#from the little i played cyberpunk 2077 seemed to try something similar but honestly... i felt much more railroaded by the game there

[ettadunham]

you know, i actually really appreciate the way dragon age: origins does rpg. so many games now just give you a blank page of a character to start with, or in a standard action adventure, you usually play as a more or less fully defined protagonist - but da:o is the kind of happy medium that i wish there was more of. the fact that you can choose from multiple backstories that you then have to play through, and it feels like you're actually making choices and roleplaying even then... it really genuinely adds to the experience as if you're actually roleplaying a character, and aren't just interacting with the options as yourself, or being railroaded entirely by an established characterization.

[warsofasoiaf]

I'd love to hear your thoughts about Cyberpunk 2077 when you are ready/have finished the game. Maybe besides the game itself you have an opinion about the crunch, bugs and general feeling of disappointment in a good portion of the fans

Sure thing. It’s going to be a long write-up and there are going to be spoilers, so you better believe that this is going to have a cut. Reader beware. For context, I have beat the game, and I played it on PC and only on PC.

I’ve been a fan of the cyberpunk genre for a long time. Transhuman and techno-utopian sci-fi always struck me the wrong way; that it was too optimistic and ignored a less savory element of human nature that simply would not go away with the advent of new technologies. While I only briefly dipped my toes in the water of the Cyberpunk tabletop game (I was always a bigger fan of Shadowrun), I did enjoy the genre and was eager to see a AAA cyberpunk game. I also really liked CD Projekt Red with what they did with RPG’s like the Witcher 3. Particularly when it came to the smaller sidequests, they really found a way to bring a lot of noir elements and hard-hitting character moments to the game, and I believed that it could translate very well into a cyberpunk game. After all, noir was a similar response to detective fiction to what the cyberpunk genre was to earlier elements of sci-fi. So I was quite optimistic when it came out. What we got was...well, it didn’t quite meet up with expectations.

There are some good things about the game. Assuming you have a beefy rig, PC cyberpunk looks pretty good. Not only does it look good, but it looks like the dismal 1980′s inspired future that had defined the genre, with its neon lights, omnipresent advertising to the point of satire (amphetamines are available from vending machines in a variety of flavors and commercials are completely ridiculous). The fixers are great examples of different cyberpunk archetypes like Regina Jones being a media or the Padre being an underclass civic leader looking to protect his community with a bit of a violent streak. Plenty of the characters had great personality, the nomads and Panam were enjoyable, Judy had a great questline that detailed optimism and bitter disappointment (and the character looks cool and is a bit of a cinnamon roll), River’s quest was a perfectly serviceable cop questline with enough horror elements, they were all fine. Keanu wasn’t a great voice actor, but he did serviceably and was apparently just wonderful with the staff, so I’m willing to cut him a pass. The level design can encourage a variety of different play styles, with attribute points opening up certain pathways. Given that it’s an open-world sandbox game, the goal should be to immerse yourself in the world, and touch on elements of cyberpunk as you go through the various quests, and you do see some of that. You see the gross exploitations of dolls in the sex trade when you go to Clouds, the bizarre elements of self-expression that new technologies can offer such as the twins in Kabuki, Pacifica is an abandoned recreation ground for the rich with the nice image of rotting Ferris wheels and abandoned malls, and you can see the divide between the have’s and have-not’s on full display both in the opening (compare and contrast the Street Kid with the Corpo beginnings) or take a look at the Peralez’s penthouse apartment versus Judy’s cramped digs. Honestly, one of my favorite things in the game were just the consumables to highlight the different food and drink available to the people of Night City. The heavy population means that foods like fried ants or locust pepperoni are common, amphetamines are available in a variety of flavors, and there are no less than 20 burrito vending machines on every street (the future is not all bad it seems). I like little worldbuilding moments like this in video games because it does give a sense of completion and immersion within the world. I honestly felt bad for Johnny Silverhand, because by the end of the game I had to be a bloated man-ball of Holobites Peach Pie and Cirrus Cola. 

The game even took a few things that had aged poorly in the cyberpunk genre and improved them. The Mox is a gang specifically meant to stop the Disposable Sex Worker trope, it’s small and part of the reason it survives is that it’s small, but it offers a chance of improvement over the exploitation that the Tyger Claws offer. The cyberpyscho quest is probably the best one of this. Earlier Cyberpunk had cyberpsychosis as a serious concern directly correlated with how many implants you got. The Solo archetype even spoke about how you risk losing your humanity with your implants as you became stronger, better, faster. Even later iterations had depersonalization/derealization disorders as people who could see in the dark lost connection to those who couldn’t. A quick thought in our present though, changes this. My eyesight and hearing is just fine, but I don’t lose connection or common empathy with individuals who are blind or deaf. I have two arms and two legs and I have not lost empathy for amputees. Why then, would I lose empathy and connection with someone with average human eyesight after I get my eyes replaced and now I have the ability to see in the dark or have telescopic sight? The cyberpsycho quest actually took this concept to task; cyberpsychos around the city are seen as horrifying threats that need the high-threat response of MaxTac to deal with, but Regina is looking to see if she can cure cyberpsychosis. Mechanically, the cyberpsychos are boss-fights with elements of puzzle gameplay (how to handle the different skillsets that they have) and a bonus reward for non-lethal damage which rewards certain playstyle archetypes or prepwork for those who ensure that they have a non-lethal option. The information you find around each cyberpyscho showcase different problems in the target’s life, no real common thread or inciting incident that you can trace the onset of cyberpsychosis toward and identify a culprit. After you complete the quest, you learn the twist: there is no such thing as cyberpsychosis. Each of the targets were actually just experiencing different stressors within their lives, such as PTSD, losing their job, drug abuse, etc. and the breakdown is made much worse because these individuals have the ability to toss dumpsters like they were baseballs or pick the wings off a fly with a cybernetically enhanced brain with a .50 cal. Some of these individuals had terrible implant surgery done by bargain-basement ripperdocs and temporarily lost the ability to discern reality from fantasy, something that could easily be seen as a science fiction adaptation of temporary insanity brought on by a poor reaction to medicine. It’s backed up by the game too. V can fill every slot in their cyberware deck but never once experiences cyberpsychosis. Oda has ultra-legs and flaming-hot mantis blades and is in perfect control at every point in the game, even when he’s trying to jab those mantis blade through your sternum. Cyberpyschosis isn’t real, the irresponsible media just ran with it because fear sells. For all the flaws of the game, I respect the game for taking cyberpsychosis in that direction.

But for all those good things, the game couldn’t help but feel shallower than the Witcher 3. The side-gigs were formulaic to the point where they even led with a category. There were few twists and very little that was surprising. Exposition for these quests was limited to a short text dump and a minute voice-over. Night City was big but it was relatively sparse. NCPD never seemed to intervene in any crimes (giving the character the chance to do so) but every so often they were around a taped-off crime scene, giving a sense of inconsistency that hampered the world. While it was a bustling city, it felt empty, most of the people I saw on the street were meaningless, just NPC’s walking around to give a sense of activity. There was little in the way of things to see and experience that was unique or different about these NPC’s. They weren’t crowds I could hide in like Hitman, they didn’t have ambient dialogue that showcased something like the Witcher 3. Much like other open-world games, this sense of shallowness pervaded much of the empty space of the world; it was incredibly *big* but there was little in it. Much of the time I was driving or running through empty space that was completely worthless to me. Normal for city living, but all of that is wasted time going from point A to point B, and unlike the Witcher 3, there were no small in-game beats to help flesh it out or build it. I never had Millie from “Where the Wolf and Cat Play” give me a little picture, I never had people from a liberated village say “hey, look, it’s that guy Geralt, thanks for killing those harpies.” These were things that made the Witcher 3′s world really come alive. I didn’t have that, and I was left

Of course, we also have to handle the elephant in the room, and that was CDPR’s conduct both during production and after release. Crunch has become an increasingly common part of video game development and it’s not healthy to developers. CDPR had been called out on it once before, but it seemed there was little change in how that happens. I’m not quite sure if there’s anything we can do, and I’m sympathetic to the need to hit target deadlines to actually deliver a finished product, but there’s got to be a better way, whether that’s a change to the incentive structure, or something, because it’s hurting folks. I like games like Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2, but I understand that there was a real human cost to these masterpieces, and I wonder if there’s something we can do about that. 

Similarly, what happened after launch was beyond terrible. The last-gen console version were simply not ready for release and shouldn’t have been released to the public. CDPR openly covered up this, by only previewing the PC version, they hid the fact that the game wasn’t ready, and they avoided delaying the last-gen console version because they were looking to capitalize on holiday sales. I’m sympathetic for the need to generate sales, but the flip of this is that you have to deliver the product you advertise, and for last-gen consoles, they didn’t do so. Bugs are one thing, these games are massive undertakings of interacting systems and bugs are inevitable; some of my favorite games were buggy at release, notably Fallout: New Vegas, Witcher 3, and so on. But this went past bugs and into malpractice and deception, and that’s something that’s less forgivable. I personally had few bugs that were out-and-out game breaking but things not loading, quests bugging out, floating bags and other physics wonkiness, all of that hurt the immersion. I’d be more willing to forgive the game without the deception; I can laugh at bugs but not at ignoring quality control to get holiday sales instead of delivering a quality product. Consumers are angry at CDPR and have every reason to be, and I’m one of them. I can express my disappointment and I will do so, we need developers to stop these practices and the only way we can do that is through our wallets and words. I’m not going to tell anyone not to buy CDPR games, that’s entirely your decision because I’m a radical individualist. But I am going to say that they’ve burned a lot of their good karma with me; credibility is a hard beast to gain back. Much like other big name developers, CDPR has hurt their standing in my eyes. Whether that means I need to resort to going to indie games for a little bit or something else, I don’t know, but it’s rough. I liked CDPR and wanted to believe it’d be different, but it seems to not be the case.

Overall, I think it’s another AAA open-world game only made better by my love of the genre, and that stings. I enjoyed some aspects of it, and I hope that through Free DLC, patching, and other good deeds, the game can redeem itself and stimulate new love of the genre. But CDPR needs to do a lot more than that to win back my affection. If anyone has anything specifically that they want to know about the game, such as talk about the main story, individual characters, or so on, just ask.

Thanks for the question, Khef.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[unpopularly-opinionated]

Alright, now that I’ve had sex I will give my two cents on Cyberpunk 2077. I’ll try to remain as spoiler-free as possible, but to be courteous I will still hide it. I won’t discuss story details, just gameplay and my overall thoughts.

First off, the game is fun as fuck. In my honest opinion, it definitely meets the hype it garnered throughout development. It really meets my expectation of an open-world Deus Ex-type experience.

Personally, I haven’t encountered too many bugs, and the ones I have haven’t been remotely frustrating. I am aware that is purely anecdotal however, as it seems a lot of other folks are getting bugs galore. Sometimes an item won’t load in, whether it’s in-world or sometimes it’s the clothing I equip (one time I equipped a pair of pants and it weirdly hid my dick but nothing else so I looked like a fucking Ken doll from the waist down, it was funny, a quick unequip and reequip fixed it). One time an NPC walked through a wall. And occasionally, when standing on an edge (like a curb or a barrier or something) if I move I’ll accelerate to a really quick speed. Again, nothing has impacted me negatively, it’s all just been sort of odd duck bugs.

The game sounds incredible. Honestly one of things I was most excited for was how good the game would sound, and yeah it sounds excellent. Completely fits the theme it’s going for. Sometimes the music is obnoxiously loud which I know could be a turn off for many people, but I actually think it fits the world to have EDM blaring through your speakers while you’re skulking about or in a big shootout.

I can’t really attest to the graphics since my card isn’t that great (GTX 970 for those who are curious if it’ll run on that) so I’m playing on Medium graphics. It doesn’t look too bad at Medium, but it’s definitely a noticeable downgrade from the marketing. Cars tend to pull up as weird metal blobs before their rigid bodies pop into existence. Food looks under-detailed. People and the overall world still look fantastic.

Combat is very similar to the Deus Ex games. You usually have an option of stealth or open combat. Sometimes a gig will request that you don’t raise an alarm or don’t drop any bodies, though so far those have all been optional. I will say that sometimes it feels like stealth isn’t really an option even though technically it is. I ran into a few areas where there’s a guard posted at every entrance, and often multiple making it difficult to sneak behind one to knock them out. Also, and this might classify as a bug I honestly don’t know if it’s just user error or what, but sometimes the game will tell me guards have spotted a body I K/O’d even when I have every guard highlighted and can see that they’re nowhere near where I hid the bodies. I don’t know if it’s like a camera I’m missing or what though.

If I had to point at some aspects I didn’t like, in the interest of fairness, I would say the driving is horrendous. I find it almost completely unplayable to be honest. You constantly have to tap the brakes, never hold the gas for longer than a nanosecond, and turning is an absolute nightmare. I could very well just suck at it, but for me at least, I stick to walking.

There is a crafting system which...if I had to be honest, I would say it’s sort of unnecessary and possibly there just to pad the skill trees. I haven’t used it at all in my 12-14 hours of play, maybe it will become more useful as time goes on, but genuinely I don’t imagine so except perhaps for upgrading your gear since some gear is unique and you’re meant to upgrade it to get better versions of that one piece.

Character progression works very similar to how it works in Skyrim. You have five skills: Body (Strength, HP, Stamina), Reflexes (Speed, Evasion, Weapons Handling), Technical Ability (Tech Weapons, Technology), Intelligence (Hacking), and Cool (Stealth, Persuasiveness(?)). From there, each skill has sub-skills which are too many to list. Every time you use a sub-skill (for example, killing an enemy from stealth or hacking a person) you will gain EXP for that sub-skill and eventually level it up which will unlock perks and perk points to unlock those perks. I put a (?) around Persuasiveness because to be honest, I’m not sure that that’s a good word for what Cool seems to impact. Occasionally during dialog you will see the Cool symbol next to an option, similar to a skill check in like Fallout New Vegas, and so far none have been me “persuading” anyone, but they provide an alternative dialog option which could potentially lead to more information.

As soon as I was able to, I went and paid for sex. Gotta say, 2/10 experience IMO. Like it’s hilarious to talk about this because it’s kinda cringe but like we’re all thinking about it so fuck it, why not. There are legit dick jiggle physics in the game, I.E. your dick literally jiggles as you move, but you never see it, even during sex. I was actually a little surprised (and mildly disappointed because like come on). Obviously I’m not playing this game just for the in-game sex, but I have to say I was expecting more. Also there appears to be only two options for people to fuck, a girl and a guy. So yeah, 2/10 experience. Not worth the 100 Eurodollars.