I started playing Cyberpunk on Thursday. From then I avoided all social media because I wanted zero spoilers. I didn't want to see anything about the story line, the weapons, the missions, nothing.
I think Im about 75% done here, its been 55hrs of solid main story line playthrough and Im extremely satisfied with the experience.
The world they built in Cyberpunk is impressive. Every single corner of every single building looks lived in, aged and used. This and the well written, arching storyline and side missions are the crowing achievement of this game.
My absolute favorite random moment so far was when I speeding along a raised section of highway on my motorcycle. I failed to negotiate the exit, slammed into a car, overcorrected and slammed into a second car, then got launched over the barrier and ended up flying through the air, falling hundreds of feet and crashing into some random filthy water collection area between two nondescript intersecting ground level roads. I was submerged and noticed the outline of another vehicle. I swam towards it, there was a skeleton and an item to loot. The item was some high level fancy armored sports jacket, and a note. The note said something along the lines of being late and driving fast! It was so random, but so incredibly well placed, I have no idea how this all ended up happening as it did.
I think the last time I pulled an all nighter in a single player game was Skyrim. I had to pull myself away from completing a side mission at 5am on Sunday because I simply lost track of time and had no idea I had played all through the night!
The big problem I had with the open world is that my brain is comparing it to GTA V. After 7 years in GTA there are certain things you simply expect to happen. NPC's are not on the same level as what Rockstar did. The high bar for what GTA's open world NPCs should be doing has not been reached on this attempt. The NPC cars, the police, the pedestrians, everything which we have all just assumed would be next generation from GTA did simply not happen.
I did hit a few bugs, none of them game breaking:
- An NPC was t-posing outside a night club
- A cigarette was floating in a cutscene
- Leaves on a single tree where glitched making them stretch across the screen.
- During a boss battle, my health bar disappeared
- An article of clothing did not show up in a preview when equipped
I can see that CDPR gave it a good shot, I think they will improve and reiterate on their NPCs in the coming months/years, but the big issue they had is probably making this all work on last gen console, which is where this all goes wrong.
Last night I lifted my self imposed embargo and visited the Cyberpunk subreddit. What awaited me there was surprising.
In short, this should have been PC release ONLY! Had CDPR done that, I don't think there would be anything close to the current drama.
If you asked me to rate the game based off my quarantined experience, I give it a solid 8.5/10. If this game had GTA V's NPC's. It would be a solid 9/10 for me. I can overlook some bugs and glitches, making a modern games is tough and every problem I encountered could easily be fixed in the coming weeks with a patch or two. It seems there was a lot of gameplay and mechanics that was promised, but not delivered. As a backer of Star Citizen, we understand very well why some things are removed. Either they ran into some bug which would take too long to fix, or it was deemed non-essential to the game play, for example, calling a cab to drive you to a destination. This was obviously a design choice, there are fast travel points, and the city is massive!
I do not think Rockstar would dare make a GTA VI and release it to last gen consoles, but this is what CDRP did here.
My PC loses some frames when driving fast in the city, or moving the camera around too rapidly. Its understandable, this is a graphic heavy game, I can't imagine how the hell this is supposed to run on last gen consoles.
My fears where confirmed when reading the subreddit, absolute chaos!
At first I was confused. I was actually expecting to see praise and celebration!
Then after reading the comments, its clear that console owners are the ones having a tough time here.
This is a modern open world RPG that for some reason was released on aging consoles!
I don't blame the outrage, I can't imagine being this hyped for a game, only to have it completely suck on my PS4.
All this bullshit and crying on Cyberpunk's Reddit makes me appreciate Star Citizen more. From day one, CIG said that this is a PC game, no compromises.
Ill give a full report on the game once Ive completed it, but that make take a while because the side missions are stacking up and it feels like there is more content in the side missions than the actual main story line!
Back to Night City for now!
