Well, here I am... having played a whopping 10 hours of the game I am here to report some of my findings.
First of all I think the rumors of an under-baked leveling system was slightly exaggerated, I would call this advancement system fluffy and and interesting. When I hopped into the game I was expecting it to be mildly like an RPG, and I was for the most part right.
The RPG however is very quickly lost in scripted events during the 1st Act. The game was definitely guiding my hand through the process of playing the main story, there were other side jobs to do but they really didn't interest me like the main story did, and the world while open and very beautiful did prove a bit difficult to navigate at times as a player. I felt like dialogue choices were really unimportant, outside of a few moments where my characters background as a Corpo came into play. Most of "Act 1" felt like an introduction sequence- where I was hoping I might get some more freedom- and this did happen when the rest of the map really opened up. All in all I've got a lot of exploring left to do.
The aesthetic is a combination of Blade Runner and GTA, with huge megabuildings that tower over you and some parts where the name "Night City" becomes clear as they are in perpetual darkness. I was really digging the atmosphere and the immersion and then a couple floating chopsticks danced in front of the character model I was talking to, cloned from the ones they were holding and eating lo mein with at a streetside food stand.
The immersion breaking bugs were entertaining at best, _Ask Bopsheezi about the breakdancing corpse on an elevator during a super serious conversation_ and at worst, they were downright annoying, my character would automatically crouch at certain points during a conversation and Jumping like a monkey man in front of the brothel boss, who I was trying to intimidate to fix this, felt a bit... silly. The good news was, my posturing; and likely my corpo background, convinced the hard-[i]a[/i]ss fellow to back down.
Now aside from the occasional immersion breaking bug, I noticed that the hacking systems are not always entirely reliable, I confused myself when I hacked an electronic lock on a bundle of scrap to spill it all over the floor only to have the NPC enemies not be distracted by the loud clanging metal hitting the ground, but that wasn't surprising as I didn't hear any noise either.
Another thing that caught me off guard was when I had inadvertantly started a conversation with an NPC, when I walked into a building, having forgotten something outside I quickly ran out to find a purveyor of snuff films and wound up greeting the nearby wall by name... disturbing...
One other technical thing that I noticed was the brightness went up a lot when driving in cars, simulating the blindness one receives when driving on the freeway without sunglass, while I am all for realism in games- cdpr- thisainitchief.
But all of these things are petty problems compared to a fascinating and engaging story line that drives the action forward, the characters (while also glitchy sometimes) are more than skin deep, and it's clear the writers were very passionate about the project. So much so that the dialogue pacing is almost unbearable at times, but still engaging; you want to know whats around each corner, and what's happening next.
Bugs can be fixed, and glitches removed, the gameplay of Cyberpunk2077 is definitely a learning curve, you use more than just guns and grenades and healthpacks, by upgrading your cyberdeck you gain access to more combat RAM allowing you to hack the implants of multiple enemies at once, and pay them back for Overheating your goddamn skin like a litt frazza braza... ahem... The overheat from enemies is annoying.
You can short circuit someone's implants to do damage, you can take them out of combat stance by wiping their memory temporarily, and you acquire more of these programs, called "Daemons" that you do other things with.
All in all I was little disappointed by all the bugs but the game really isn't the mess they say it is children. The gameplay feels a bit clunky but that changes as you upgrade your character and cyberware.
That is all, let you know what I think more later
-
I’ve only played 3 hours, started as a street kid built like the blonde fellow from the Chad memes. For some reason I chose hard mode, but it really hasn’t been that bad yet so I’ll see how that goes... A few freezes, one crash and a few bugs are all the complaints I have. I am on an Xbox one S so I guess that’s not the worst it could be. Hacking is fun, but a bit... messy... I’m hoping I’ll get more used to it. All in all, I’m definitely going back for more