Cyberpunk 2077 [PC, PS4, XBone] - out September 17 2020

[Animalmother]

Played it for several hours today and yeah it's great. There's still a few glitches here and there but nothing too immersion breaking. I'm still finding the combat a bit sloppy, I can't put my finger on exactly what it is that's off. But will definitely be playing this from now on.

Spoiler

Finally meet Mr Silverhand and heading out into the world again

The driving controls seem to have been taken straight from GTA 4

[Snowy]

I never finished it, in fact I doubt I completed more than about 20-30% before I got bored. I remember when it was announced, I was not overly excited by it at all, never really been a sci-fi fan and while I don't dislike either of the Blade Runner films I would not go out of my way to watch them again. I did deliberately avoid any content reveals pre-release, trying to maximise the immersion when I finally got to play, but it still didn't grab me.

It wasn't the setting so much though as the game, it just wasn't very interesting. I know a lot of games, most RPGs probably, are a "go here, kill stuff, hand in, rinse and repeat" cycle and usually I don't mind that but Cyberpunk just felt so bland and faceless.

I will go back and try it again at some point, maybe soon as I played the full-jank release edition and haven't looked in since any of the big patches landed. I would certainly like to enjoy it!

The driving controls seem to have been taken straight from GTA 4

I loved the driving in GTA 4 and 5, the added heft to the cars made them great fun to handle, but I know that opinion is divided on that!

[Paul]

I finished my second playthrough a couple of nights back. As mentioned prior, during my first playthrough I somehow managed to get the absolute worst ending. This time around I got an ending which, whilst still kinda tragic, seemed like a much more positive note to end on. I played as a Netrunner type, with lots of sneaking and non-lethal takedowns.

I'm now on my third playthrough, this time opting for a more 'tanky' build, albeit on the hardest difficulty - so there's still cause for being somewhat cautious.

You know what? In spite of its many flaws, and even though it absolutely leaves a lot to be desired regarding living up to its potential, I'm having a lot of fun with Cyberpunk. I can only hope that they do continue to patch / add content, so that we may one day get something closer to what was promised... but even so, I'm having a riot.

[EDIT] Also: much like the Mass Effect series, I do much prefer playing through this as the female lead due to (in my humble opinion) way better voice acting. I dunno - the male V seems to sound a bit more awkward and forced, whereas female V is more natural / effortless, somehow. Plus, boobs.

[Hatredsheart]

https://www.cyberpunk.net/en/newsletter ... ign=t-2077

£375

Wonder how many bugs it has.

[Snowy]

That is bloody hideous.

The same money will get you a pre-owned Tag Hauer.

That aside, I must go back and have another look at Cyberpunk. I slid off it more than bounced off it when I picked it up, it ran fine it just failed to grab me. See if a few patches and some time out makes it more compelling second time round.

[Raid]

I really ought to go and play it too. I had to put it down just after launch because I was having PC issues at the time, and when I got the PC fixed I decided to leave it for a while until the issues got fixed... and then I forgot about it.

I don't think the watch is hideous - silly perhaps, but can you imagine having to explain to people why you're wearing a massive, £375 digital watch?

[Sly Boots]

That is bloody hideous.

The same money will get you a pre-owned Tag Hauer.

That aside, I must go back and have another look at Cyberpunk. I slid off it more than bounced off it when I picked it up, it ran fine it just failed to grab me. See if a few patches and some time out makes it more compelling second time round.

Definitely play it, however I'm going to wait to do my replay until they release the next big patch in the New Year, maybe even some free DLC by then too.

[Sly Boots]

Timely article:

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/a-year-later ... ly-access/

[Wrathbone]

Interesting article as I think his grievances with it (bugs aside) are mostly about expectations vs reality. He lists various specific things he'd been anticipating before release that didn't pan out, and they're all things I wasn't aware had been hyped as significant features. I intentionally only skimmed the surface of previews so as not to spoil anything, so I went in as a blank slate and as a result I had a great time. In fact I've played it all the way through twice now with two very different character builds and the second run was as good as the first.

It's not perfect by any means, and there are some core features like car driving that are inexplicably awful (bike riding is great), but I think going into a game without expectations for particular features does help. Would I have been annoyed if I'd thought I'd be able to change my nail polish colour after character creation and discovered I couldn't? Seems unlikely, but maybe there would have been other broken promise dealbreakers if I'd followed previews very closely.

[Sly Boots]

Yeah, I had a good time with it, though I do feel not being able to alter your appearance after character creation is an inexplicable absence.

But I think if people are thinking about playing it now for the first time, it'll be worth waiting a couple of months for the next big patch to try to get the best (at this time) experience. Similarly for a replay, I'd like to see an appreciable difference.

[DjchunKfunK]

I figured as I progressed through the game and fell deeper and deeper into the violent underworld of Night City, I'd alter my appearance. My hairstyle would get shaggier and wilder. I'd slowly add tattoos and more severe cyberware to my face and body. My character's looks would reflect his life. You know. Roleplaying.

That was the plan. But it became clear almost immediately I wouldn't be able to do anything like that.

I have no idea why he thought that.

Cyberpunk 2077 was, and still is, an Early Access game. It just didn't say that on the box. It should have. It would have tempered expectations and no one would have felt cheated.

As if that wouldn't have lead to a whole load of articles criticising CDProjekt for doing that.

I think after the debacle of No Mans Sky if you are still going into a game believing all the hype then to a degree it's on you when the game doesn't live up to what you had built up in your head. It's especially galling when publications like PCGamer did a lot of the hyping for CDProjekt so basically this article is complaining about something that they helped create.

[Sly Boots]

I figured as I progressed through the game and fell deeper and deeper into the violent underworld of Night City, I'd alter my appearance. My hairstyle would get shaggier and wilder. I'd slowly add tattoos and more severe cyberware to my face and body. My character's looks would reflect his life. You know. Roleplaying.

That was the plan. But it became clear almost immediately I wouldn't be able to do anything like that.

I have no idea why he thought that.

I think being able to change your appearance was a reasonable expectation for a triple-A RPG, especially from a studio who'd already done that with their previous big release.

I really hope it gets introduced, not least because as with Mass Effect there seems to be a huge discrepancy between the character you lovingly spend an hour crafting in the creator and the mutated goon that greets you the first time you look in a mirror in-game

[DjchunKfunK]

I figured as I progressed through the game and fell deeper and deeper into the violent underworld of Night City, I'd alter my appearance. My hairstyle would get shaggier and wilder. I'd slowly add tattoos and more severe cyberware to my face and body. My character's looks would reflect his life. You know. Roleplaying.

That was the plan. But it became clear almost immediately I wouldn't be able to do anything like that.

I have no idea why he thought that.

I think being able to change your appearance was a reasonable expectation for a triple-A RPG, especially from a studio who'd already done that with their previous big release.

I really hope it gets introduced, not least because as with Mass Effect there seems to be a huge discrepancy between the character you lovingly spend an hour crafting in the creator and the mutated goon that greets you the first time you look in a mirror in-game

Did they promise you could do it? Or is this just something people transposed onto the game? I don't think changing your appearance after character creation is ever something I care about in a first person game, I can't see my character so why does it really matter?

[Sly Boots]

You spend a lot of time looking at yourself in the inventory screen and menus, and I think there's a third-person mode (it's been a year so I can't remember). Whether it was promised or not (no idea, didn't read previews), even just changing hairstyles should be fairly standard for a game like this in this day and age.

And just because it's something you don't care about doesn't mean the same applies to others. Like I said, I spent several hundred hours looking at a character I didn't particularly like because there's a huge disparity between how something looks in the creator and how it looks in-game. Should I be forced to play through the intro time and time again in the hope of finding a character model that translates decently well from the creator into the game?

[Raid]

I can't see my character so why does it really matter?

It's an RPG, and you *know* it's there. Making your character look cool is a not insignificant part of the role-playing experience for me. Character design in general is a huge draw in a lot of visual fiction.

If it's not important to you then fair enough, but I think something as simple as changing your character's hairstyle in such a long game is pretty much expected these days.