Topic: Cyberpunk 2077 OT

@Jimmer-jammer I have thought about the fact that I’m approaching the upgrading and skill point assignment completely wrong. With the Souls games I know it’s a rookie mistake to try to be too well-rounded in spending your upgrades, but in most RPGs it works fine to spread out your skills and points. It looks like Cyberpunk is closer to the FromSoft formula of specializing and “picking a path and sticking with it”. Unfortunately I’ve been pretty haphazard in my leveling.

@Fragile I’ve been lucky lately and haven’t consciously abandoned any games due to complete lack of interest. I’ve had some I’ve dropped off because something shinier catches my attention and drags me away but I’m typically still enjoying the game and plan to go back. In the case of Cyberpunk, I think it’ll be one of the few that I’ll intentionally quit. (Unless it compels me in the next 2-4 hours)

@MatthewJP 😂 that’s ironic. I think I like the driving because the adaptive triggers are well used there where you get resistance on the accelerator and the brake, and you can even feel the trigger subtly jostle when the gears shift and when the tires peel out, etc.

@Th3solution Not every game is for everyone, it happens to us all when we bounce off a game for whatever reason. For every game like Cyberpunk for you there will be another Returnal or Nier Automata.

@Jimmer-jammer I think me and you are one a similar wavelength with this game. I really enjoyed the side missions where they start off as something quite small and insignificant but can turn out to be something much grandeur in scope.

@HallowMoonshadow Glad to hear I’m not the only one, and I appreciate your thoughts on the game.

I gave it one more dedicated session yesterday evening and although there are moments that I find slightly compelling, overall I felt like playing it was a chore. I finished one more of the mainline quests (the one to rescue Evelyn) and at the end, I just didn’t really care about her nor even understand what’s going on. I should have really been moved by what happened to Evelyn, and clearly the game intended me to have some strong emotions there, yet I simply was apathetic at the whole thing. And again, it might be just a stark contrast from the huge focus on characterization and relationship development coming right from TLoU2, but I think CDPR has done a lousy job of building compelling characters. Outside of Jackie, probably my favorite characters have been the two bartenders I’ve chatted with 😅. I can see a glimmer of hope with the Johnny-V interactions being a fun idea, but it’s still a lost opportunity so far.

The final straw was after finishing the Evelyn rescue it opened up another main quest line and I was just like, ‘ugh, I don’t want to do that’ and so it sealed the deal. After running around carjacking all the different cars and creating a little mayhem in the streets for 30 minutes, I decided to stop.

It convinced me too when I quit out of Cyberpunk and immediately booted up my partial playthrough of Mass Effect and immediately began enjoying it. Despite the gameplay being much more basic by comparison and the voice acting being even cheesier with the side characters, there’s a special sauce with ME that Cyberpunk is missing.

Now I need to just decide what I’ll trade it in for. 😄

@HallowMoonshadow I have played ME2 and ME3 back on PS3. This is my first foray into the first ME. But yeah, it’s all very similar and familiar, although I am doing a Fem-Shep Renegade approach, so it’s different from my original Bro-Shep playthrough. There’s some jank to the game and slightly antiquated systems at times, but it holds up. Nostalgia carries the game slightly but it’s pretty good on its own merit. If you have any interest at all in Sci-Fi third person shooting Western style RPGs then it’s worth a go at the series. Infinitely more bland of a presentation than Cyberpunk, but surprisingly good ‘for its age.’

Speaking of nostalgia and not to get the thread too far off topic, while playing Cyberpunk I kept feeling like this reminded me of Skyrim, only set as a shooter in the future Sci-Fi / dystopian Blade Runner world rather than a fantasy based medieval setting. Strangely, I adored Skyrim back in the day and I don’t know why Cyberpunk feels hollow by comparison, since it’s clearly a much better realized world. I don’t know if I’d be as enamored with Skyrim if I played it now, though. I’ve never played any Fallout games either, which is probably also a similar style of game.

I finally got going with the game today and am as far as the first braindance.

The game looks utterly stunning but I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed with everything that’s been thrown at me. I also have absolutely no idea what is going on at the moment; it kind of feels like I’m watching a TV series where I’ve accidentally skipped an episode.

@Thrillho Yes, this. I’m glad I’m not the only one, maybe I’m not too crazy. Most of these thoughts are outlined above, but I understand where you’re coming from. Many people have been really complementary about the game but I just couldn’t get past the weird and at times nonsensical narrative flow and difficult to follow dialogue.

I understand the game is supposed to be futuristic and I can appreciate that they made it feel like language, vernacular, and culture had evolved, but I never felt like I had a solid grip on what was going on. As a consequence I couldn’t feel invested in the characters or even in V’s plight. So I gave up after about a handful of hours (maybe 6-8 hrs? iirc) I did have fun running about the beautiful world, but it wasn’t enough to keep me.

Glad that a lot of people have enjoyed it though.

@Th3solution Yeah, it’s a problem with any big sci-fi or fantasy media when they try to create these completely alternative worlds and you need to sort of hit the ground running with what’s going on around you.

I’ve progressed a bit and mostly been doing side gigs but have completed the heist and played through Johnny’s part so the story is starting to come together a bit.

Combat is pretty good fun but the constant inventory management for guns is a chore. The side missions have been fine for the most part but haven’t had the unique feeling TW3 had for them.

And Night City is such an impressive place but it feels like the kind of map that I’ll never find familiar or know my way around that some of my favourite games manage to achieve.

@Th3solution Nah, you're just crazy. So it @Thrillho...

Seriously though, even though I absolutely loved the game, I can understand the gun management and the map to an extent being an issue. Like some other open world games, there's too many weapons to sort through. I get the fact that you fight a lot of people, so obviously they are all going to have guns or swords, but you get a lot that are the same or at least similar, so most of them are just ones you'd get rid of. I actually stopped picking up a lot of the guns unless they were better than what I had. There were certain places on the map I had trouble finding for a decent portion of the game. It was still lightyears ahead of the awful map from The Witcher 2 (worst map I've ever had the displeasure of trying to use), but it could have been labeled better.

All in all, minor nitpicks for me as I still loved the game regardless. The gun management was extremely easy to overlook. The map not as much, but they still pointed you in the right direction at all times for missions, so it never became a problem for them at least. It was only when you had to go places on your own, but the internet helped. It will always be a shame it got released in such poor shape, as there is an actual really good game there now.

I’m still plugging away at this but have had lots of other stuff going on too.

I still haven’t really progressed the story at all as I just end up picking up whatever gig or side mission is nearest to me.

Luckily they’re pretty good fun for the most part, quite lengthy affairs, and frequently go off on quite a tangent (I’m particularly thinking of the one that starts out as a hit job and ends up with some born again religious prisoner!)

Still looks incredible though!

I'm onto Act 3, I have all options open to me and I'm going to go through them all before moving on, I've really, like I mean really enjoyed this game, I'm a little shocked at how much, its been so fun, almost GTA style sometimes I've literally turned the game on and done nothing but mess around in the world.

The story is probably a 6 out of 10 for me, I love a good story game but this one is just average, the characters though is a different matter, they are what make the story and the side stories worth playing, some of the best characters for a long time. I like Keanu Reeves but I do wish they had some one else play Johnny Silverhand because everything he appears I just see and hear Keanu and I think Silverhand could of been a way cooler character if played by a "less recognisable" actor.

The graphics and NC it's self are really awesome, I've loved spending time on this game, so much so I haven't started GOWR yet because I knew if I did I probably wouldn't return. But I'm really glad I have stuck it out because the gameplay and the content on the game are amazing. I've seen alot of posts on here where people say gameplay is the most important, for me I like a good story or gameplay and if a game can do both then that's even better well gameplay is this game is just fun. Roaming around whether it's in a car, bike on foot, the different weapons, styles of combat just make for a all out good time.

I can see that some people didn't like the weapon management system and is very looter shooter style so any one with experience in them shouldn't have to much of a problem.

There's a few nick picks I have, the map is a bit crap, you get used to it but at first it's just a bit well crap. There's a few bugs but nothing game breaking, for the first 20 hours the only bug I had was in a cut scene some one was pouring a drink into a glass and the bottle and glass wernt there, just liquid sloshing about in invisible glass wear! There's been a few more since then like when I call my bike sometimes it flies right by me and goes another 50m down the road or one time it fell out from the sky. The most annoying bug is that during side missions when talking to characters some times you'll get a call from a maim character and it will answer by its self and they will literally talk over the other characters and I have no idea who V is replying to half the time. But like I say these bugs are very sporadic and have only happened a hand full of times, nothing game breaking.

Overall I'd recommend this game to most people, at the state its in now if it came out it would be lauded by people, it's a real shame that it came out when it did and how it did.

I'm looking forward to finishing the story but I will definitely be keeping the game installed on my ps to keep going back and get the Platinum or even sometimes to just mess about on it and I look forward to the DLC. Overall I'd give it a 8/10 I think it's weakest part is the story for me and it's not a bad story it's good just not on the level of other games.

@MaulTsir Glad to hear you’ve enjoyed the game too!

I disagree with the story slightly though but I think it suffers from the same problem lots of games have now with the main story being diluted by the vast amount of side content so you forget some of the key beats.

When I played through a second time there were so many bits I didn’t pick up on or missed out on first time round that really bought it all together. But that said, you shouldn’t have to play it twice to get what’s going on.

Oh I get what they are trying to do with the story and I also don't think it's a terrible story it's just in my opinion not a very strong story, the fact that some of the very important content is optional also could make people believe the story is even less refined than its meant to be.

My opinion is that the story isn't bad it's just not great like God of War, The Last of Us ect. But that's what great about gaming we all see things differently, I think the game is a very good top tier game, loved everything about it. I think the Edgerunners story was actually better than the games but again its just my opinion

Finished Cyberpunks story this weekend, went through all 4 endings! What a game, I have a few trophies to mop up to get the plat so I will be back for them after Ragnarok.

Excellent game and the potential to do so much with this universe. Looking forward to the DLC later this year. Would definitely recommend playing this game its tons of fun and the state its in now it is easily one of the best newer games out there at the minute.

@MaulTsir Congrats. While I only did one ending, I look forward to revisiting it at some point as Female V so I can see what the romance story is with Judy and other differences. If I end up picking the same ending, maybe then I'll keep reloading a save to experience the other endings.

Besides replaying it as Female V, I'm also looking forward to the DLC. Obviously you don't know a whole lot, but the trailer for it was intriguing. Granted everything that happened that led up to the current gen version's release naturally lowered expectations, in it's current state, it would have definitely lived up to my expectations if they were high like they should have been if things went normal and the only thing was waiting on the PS5 version.

@MaulTsir @KilloWertz Although I played the fixed and updated PS5 version, I wonder if I would have liked the game better if it hadn’t been messed up at release. Perhaps I went into it with the wrong attitude, prejudiced against it because of the launch debacle. I don’t know. The PS5 version ran perfectly fine, but I could not click with the characters, the story, or the gameplay. I wanted to like it, but I just didn’t. I can respect what they set out to accomplish, though. Maybe I’ll give it a spin again at some future day. Same for Witcher 3. I need to give it a second chance.

@Th3solution Or maybe you just didn't like the game. It happens. There have been plenty of video games, movies, TV shows etc that others have enjoyed but I didn't for whatever reasons. Sometimes it is ok to accept that and move on.

@JohnnyShoulder True. I have a feeling Cyberpunk will never click. Witcher 3 might though. It checks all the boxes for a game I should get along with.

@Th3solution Honestly I bought it while it was on sale a while ago but had no real intentions of jumping into at any point. The Netflix series Edgerunners was what got me to give it a try and I'm glad I did, the games just alot of fun to play, the story isn't the strongest in my opinion, its good but not the greatest. But it was the freedom of being able to go where you wanted and play all the different side quests and gigs and build you character how ever you wanted that really hooked me in.

I hope you have better look in terms of enjoyment with The Withcer 3 Sol.

@MaulTsir Thanks, buddy. I’ve got the plenty of games to replace it with. And like you said, I quite liked the basic ideas on display of cybernetic upgrading and customization, open world exploration in a futuristic Sci-fi setting, and the overall polish on the game world. Some of the other narrative elements, like you say, were what made it hard to keep
committed to it. The first person POV was probably the kiss-of-death for me though. I can probably count on one hand the number of FPS style games that I really ended up enjoying. Let’s see… BioShock, Titanfall 2, Skyrim (not really a shooter though is it), DOOM, Borderlands 1/2… that’s about it, I think. I don’t mind the FP perspective for a walking sim type game that doesn’t have combat, so like What Remains if Edith Finch, Firewatch, or Dear Esther, etc. I think the FP viewpoint enhances the mystery of games like that. But my skills in combat with FP is just subpar. 😅 I don’t mind trying FPS games from time to time though. Occasionally I click with them. (Excited to try RE7&8 for example. And I’ve been curious to try Deathloop, although I didn’t like Dishonored either) Anyways, I’m rambling off topic now…
What do you have lined up next?

Edit: ooops… sorry, I see you answered that already. 😅. Knee deep in Ragnarok I see. Hopefully it lives up to expectations for you! I hope to get to it later this year