development team became. Explains a lot.
Anyway, they are still saying the first DLC will be in the first half of this year – I’m skeptical.Report
Golly!
While I am certainly 100% willing to believe that it is theoretically possible to pull a No Man’s Sky rabbit out of this hat but I will wait and see.
They didn’t pull a Bioware… not yet. But, man, is my face tired.Report