My friend gave me his PS4 copy of Cyberpunk. Here's what I think of the game.
I never really considered what was in this game? I thought it was more of an action RPG than anything. Turns out it's also a looter shooter? Also literally just GTA? While this gameplay takes a lot of ambitious ideas with building your character's stats and having options as to how you approach the game, there's a certain blandness to how they went about this game's design. That being said, I kinda loved this game's design? Lmao. Let me attempt to explain.
After not seeing much of any gameplay of this game and playing it on PS5 two years after the game's launch, I will say, going in mostly blind, the game could be quite stunning at times. When you see night city from a certain height, the artstyle kind of clicks. This game isn't breathtaking, but I started to really feel a part of the world that was made to explore, and I started to immerse myself in all of it.
Before I get into what I loved, Let's get this out of the way. If you don't like the looks of this game, you're gonna hate it lmao. Aspects of it's design are weirdly overstuffed. You'll find yourself ignoring phone calls and missions like crazy. You have the option to go eat food, but also why the fuck would you do that. Yet, the actual meat of the game is talking to characters, making decisions, and then pretty basic gunplay with some hacking shit to keep things interesting. So much detail they put in this that I can't help but wonder if it was even necessary. The detail isn't entirely worth praising because this game STILL ISN'T FUCKING FINISHED. Glitches galore! My car kept clipping into NPCs and going fucking bananas! Cutscenes were occasionally broken and wouldn't play out properly. Not to mention crashing... please fix the crashing CDPR. But the biggest sin of all in this game... was entirely intentional. The fist fighting. Good... LORD. WHO THOUGHT THAT SHIT WAS FUN? The last part of the side job "Beat on the Brat" was utterly atrocious. The person you're fighting, Rhino, just magnetizes to you and kills you in ONE HIT. And it's pointless to dodge! They hit you anyway! (You can literally dodge 5 times consecutively) And when they block, they become unhittable? Who thought that shit was finished? Not to mention it just feels sloppy. You'll find yourself spamming punch because your opponent is stunned and then you will question what you're doing with your life as you keep hitting the trigger. In my opinion? The worst part about this game.
Okay, now I'm done complaining. Cuz yeah I do have complaints, but in all honesty, this was the most fun I've had with an open world in a while.
No, this game isn't as good as Zelda or God of War (I'm not crazy), But this gameplay loop kept bringing me back because I had so much fun being a goofy lil goofball in this universe.
I love borderlands, so the looter shooter aspect really made me love the game more. When I found stronger guns, I absolutely went to town on enemies. You'll go to low level zones and start blasting while doing an evil laugh while doing said blasting. But then the higher level challenges come around and you start to strategize. Using quickhacks weirdly becomes a lot of fun cuz you can make the NPCs do exactly what you need them to do (with enough upgrades). Including making a guy kill himself (My personal favorite). The gunplay isn't top-tier shit, but it's not shallow enough to be considered unfun. Especially when you have upgrades like double jumping. Boy, does the gunplay get silly. And getting better guns is just a great time. Also, katanas and mantis blades? Stupid, but hella fun.
But that's just the combat, what about the story?
Well, underneath the boring exposition dialogue and cutscenes explaining computer sci-fi words, you get an actually decent story about succumbing to living in a shithole posed as a paradise. A concept that's explored really well in my opinion. But what sells it most of all are the performances. The mo-cap is solid but wow, some characters are genuinely really cool to talk to and interact with. Panam, Jackie, Delamain, Judy, Goro, Misty, and of course, Johnny Fucking Silverhand. Characters I grew to love. They were all interesting and had something to lose to some extent (Delamain kinda, his mission was my favorite, that's all I'm trying to say), along with everyone coming from different parts of town. Characters having something to lost feels so thematically right for this story because if you DON'T have something to lose? There's no point living in night city lmao. The dialogue can be a hit or miss, but the character writing? Performances? Animation? Honestly got so invested I didn't even realize the game was over.
It's hard to explain this game's quality. It's poorly made, but there's also so much convenient design choices. It's boring but exciting? All I know is that I was hooked and had a looooot of fun with this game. And I WILL keep playing the post game. I used to play a lot of GTAV, it's almost like this brings back memories in a way, lol.
This game could be better, but I what we got is still a worthwhile experience, if not deeply flawed to the point where it fundamentally won't work with certain players. And besides, I DIDN'T PAY FOR THIS LMAOOO MY FRIEND GAVE IT TO ME!!
If you bought this at launch that's an L for you. Good night!
I never really considered what was in this game? I thought it was more of an action RPG than anything. Turns out it's also a looter shooter? Also literally just GTA? While this gameplay takes a lot of ambitious ideas with building your character's stats and having options as to how you approach the game, there's a certain blandness to how they went about this game's design. That being said, I kinda loved this game's design? Lmao. Let me attempt to explain.
After not seeing much of any gameplay of this game and playing it on PS5 two years after the game's launch, I will say, going in mostly blind, the game could be quite stunning at times. When you see night city from a certain height, the artstyle kind of clicks. This game isn't breathtaking, but I started to really feel a part of the world that was made to explore, and I started to immerse myself in all of it.
Before I get into what I loved, Let's get this out of the way. If you don't like the looks of this game, you're gonna hate it lmao. Aspects of it's design are weirdly overstuffed. You'll find yourself ignoring phone calls and missions like crazy. You have the option to go eat food, but also why the fuck would you do that. Yet, the actual meat of the game is talking to characters, making decisions, and then pretty basic gunplay with some hacking shit to keep things interesting. So much detail they put in this that I can't help but wonder if it was even necessary. The detail isn't entirely worth praising because this game STILL ISN'T FUCKING FINISHED. Glitches galore! My car kept clipping into NPCs and going fucking bananas! Cutscenes were occasionally broken and wouldn't play out properly. Not to mention crashing... please fix the crashing CDPR. But the biggest sin of all in this game... was entirely intentional. The fist fighting. Good... LORD. WHO THOUGHT THAT SHIT WAS FUN? The last part of the side job "Beat on the Brat" was utterly atrocious. The person you're fighting, Rhino, just magnetizes to you and kills you in ONE HIT. And it's pointless to dodge! They hit you anyway! (You can literally dodge 5 times consecutively) And when they block, they become unhittable? Who thought that shit was finished? Not to mention it just feels sloppy. You'll find yourself spamming punch because your opponent is stunned and then you will question what you're doing with your life as you keep hitting the trigger. In my opinion? The worst part about this game.
Okay, now I'm done complaining. Cuz yeah I do have complaints, but in all honesty, this was the most fun I've had with an open world in a while.
No, this game isn't as good as Zelda or God of War (I'm not crazy), But this gameplay loop kept bringing me back because I had so much fun being a goofy lil goofball in this universe.
I love borderlands, so the looter shooter aspect really made me love the game more. When I found stronger guns, I absolutely went to town on enemies. You'll go to low level zones and start blasting while doing an evil laugh while doing said blasting. But then the higher level challenges come around and you start to strategize. Using quickhacks weirdly becomes a lot of fun cuz you can make the NPCs do exactly what you need them to do (with enough upgrades). Including making a guy kill himself (My personal favorite). The gunplay isn't top-tier shit, but it's not shallow enough to be considered unfun. Especially when you have upgrades like double jumping. Boy, does the gunplay get silly. And getting better guns is just a great time. Also, katanas and mantis blades? Stupid, but hella fun.
But that's just the combat, what about the story?
Well, underneath the boring exposition dialogue and cutscenes explaining computer sci-fi words, you get an actually decent story about succumbing to living in a shithole posed as a paradise. A concept that's explored really well in my opinion. But what sells it most of all are the performances. The mo-cap is solid but wow, some characters are genuinely really cool to talk to and interact with. Panam, Jackie, Delamain, Judy, Goro, Misty, and of course, Johnny Fucking Silverhand. Characters I grew to love. They were all interesting and had something to lose to some extent (Delamain kinda, his mission was my favorite, that's all I'm trying to say), along with everyone coming from different parts of town. Characters having something to lost feels so thematically right for this story because if you DON'T have something to lose? There's no point living in night city lmao. The dialogue can be a hit or miss, but the character writing? Performances? Animation? Honestly got so invested I didn't even realize the game was over.
It's hard to explain this game's quality. It's poorly made, but there's also so much convenient design choices. It's boring but exciting? All I know is that I was hooked and had a looooot of fun with this game. And I WILL keep playing the post game. I used to play a lot of GTAV, it's almost like this brings back memories in a way, lol.
This game could be better, but I what we got is still a worthwhile experience, if not deeply flawed to the point where it fundamentally won't work with certain players. And besides, I DIDN'T PAY FOR THIS LMAOOO MY FRIEND GAVE IT TO ME!!
If you bought this at launch that's an L for you. Good night!