Cyberpunk 2077
So I put 80 hours into this. Not often I can say that about a game.
At first I was a little unsure about this game. The systems felt a little obscure or under-explained, and the gunplay felt a little off, but I quickly got a feel for its systems and how it plays.
And you know what? It doesn't do anything remarkable. It's pretty much a Deus Ex/GTA hybrid, and it does nothing new that either of those games hasn't already done, but my god it is an incredible facsimile of both in all the right ways. This is something I've dreamed of for so long, and to see CDPR, despite all the justified negativity, still pull this off is outstanding.
I wish this game didn't have transphobic imagery, and I wish developers didn't crunch to get this game over the line (and frankly, the console versions aren't even that far yet), but what was produced at the end is a ambitious-yet-safe triumph. It's ambitious in how its merged immersive sims with a GTA-style open world, and safe in in how each of those individual gameplay genres do literally nothing to push it forward in any meaningful way.
Maybe my expectations are lowered because most open world AAA games have fallen into the live service trap and are predominantly shite, and Cyberpunk winds the clock back to GTA IV - when always-online microtransaction live service shit was a vague and undefined fantasy in Yves Guillimot's dreams - but Cyberpunk is the first big budget open world game in a long time that was the complete package, and actually good.
Quests are fun, but mostly samey. They involve driving somewhere, getting out of your car and doing the immersive sim thing. I'd have quite liked to have seen a bit more variety, but not at the expense of working CDPR's staff to death. And what we have is still very engaging and replayable, and I never got bored of it at all.
The writing in the side quests are good, too, if a bit basic. I like that each one has its own story, and you can read about these people's lives on their computers before you go kill them or sneak past them, and then they become a figment on the wind and don't matter any further. That sort of things creates the sense of a living, breathing world.
I also like that side-quests feed into each other. There were a few moments in the game where a choice I made earlier on comes back to bite me on the ass, or work to my benefit, and that interweaving gives you agency even if the path you're on is mostly set in stone.
As for the main story, I've only unlocked one ending, and I'm happy with that. I'm not one of those people who rewinds back and unlocks all the other endings, at least not on the initial run, as my V's story is a one and done thing. And the story was nothing special - it's kind of by-the-numbers lower-case-c cyberpunk fare, and plenty of writers have moved beyond this stuff or done it in more interesting ways since. But it's fine.
And the acting is good - Cherami Leigh as V's female voice is a great performance (to the point that I didn't even realise it was Leigh doing the performance, and I've picked her voice out in a number of things since playing Persona 5), and Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand is obviously the other highlight. Their relationship is solid, and the performance of both actors helps with that. Other than the two stars (I haven't heard male V's voice so I've no idea if that performance is good or not), special props go to Emily Woo Zeller who voiced Panam - it's always great to hear a new voice and looking at her IMDB (no mega huge roles, especially not in games), this is hopefully the start of something good for her.
But now for some negatives.
I'll get the morally bad stuff out of the way first. The transphobia and crunch. I bought Cyberpunk in 2019 - pre-purchased on GOG with an old credit card that I cancelled before 2020 had even begun, and long before any reports of things in this game had come to light. When reading some reports about what was going on, I wanted to cancel my order, but there were a few issues preventing me. Firstly, I couldn't get my money back as the card was long dead, and secondly getting GOG credit is still giving CD Projeckt £50, only I'd be spending it on other games rather than Cyberpunk. I weighed it up and I couldn't see £50 worth of games I wanted on GOG vs playing Cyberpunk, so I kept my order.
That is a super flimsy excuse, and I acknowledge that. But my choices were limited. If I hadn't already pre-purchased I don't think I'd have bought it straight away, or if I'd bought it on Steam rather than GOG I'd have almost certainly got my money back in the form of wallet credit, but since I was stuck with the game I decided to play it. I can't justify the bad things that happened around the game, and I won't. It's inexcusable, and if you feel morally opposed to what CDPR has done I encourage you to not give them any money until they've somehow made it right. At the same time, I'm also not paying £50 for a game I won't play.
Then there's the fact that the game is clearly rushed. I never encountered any game-breaking bugs other than one BSOD that occurred when I started the game up once, but they are immersion breaking and a little annoying. Things like having to save and reload to make your car move, your character glitching in and out of your vehicle and the floor vanished under my feet once or twice were the minor ones. A few slightly more major ones were quests not progressing and character dialogue not loading (i.e. sometimes only hearing V's side of a conversation, or the other way around) Depending on how good your system is, the bugs will be worse, and compounded by poor performance to boot. And if you're planning to play on PS4/Xbox One - don't. Wait until you have a next-gen system, or at least one of the higher-end last gen systems (One X or Pro), before jumping in.
I wish there was just a bit more to the campaign. It feels a little barebones, needing to be padded out by side-stories. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I felt V's story moved at a little bit of a faster clip than I'd have liked. I think maybe one extra round of missions, maybe a few other side-characters leading to new romances and endings, might've put some flesh on the bones.
As I mentioned above, the game is wanting for some mission variety, too. I wish there were a few more quests that involved driving, or something a bit more high octane and a bit different (in the GTA flavour), which would've given the gameplay a bit more personality and created some memorable moments, which Cyberpunk 2077 is sorely lacking. It is to this game's credit that its gameplay-systems are so well-considered and implemented that you forget the game is lacking some real awesome setpieces until you think about it, but I think having them would've elevated the game to the next level.
Other than that, I don't have much more to say about it. I'll be playing Cyberpunk again once the bugs are ironed out a bit and there's some DLC to enjoy. I enjoyed my time in Night City, and I'm going to genuinely miss V and the characters she associated with. There's a lot of could-haves and should-haves with this game, but the end product is very well made and enjoyable, so other than the moral criticisms (which are very serious), take my negatives for what they are: quibbles.
9/10