Cyberpunk 2077

[glazball]

On 3/31/2021 at 9:52 AM, IntelliMission said:

This game will be remembered as a massive success despite of a couple of minor problems.

Uhh, what?  A couple of minor problems?  The game is still delisted on the PS Store afaik.  CDRP made a lot of money on C2077 (in an underhanded way), but I don't think you can call it a massive success by any stretch nor were the problems minor.

[Mikebloke]

There's been clearly issues with the development cycle, longstanding issues of the industry cropping up during that time too - maybe it was too big a project, maybe covid effected some of it. The hacks, PS store removal and general last gen stuff has not helped either. Bugs that took too long to fix is not great. But there's a lot of us who played on PC / latest gen with little to no problems. I'm not going to claim there weren't any bugs, but for me there was incredibly few and none that broke the game for me (occasional menu and back out such as when map or control scheme was messed up was probably one of the biggest things for me and I think one of the hotpatches fixed that up eventually).

 

I finished it a couple of days before the 1.2 patch, so I haven't actually experienced it post patch and I don't think a lot of things were changed but rather fixed, but the game was fine, awesome story, great voice and motion capturing. Unfortunately managing the last gen caused problems. I would be curious to know if Cyberpunk 2077 will act as a warning in mid-console generation cycles to just develop for the new one instead of trying to cater for everyone.

 

Unfortunately, it looks like there won't be much more going for it post 1.2 patch - and it may die as a franchise before its really begun but it was a bleeding great game to play.

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

I have this for the OG PS4..  I don't normally play these kinds of games, and I originally returned my physical copy, but then re-bought the physical copy when they had it on sale for half off..  I just want to get to the driving part of the game to try that out, it's really all i'm interested in.  Anyone know the easiest and quickest way to start driving?  Right now i'm forgetting who I picked as my character, if that makes a difference..?

[Agamon]

You get to drive pretty much right away as a Nomad.

[youxia]

Now that the hype/hate has died down it's funny looking back on the whole brohuaha, what a wild ride that was.

 

Finished it a couple of months ago. Overall my impressions are still rather positive, although with some  big caveats. First, gameplay wise, it's world is of course nowhere near any supposed next-gen "living/breathing" trope. I never expected it to be, since I knew pretty well that The Wicher 3 (an extremely traditional game) devs will play it safe and stick to the old template. But even so, it's still pretty disappointing regarding this angle. RDR2 at least pretended a little bit. Here everything is painfully static, the gangs  are rooted in their little zones, police (or even simple bad/good morality gauge) practically non existent, zero random, dynamic encounters. Very poor.

 

Secondly, while I knew I won't see any real emergence or true openness, I though they will at least develop the branching storylines and the so called choices & consequences (even though some abc-driven cutscenes are hardly that) the Witcher serires is famous for. Nope, nada. The token timer-replies and some background-dependant dialogue options are laughable and don't seem to change anything. So, these are my main criticisms. There are some other niggles, like only-serviceable driving or seemingly pointless crafting, but seeing as its a new huge IP that's somewhat forgiveable.

 

On the plus side: the main gameplay loop consisting of FPS shooting and completing missions is hugely entertaining. Tbh, if this was a 3rd-person game I'm not sure I'd bother. The AI behaviour ranges from flawed to brilliant, on average its okay and not a hindrance. There are some cool weapons which do make a difference, and also implants/upgrades (though these could also be better developed, a la Deus Ex or Watchdogs). Saving money for certain ones was a good incentive to carry on.

 

The second major selling point is the gfx. I'm not really a gamer who usually falls for shiny graphics (mostly a retro gamer and roguelike fiend) but this is the real next-gen part of C2077. I've played every other major recent title, including Valhalla, Metro & RDR2, and, pretty as they are, they don't even come close in this department. I'm lucky enough to have a powerful PC, so managed to play it in 1440p with ray tracing and +60 fps framerate, and it really is breathtaking. It's a kind of game where you just want to walk around and stare at some trashcans or stair railings, because even that looks amazing. It's not uniform of course, there are some weaker parts, but overall it's the new standard.

 

I did complain about the linearity of the storyline, but apart from that it's somewhat decent and has some exhilirating high points. I'd rate it much higher if not for Silverhand (hated'im) and some more groanworthy "wisdom". I played as male Nomad and this character wasn't annoying, which for me is counts as a big plus. The sidekicks were though (at least in action), but that's a plague of many other games too (especially R*).

 

If we were living in a world of realistic high scores I'd give this game 80/100. But, seeing as it's all skewed, and an AAA game rated under 90 is considered a failure, I'll give it 90/100.

 

It'll be interesting to see what happens next with this franchise. So far it's looking bleak, with CDPR struggling to release even patches on time. Later probably will just throw in some tiny lip-service free DLC, perhaps release a bigger expansion next year. I don't see any major changes to the game happening though (a la NMS), so could only hope for a sequel, but with the hysterically hateful reception it got, it might never happen. Wouldn't be surprised if they announced The Witcher 4 instead...

 

 

Edited April 11, 2021 by youxia

[Shawn]

2 hours ago, youxia said:

 

 

It'll be interesting to see what happens next with this franchise. 

 

 

 

Well they already canceled the multiplayer sequel so things are not looking good. 

[youxia]

That's actually a wise move. Adding MP to this game would be another huge headache they don't need atm. I'd much rather they concentrate on improving SP.

[Ninjabba]

Co-op would've been fantastic though. Who cares about glitches when you're wreaking havoc with a friend in that world

[glazball]

I finally started C2077 about a week ago on my original PS4 with patch 1.22.  I'm happy I waited so that major bugs/glitches were addressed.  Right now I'm about 10 hours in, mostly roaming the map doing side quests and such while (mostly) holding off on the main story.  I'm playing on a 1080p tv but it's an impressive game and the graphics still amaze me.  I find myself just stopping to look around at Night City.  Yes, there are some minor glitches here and there but (fingers crossed) nothing game-breaking yet.

[Mikebloke]

15 hours ago, glazball said:

I finally started C2077 about a week ago on my original PS4 with patch 1.22.  I'm happy I waited so that major bugs/glitches were addressed.  Right now I'm about 10 hours in, mostly roaming the map doing side quests and such while (mostly) holding off on the main story.  I'm playing on a 1080p tv but it's an impressive game and the graphics still amaze me.  I find myself just stopping to look around at Night City.  Yes, there are some minor glitches here and there but (fingers crossed) nothing game-breaking yet.

Yep, though I've not played it on a console yet (only just got one it plays on, haha!) the pile on was so unworthy. It's a shame it's been demoted to free updates now, dlc could have added a few more interesting plot points (and apparently that might still happen, but I doubt it at this point). 

[zzip]

4 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

the pile on was so unworthy

It usually is!   I've not played Cyberpunk, but I have played other games where there was a massive uproar at launch.   I've seen issues blown out of proportion, misinformation spread as fact by people who've never played the game.

 

Then it's followed by the "redemption arc" some months later where the developer has done some patching to fix issues, but not enough to substantially change the game,  people start playing it and discover that it isn't as bad as they heard.  But rather than consider they might have been wrong about the game in the first place, they start spreading stuff like "Wow the developers have really redeemed themselves!",  "It's like a whole different game",  "best comeback in gaming history"

[Reaperman]

I'll just leave my two favorites:

 

 

 

[Guest]

Time to jump back in to Cyberpunk 2077 folks!

 

 https://www.cyberpunk.net/en/news/41435/patch-1-5-next-generation-update-list-of-changes

 

 

 

 

[Mikebloke]

Me and the wife are wondering about another playthrough now with this update. I know there is supposed to be some extra 'secret' things but I'm assuming this is more collectables. I did a nomad game where I followed my real life moral compass first time, want to do a street thug Pro-Johnny and a corpo anti-johnny run at some point. Was a woman first last time so will probably man it up to get the Panam lines, she was just obvious to my advances the first time round! 

[youxia]

2 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

I did a nomad game where I followed my real life moral compass first time, want to do a street thug Pro-Johnny and a corpo anti-johnny run at some point.

I'm not sure this is really possible, since the extreme linearity was one of the real and justified complaints about this game. I did a Nomad first and could see even then that nothing I "choose" really matters nor changes anything. I was extremely "anti Johnny" but couldn't get rid of him - obviously - no matter how hard I tried and how obnoxious I was to him, despite the game teasing you with these illusory "choices".

 

Then tried briefly the corpo one later and it was painfully pretty much the same game, they just tacked a slightly different starting sequence on.

 

 

Edited February 20, 2022 by youxia

[Punisher5.0]

4 minutes ago, youxia said:

I'm not sure this is really possible, since the extreme linearity was one of the real and justified complaints about this game. I did a Nomad first and could see even then that nothing I "choose" really matters nor changes anything, then tried very briefly the corpo one later and it was painfully pretty much the same game, they just tacked a slightly different starting sequence on.

 

You are supposed to get different ending options depending on your interactions with Johnny throughout the game.

[youxia]

1 hour ago, Punisher5.0 said:

You are supposed to get different ending options depending on your interactions with Johnny throughout the game.

Maybe so, but to me spending 50-100 hours gameplay just to see a different cutscene at the end doesn't really qualify as anything meaningful or worthwhile. It is an antiquated and simplistic design crutch, not fitting for an allegedly next-gen game from 2020.

[Ninjabba]

On 2/20/2022 at 4:31 PM, youxia said:

Maybe so, but to me spending 50-100 hours gameplay just to see a different cutscene at the end doesn't really qualify as anything meaningful or worthwhile. It is an antiquated and simplistic design crutch, not fitting for an allegedly next-gen game from 2020.

Presenting a branching story of the likes of Detroit: Become Human into a huge open world game like Cyberpunk sounds near impossible to me. I don't think its worth it to invest into such an undertaking.

 

It's either having a branching story with little gameplay, or having more gameplay with little branching. Doing both sounds like an exponential cost in both time and money.

[youxia]

12 minutes ago, Ninjabba said:

It's either having a branching story with little gameplay, or having more gameplay with little branching. Doing both sounds like an exponential cost in both time and money.

Not really. If balanced cleverly, I have no doubt it'd be possible, perhaps the only thing that would suffer would be the storyline length (for a single playthrough), but that's fine by me. If you include enough meaningful gameplay - or better yet, gameplay dynamically affecting the storyline - it'd be long enough, besides "too long" is what these days people complain a lot in regard to open world games anyway.

 

There's no need to go for a full blown alternate storylines in any case. Just doing what they did in The Witcher would be enough, and the fact they did not is inexcusable. Especially seeing as choices in  The Witcher are a bit of smoke and mirrors anyway, but compared to Cyberpunk, which offers practically nothing in this department, they are a golden standard.