Cyberpunk is a game.
That's it. It is for sure a video game.
Besides that fact it very well may be one of the most unfortunate launches in video game history.
How does it hold up nearly TWO years later?
Let's find out!
Cyberpunk starts you off with some choices. Always pretty nice. I started this game when it came out and thought the character creator was pretty awesome. Especially for how little you actually see your character since there is no 3rd person mode. Weird.
Picking your lifestyle and gameplay style is up next and I took a NOMAD route. An outlier to the streets of Night City. I do things my way and my way only. Unless it is a really hard dialogue choice and I pick whatever is best.
All of this at launch was pretty fun and it still is. It crashed on me every 10 minutes or so back at launch and my clothes..kept...disappearing..but so far so good!
One thing that plagued this game back in 2020 were random (over 1,000) issues that most players had encountered. UI leaving, NPCs spawning in front of you or not at all, floating objects, invisible objects and literally anything you can think of when you say the word "wonky" happened in Cyberpunk.
CD Projekt Red has spent a ton of time correcting the majority of bugs and it seems to be going pretty well.
Overall, most paths I've taken have been smooth and without error and that makes for some great sense of immersion.
Night City is beautiful and the last time I played, I never had a chance to look at it as I was always sent back to my Playstation's main menu. This time, walking around and taking it all in has been a pleasure. Seeing all the different vendors, all the colors of the alleyways and neon signs really make Night City come to life. It looks and feels great on the Playstation 5 hardware.
Do The Pew Pews Pew Pew?
Gunplay is okay albeit a tad bit sluggish at times. But it is pretty fast and furious. Crafting weapons to find something you really like and upgrading it to be an overpowered tool of death is fantastic and I recommend experimenting with melee weapons as I really enjoyed my Katana that sliced heads off.
I did find myself sticking to maybe one or two weapons as it felt there was no need to swap them for anything for a lot of my time in the game. It's not really a bad thing but as a looter type genre, there was never really a "I want to find cooler guns" type moments for me,
The hacking system is a chore and I often skipped it unless I was being stealthy. Exploding a grenade in a guy's hands before he can use it is cool, but most of the time it was much quicker to melee or blast their faces with whatever I already had equipped.
Vehicles have awkward physics and I have launched myself off the highway with a motorcycle far too many times than I'd like to admit. The first few times was actually funny but after, I started to get annoyed with having to reroute.
Character choices did feel consequential and could be nerve-wracking (in a good way). For example: I had the choice to investigate a dirty cop and continue the mission of taking him down, or letting him roam free and potentially killing a character involved in the quest. Both are rewarded separately and give you the feeling that you are carving your own path.
You're Breathtaking. Or. Taking Too Many Breaths
The sound can be hit or miss as it didn't feel too atmospheric when nothing was happening but there was an adrenaline rush when we entered combat. Most of the time, I found myself skipping over Keanu's lines before he could finish talking because I found it sort of dialed in and boring. Not the story, the delivery.
Guns make gun noises, grenades explode. It's all pretty standard stuff and it is not bad at all. Some of the things NPCs shout at you can be funny at times but they're not along the lines of Borderlands or the likes.
Side Mission City
In Night City, there is a lot to do. A. Lot. A bunch of my time was spent hunting down specific targets to eliminate, doing side quests like infiltrating corporate buildings and stealing cash, or hijacking their security systems. Some of it is like any other side quest, mundane and useless but others reward you with vehicles, weapons and armor. It is for sure worth doing these.
There are races, underground pit fights and even missions to dive deeper into the psyche of certain characters. There is something for everyone!
Get To The Point
After spending nearly 40 hours back in Night City, I had a MUCH better experience than I did when I first played. I was hooked. Being able to actually achieve things like walking without the game crashing was an obvious plus. But being able to be immersed in the city, play through the story and even do a ton of side missions made me want to start and choose another character all over again.
If you haven't had the time to play Cyberpunk 2077 in the past or have been just worried about the issues, I would say now is a good time to pick it back up and give it a go. I recommend taking this one out of your backlog and into your rotation.
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