After the first trailer of the game was released, I, like many others, enthusiastically joined the extensive hype surrounding Cyberpunk, and for valid reasons. At that time, CD Projekt Red was at the height of its popularity and held in high regard by numerous gamers. I was already a devoted fan of The Witcher, having read the books and played the games. Following the third game, I considered them the epitome of video games. Now, a decade later, with more gaming experience, I can confidently assert that Cyberpunk stands out as the most mediocre triple-A game in recent years.

I'd like to begin by addressing the most significant issue I encountered during my playthrough: the protagonist. V is an unlikable character, and you can't exert much influence over their demeanor. The background you choose at the start is immediately obliterated within the first few hours, and suddenly, all Vs are Streetkids. Most of the time, you're presented with three dialogue choices that, 80% of the time, lead to the same outcome, essentially offering a choice between being even more of a jerk or less of one. V lacks personality aside from a chip with Johnny Silverhand in their head. This becomes especially apparent in scenes with interesting side characters like Johnny or Judy. Every time V is part of a conversation with them, it seems as if they're a third-grader on their first day of acting class. It doesn't help that the voice actor is not on the same level as the other characters. In particular, the male V's delivery feels off at times, lacking a sense of nuance or subtle notes. All his lines are delivered with a wrecking ball, rendering true roleplaying obsolete.

My second most significant gripe concerns the open world and how every interaction with it shatters immersion. Every NPC seems to be merely part of the backdrop, and attempting to interact with them often results in chaos. If you accidentally scratch their car, the NPC completely loses composure and starts ramming everything in its way, triggering a chain reaction of complete chaos. About 95% of the street food vendors are there merely to observe a mindless NPC endlessly repeating the same burger-flipping animation in a loop. I never felt like my character was truly integrated into the city. While many open-world games in recent years have faced similar issues, it has never been as noticeable as in Cyberpunk.

Setting aside all the negativity, I still had a moment where Cyberpunk could shine, and perhaps it serves as an example of thinking smaller rather than bigger. I had just completed a quest addressing the exploitation of sex workers, depicting how they are treated as machines rather than humans. It was a dark and well-written storyline that reached an even darker climax later in the game. After reflecting on the events with another side character, I decided to head home early in the morning. It was a rainy morning, acid rain, to be exact, with thick fog covering the sky. Opting for the train to return home, I tuned in to the jazz radio channel, and Chet Baker's "You Don't Know What Love Is" played as I gazed out of the train window at the neon-lit city i contemplated what I had just experienced.

In these moments, Cyberpunk is at its best. However, such instances are so rare that I can't help but drown my sorrows in another mindless NCPD dispatcher quest. These quests seem never-ending in a game full of bad design choices and poorly implemented roleplay elements.

Thanks to @Detectivefail's very in-depth and well-written review of this game, and my urge to try yet another CRPG, I jumped right into it. 175 hours later, I can confidently say this is one of the best in its genre.

Like many others, I was immediately overwhelmed by the myriad choices during character creation, especially since I had no prior knowledge of the Pathfinder systems and ruleset. During that time, having rewatched the late 90's Berserk anime, I opted for a character reminiscent of Griffith. In hindsight, this choice was fitting with the theme of governing my own kingdom. Since I typically play neutral good characters, trying out a lawful evil one offered a refreshing new perspective on RPGs for me.

The writing for your companions is consistently excellent. A standout example is Valerie, a somewhat snobbish ex-noble paladin devoted to an art-loving deity, which doesn't quite align with her general demeanor. She just wants to live life on her own terms. Throughout the game, she and my main character had fantastic chemistry and often took on leadership roles in our diverse group of deep and non-clichéd characters. Overall, the dialogue is so vivid and crisp that it pulls you right into this world, making you lose track of time and your surroundings. This is one of those games you just can't play for only two hours a day.

The overarching plot is fairly typical for a CRPG, with godlike beings plotting schemes and manipulating "lesser" beings for their own benefit. It starts surprisingly slow and down-to-earth, without immediately overwhelming you with lore. Instead, you're gradually and organically introduced to the larger schemes as you progress.

As someone who usually prefers turn-based combat, I appreciated the option to use a turn-based mode. However, after some time, I noticed that the game is clearly designed for real-time combat. It often felt tedious when facing large groups of enemies, and there are many encounters like that, especially in the endgame. I switched back to real-time with pause, and it turned out to be a much better experience than I had anticipated.

What I didn't expect was how often I was completely obliterated on the 4th of 6 difficulty settings. In comparison, Baldur's Gate 3 feels like a walk in the park. I had to learn a lot and adapt to its systems just to stand a slight chance in most battles. Especially the final dungeons of each chapter introduced new ways to experience the battle system, making them particularly engaging.

The kingdom management was also quite addictive and well-integrated into the game. It's one of the few games where I genuinely enjoyed building something up from scratch. The political and role-playing choices during the numerous events felt deep and engaging, although they often lacked real consequences.

I'm really glad that games like this still exist today. From an economic perspective, it's quite daring to develop a 120+ hourish complex beast of an RPG, knowing that only a small percentage of players will even start or complete it. According to Steam, only 9.8% did.

I considered giving this a 5 out of 5, but I want to leave room for improvement, especially since Wrath of the Righteous is supposed to be even better.

i can't take this anymore. i will NOT finish this garbage excuse of a game. it's a straight hallway with no interesting story, no interesting characters except for MAYBE lightning, and the worst gameplay the franchise has ever seen, i haven't had the need to stop using auto battle for 16 hours straight, it's just a waste of time. ''oh but the graphics are so good'' I DO NOT CARE!!!! I CAN PLAY GOOD GAMES THAT ALSO HAPPEN TO HAVE GOOD GRAPHICS!!! IF I WANTED TO SEE PEOPLE THAT LOOK REAL I WOULD GO OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

I was on the fence for a long time about Rimworld. There's other games in this formula, stuff like Dwarf Fortress and Prison Architect come to mind-I waited until a steam sale to pick this up and kind of wish I'd played it sooner.

Rimworld is a spectacular kind of Sim, the one where you sit and fiend and tell yourself "one more hour" and suddenly it's six AM and your eyes hurt. Trying to keep your pawns alive is a daunting task and the fact that they can have belligerent little personalities makes it both charming and frustrating in turns. (never accept a Pyromaniac pawn into your colony. Never. That way lies agony)

The skill trees, the leveling-up of your characters in your colony, the way you interact with outside travelers and hazards, all make for addictive gameplay. The music is fantastic, but I wish there was more of it. The ability to add mods ensures you have plenty to do and tweak, and the fact that you can set the obstacles into any challenge level you want can make for an extremely chill experience. Or not. That's up to you!

I only wish the game was a little prettier as far as the graphics style is concerned, with your people being little Weebles and everything else being just as simplistic.. It's look is probably not for everyone, but if you don't judge a game by its cover, you'll find yourself satisfied by a game that has you spinning more and more plates until the inevitable and hilarious catastrophes that will befall your colony.

Also you can make drugs and eat people.

After 80+ hours of Red Dead Redemption 2, a question pops up in one’s mind:
In the process of making a game that examines the fall of the American frontier and the decline of the Wild West, did the irony register at all with Rockstar that they were also making a game about the end of the triple A design structure that has plagued the medium ever since the birth of the 7th gen?

Regardless of what pre-established biases one might come into RDR2 about the value of graphical fidelity and closeness to real life and focus on cinematic design and film language in games, it’s impossible not to be impressed by Rockstar’s commitment to the simulation of realism. Your character will meticulously grab each item he loots and place it in his satchel, craft each new tonic or bullet one at a time with detailed animations, remove and place his weapons on his horse whenever you switch them up, shuffle dominoes and grab each piece one by one in every game, and skin every hunted animal with gruesome detail and carry them on his back to his horse every single time. NPCs all have their per-determined schedules that happen regardless of your presence or not, wild animals behave accordingly to their nature and even hunt other species, and every mundane action, be it taking a shower, mounting a camp, cleaning your guns, or brushing your horse, carry a level of detail and weight never before seen in a blockbuster game. It also boasts one of the most beautiful environments to walk around, filled with detail and big expansive nature landmarks, frequently creating moments of awe as you ride around the mountains and landscape.

This level of realism is further elevated in the gang’s camp, where you have a group of misfits you can deal with daily and who all have their respective quirks, goals and actions. Rarely will you hear the same line of dialogue from these characters in the course of 80 hours, and the impressive amount of scenes and conversations that occur not only between your character and them, but also between themselves, means that you will finish the game without experiencing half of the camp scenes that happen dynamically and without feeling like scripted events. When you find yourself around a campfire with your gang after a well succeeded mission, being able to join in the singing and festivities with them, suddenly all the effort in creating a realistic world comes together and for a few seconds the immersion is achieved and one feels like he is a part of a fully realized world and that these characters are tangible and real.

It’s unfortunate then that each time you get into a story mission, that effort is collapsed and you are thrown back into the videogame. What was once acceptable in RDR1 now feels incredibly dated and restrictive, with the usual design structure of having you ride to the mission on horseback and having a chat with an NPC while you follow a yellow line, following every single instruction the game tells you without any chance to deviate from it, waiting for something to inevitably go wrong, and then shooting a comical number of enemies that spawn out of nowhere like a NES game until everyone is dead. Rinse, and repeat. The level of realism found in the open world aspects of RDR2 only serves to call attention to how detached and out of touch the story missions are, leading to incredibly absurd scenes where the main character chastises a crew member for killing too many people during a story cutscene, when you the player yourself have been forced to kill 50 people during a house robbery just the previous mission.

What ends up happening is that most of the stuff you will be doing in the open world won’t matter at all because that would be stepping on the story’s toes. Regardless of how much money you have or how much you have contributed to the camp and NPCs, nothing will have effect on how the story will progress, with the exception of a very simplistic and outdated Honor system. This in turn inevitably leads to the open world map feeling like just a bunch of lines between check marks to fill, with the occasional scripted event to deviate you, but not much!, from the beaten path, and the rare exploration quest that happens when the game decides you should. Even the act of hunting an animal in the wilderness is affected by Rockstar’s grip on your hand, having a highlighted line on the ground that flashes and leads perfectly to your prey. The simulation aspects end up being surface level mechanics used to visually impress the player, not really influencing in any meaningful way either the gameplay or the story. It’s all shallow spectacle.

Which is a shame, because RDR2 has one of the most compelling videogame characters ever created. Arthur Morgan’s story takes a very contemplative and introspective direction in it’s final act, as he finds out he doesnt have much time left in this world, and it leads to some of the most interesting and emotional moments that Rockstar has ever created. Arthur’s effort in making something out of the few life he has left ends up influencing the player’s action outside of the story, and in one of the most poignant and humane moments in the whole game, you are forced to lay down your controller for a few secs, as Arthur requests a moment from you so he can catch his breath, something that makes the player care and empathize with a bunch of polygons much more than any cutting edge cutscene in the whole game could. Even the act of playing the last stretch of the game mimics Arthur’s new perspective, the missions feeling like a slog to go through, Dutch becoming increasingly frustrating, repetitive and annoying to be around, and the creativity being lesser and lesser, which would have been an interesting and insightful direction, had that actually been the intention by Rockstar. But RDR2 is adamant in separating the story from the gameplay, even bafflingly inserting black bars on top and bottom of the screen each time control is removed from the player, as if to signal that it’s now movie time and no time for interactivity. Regardless of all the issues with the story and gameplay, Arthur’s story is enough to carry the whole game on it’s back, and any player invested in his tale will have a hard time not getting emotional at the gut-wretching ending.

But then the game continues. For 5 more hours. And it’s at this point that the dam breaks and the flaws of the game become full center and aren’t easy to ignore anymore. The epilogue, which lacks any self awareness as it presents itself as a two parter, drags it’s way into a fan pandering ending, filled with needless shooting, redundant subplots, and characters that completely undermine the impact of the actual ending of the game. We can’t have a simple mission about just herding some sheeps, shopping with a friend, or fly a hot air ballon. No, every mission has to have a bloody battle with a body count that would make Stalin jealous, because Rockstar cannot bear the idea that some players might be bored if there isnt anything to shoot at. During an exchange between Morgan and an NPC the screen fades to black as they start talking about their lives, as if to spare the player from all those “boring details”, instead leading straight to the action once more. Rockstar can’t bear the thought of giving more opportunities for normal interactions between the player and the NPCs, while I sit here thinking about how one of my favorite missions was when I crossed the whole map to see a character I was fond of, only to get a kiss and that being the end of the mission.

RDR2 is a bloated game that can’t read a room on when’s it’s time to bow down and stop the show, deciding instead to outstay it’s welcome for an absurd amount of time, like an old frail man clawing at the last moments before his time to move on. And maybe it’s also time for Rockstar to move on, and let ideas of cinematic grandeur and realism in videogames finally lay rest once and for all.

There is something deeply ridiculous about Gamers™ complaining endlessly about games that are not action-orientated ("walking simulators" etc etc), whilst a game like this gets away with pushing all the most exciting and intense moments of action into cutscenes whilst the fighting you get to actually engage in is largely the repetitive, in between grunt-work. The game thinks having a bunch of quick-time events included will make up for this but being forced to constantly be alert for button symbols appearing on the screen rather than getting to enjoy the show is somehow even less immersive.

This kind of style-over-substance approach echoes throughout the whole game. The myriad climbing sequences feel oddly emblematic for this; nothing can actually go wrong in them meaning that despite the perilous context for them (clinging to the side of mountains and buildings by just your hands, leaping great distances from one to the next) there's never any reason to feel any actual tension or danger, it's just meant to look flashy and plays out closer to an interactive cutscene than actual gameplay. The single-shot gimmick is another great example, there's no narrative or thematic reason for it, it leads to the camera feeling needlessly claustrophobic a large amount of the time, but it looks impressive and that's apparently all that matters.

The combat is largely tedious. The occasional moments of excitement from the first few hours largely dissipated as the game made me fight the same collection of enemies, and the same troll and ogre mini-bosses, over and over right up until the end of the game. This overuse of the same enemy designs starts to feel even more grating considering the game's habit of cramming in additional fights wherever it possibly can, even when it doesn't make narrative or tonal sense, out of fear that if you go more than five minutes without attacking something you might get bored. The two modes for most of your fighting, beyond special attacks that leave you invulnerable or near-invulnerable for their duration thus draining tension from what's happening, are either keeping your distance and using projectiles whilst your son Atreus keeps the enemies distracted (which is both painfully slow at times, whilst also just feeling bizarre because Atreus is with seldom exceptions actually invulnerable to damage in combat), or getting in close and mindlessly button mashing until the enemies roll over and die (which is just boring). There are lots of fancy additional close-combat moves you can use but the game never really gives you the motivation to learn them, so it largely ends up being just this for the entire playthrough, as you fight the exact same enemies fifteen hours deep that you were fighting at the start of the game.

There are many ways to make the combat not get quite so tedious by the end, but the simplest one is to just have the game be more compact and streamlined, yet all throughout the game instead pushes to be larger, more expansive, with as many features as it can fit in. People like rpg systems, so why not cram in gear crafting and upgrading and all sorts of different enchantment systems? Never mind that it never makes the combat feel like it plays any differently, or that the best approach to these needless sprawling menus is to just use the things that have the biggest numbers. People like open world games, so why not do that too? But God of War's notion of exploration is mostly just wandering around the lake in a circle, ticking off locations one by one. The game also just features countless collectables, all kept track of in the map screen, as if you can't include anything within a game without it making some resultant number go up.

God of War had a surprising amount of narrative focus, and there's some genuinely cool moments. I enjoyed a bunch of the early-game content surrounding Freya, Baldur is compelling right until the game just forgets he exists for the vast majority of its story, and there's some potentially really interesting stuff in here about familial trauma, abuse and neglect that the game doesn't come close to having anything impactful or coherent to say about in the end. This is its whole own problem as hinting at Kratos's abuse and neglect towards his son (and never even confronting that in any sort of meaningful fashion) clashes pretty harshly with framing him as someone whose every punch should be thrilling to us, in the same way that his talk towards the end of the game of stopping the cycles of violence clashes with the fact that all game long the finishing moves zoom in on every gorey detail, trying its best to make the tearing of flesh and sinew seem salacious. Even the framing for the story is off here, and downright enraging; every single time you're sent to one corner of the world to see a character who can supposedly help you on your quest you can bet they'll be ready to retort that sure they can help you but first you need some obscure item from some other corner of the world. The story is never allowed to flow, always nestled between countless fetch quests, and sometimes fetch quests within fetch quests.

By the half-way point I was extremely ready for this game to be over, but I kept persevering due to some combination of sunk-cost fallacy, a curiosity to see where the story would head, and irritation that the game seems near universally acclaimed. God of War is certainly very pretty, but there's so little of worth here beyond that.