Gaming Cyberpunk 2077

Finished. Took 67 hours.

It’s late and I’m tired so I’ll post an actual review tomorrow or some time, but I’m happy. It turns out that I picked the “best” possible ending, so now I’m very relieved.

Spoiler: My ending

I chose to call Panam and the Aldecaldos for help, which resulted in us storming Arasaka tower through a bunch of epic action sequences. A few good folks died though, including Saul.

My final decision was to go back to my own body with 6 months to live and leave Johnny, who I ended up having a strong relationship with. He wanted this as well.

Panam sounded like she had a plan to try and fix my head, so it was definitely the most hopeful ending. And then we more or less rode off into the sunset together. Lovely.

Their previous game, The Witcher 3, was flawless. A perfect 10/10, which I only consider 5 games to be. Cyberpunk didn’t quite match the same level as this, as it definitely had improvements that could’ve been made. Some big, some small. But I’m giving it an easy 9/10.

 

I agree about that ending being the best.

Spoiler

I took what I thought was the more 'cyberpunk' ending - going out with a bang. I teamed up with Rogue, and she arranged some major resources to breach the tower. Adam ends up killing her, but you win. Then, I chose to stay. You become the Legend of Night City - you own Afterlife, and as you near death you go to do a one-man job to do the impossible, that will make you talked about forever - hitting the heavily fortified space station the Crystal Fortress (the game ends as you approach the station).
Judy leaves you, though. My understanding is she goes with you if you leave with the Nomads. Definitely the happier ending.

 

I need to commit myself to not scrolling the news tonight and just keep gaming. I think I'm close to the end game, seem to have finished the three main story lines after getting the Relic, but gotta wrap up all the other quests.

 

Done loads of little side missions, the questions marks and thefts. Some I'm being sneaky and others are just guns ablazing (mostly the latter) and I'm enjoying the game more and more. I'm not aiming to push too far on as I want the Jan patch to come in and hopefully tighten it up more but yes, there is a very good game in here.

Just met Takemura in the cafe and the story has now branched out so that opens the game somewhat further which is good.

The game 100% should not have been released as it was and the condition its in now isn't the best but it's a vast improvement on day 1. CDPR should have bitten the bullet and released it in March with these next two patches in place.

don't know what it's like on base PS4/XBox though

 

Spoiler below for a certain character I had no idea you could save. The game doesn't give you any hints at all, so now I'm wondering what other opportunities I missed.

Spoiler

Takemura... I had no idea you could save him. You can actually take a hidden route through the building and go upstairs, and only then will it give you the optional objective to save him. I'm annoyed because he was one of my favourite characters. Oh well, next time I guess.

 

Oh by the way CDPR stock has officially fallen to its lowest point. Even lower than its IPO.

 

Spoiler

Yeah, I refused to check spoilers until I finished my first run-through. I'm still mad I missed Jackie's funeral - I didn't want his mom to possibly have Arasaka goons come after her, so I had his body sent to Viktor's... and didn't get the mission. Found out about Takemura as well, I just took Johnny's word that he couldn't be saved.

 

Spoiler

You missed Jackie's funeral?! Oh man, that was a really nice mission. I'm surprised a funeral doesn't happen if you send his body to Viktor.

 

If you choose to send it to Viktor's:

Spoiler

Viktor calls you to tell you that Arasaka goons showed up and took Jackie's body. Mama Welles still gives you his bike, but she just drops it off - you don't interact with her other than a phone call.

Oh, and if you haven't done so - make sure to give Jackie a call after Act 2 begins.

 

Spoiler

That one I was so glad I had a save just before the parade so I didn't have to go waaaaay back to save him for the last trophy I had to get. Had no idea you could save him, felt like that section was purely "get out of the building."

 

I just started it, as soon as I finished Valhalla, and I'm already addicted. It looks amazing. I'm not very far, but I'm loving it so far.

 

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to just stop and gawk as much as I have, and I’m not even in a particularly interesting area yet, just bumming around doing side jobs and police contracts by the apartment. That, and I want to just sit down with a radio and jam to the game’s insane soundtrack.

 

CD Projekt Red always does such an amazing job at creating insanely detailed open worlds that you can get lost in for hours. Even after 70 hours I was still stopping in place and panning the camera around to admire the beauty of it all.

 

What are you playing it on, PC?

 

I am. No issues so far.

 

Thanks, still wary of booting it up on PS5

 

You have it on PS5?? Go for it! It’s at the point where you’ll see just as many bugs as any other large open world game. When I played last night I didn’t encounter a single thing wrong.

 

Thanks, that helps but think I'll let the big patches hit because there's other stuff I need to get back to first.

 

I won’t play until it’s back up on the PS4 store

 

Acquire the Armadillo Crafting Mod in Watson and basically make whatever clothing you like into Super Armor.

The Polish Better Business Bureau has apparently stepped in and basically said they'll take 10% of their annual income if they don't fix the game enough to be playable.

Which is understandable since CDPR is like the biggest company in Poland and keeping their economy afloat.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...etition-watchdog-investigating-cyberpunk-2077

 

I shall keep an eye out for the crafting mod when I play later tonight

 

Hopefully this isn't too cringey, I made some Judy-romance photos. I thought the story line was well done, definitely a step above Bioware stuff. A consistent standard I've seen throughout the game is that while characters often have cheesy writing, the characterization is still very good. They live in detailed environments that reflect their personalities, and the animations are all fantastic. In spite of all the wacky retro-scifi, they usually feel like real characters being played by real actors.

Spoiler: don't worry, no nudity

Some Badlands photos as well:

Spoiler

 

Fifteen hours in, and I ran into my first bug: I was watching some thugs, trying to figure out how to take them out, and one gentleman stepped onto a box and both he and the box immediately ascended until he levitated onto the roof. It was hilarious more than anything. If that’s the worst the game has to offer so far, I’m doing okay.

 

I'm playing on the supposedly worst platform, base xbox one. There are a ton of bugs, they don't make the game unplayable, and the typical open-world bugs - bizarre npc behavior, weird collisions, etc. - are mostly just funny. Sometimes they take you out of your suspension of disbelief and you have to get your mood back, but it's usually not a problem.

But there are also bugs that are a problem. The main one is that camera switches can be really janky, and between vehicles, scanning and camera hacking, it comes up a lot. A frequent problem is that when you exit a car or get off a bike, your hair will clip through the camera as you walk, killing your vision. It can be fixed by getting back in the vehicle, then exiting and remaining still for about 10 seconds, but it's annoying. There's another bug where the camera will sometimes zoom after switching to third person, and only loading a save will fix it.

Another system that is pretty buggy is the system for enemy alertness. Sometimes incoming "location revealed" hacks will get notified, but after they load nothing happens. Also, the system's interaction with the musical score often breaks down. There is supposed to be a seamless progression from tense beats to let you know your're in a dangerous zone, to growing tension when enemies know you're out there, to full base drops when bullets start flying. But sometimes the music doesn't start at all, frequently if you begin an engagement stealthily from outside the "danger zone".

Fall damage is also janky, the cover system can be janky, vehicle ai is face-palmingly awful. But the game is still great imo.

 

Public apology from Marcin Iwinsky, affirms that all of cyberpunk's development troubles were the fault of management, not the development team. Seems to say that many of the launch day bugs were not detected during final QA, which I believe, but speaks to a breakdown on their side, I'm thinking of the floating guns bug in particular. Not a whole of new info, but says the release problems have delayed rollout of their free DLC, paid expansions and next gen upgrades. I got the impression in the lead up to release that this was a game they planned to expand and improve for many years, like GTA5. They had said multiplayer was in the plan, which would require tons of work on its own. I hope they continue to work on this one, flawed as it is, to eventually make it the game they hoped it could be. I don't see anything on the horizon that's similarly ambitious besides Ubisoft's elusive Beyond Good and Evil 2.