Cyberpunk 2077 Review
Cyberpunk 2077 Review
Honest Impressions After 20 Hours of Cyberpunk 2077 (Review Part 1)
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen of the internet! My name is Ty with MojoPlays, and… *sigh* I can’t. I simply can’t act this cheerful when I’ve done something truly heinous. It was so stupid. I honestly don’t know what came over me to make me do such a thing. I made a bunch of people angry because I liked a game. Can you imagine how terrible that is? How could anyone say they enjoy a game? What else can I say except… I still enjoyed “Cyberpunk”! Even with all the bugs, glitches, and occasional crashes, “Cyberpunk 2077” has been an absolute joy ride for me, and it has gotten better as the updates rolled in. Well, in terms of stability, that is. Whether I was blazing down the streets of Night City or taking down vicious cyberpsychos, the game scratched a lot of itches that plagued me during the last month of 2020. My hacking abilities made combat hilarious in how I could command enemies to off themselves with a quick glance. Every one of the several dozen side missions gave me various ways to take a breather from the main campaign. And the story was fantastic with well-written characters, humor, and drama. Speaking of which, “Cyberpunk 2077” shows a clear understanding of the commentary creator Mike Pondsmith injects into the tabletop series. Pondsmith has stated before that “Cyberpunk” was made as a warning, and I found that echoing in my head throughout my playthrough. Night City is very much a world that indulges in advertising, sex, and drugs, and it gets in-your-face about it more often than one would like. Compared to our world, Night City is almost a spitting image. Not trying to make the game sound like a fortune-teller - just showing some appreciation for relaying the message. I’ve already stated much of what I like in the first video of my overall review (if you haven’t, go watch it after this!). One of the biggest, most blasphemous things I said was that “Cyberpunk” has better driving mechanics than “Grand Theft Auto”. After playing this game for more than seventy hours, I still stand by that notion. My problem with GTA’s driving mechanics (GTA V, specifically) was how it’s more focused on realism. The weight and physics may be solid, but control is where it slips up most. Making sudden turns can cause you to lose so much speed that it can get annoying. “Cyberpunk” prioritizes player convenience, granting quick acceleration for most vehicles. The way the brake mechanics are designed make it easier to powerslide and make sharp turns without losing much speed. “Cyberpunk” simply understands how big its world is and wants to make sure you get going as quick as possible. “GTA V” is just too busy trying to replicate real life, and it gets annoying. I promise I’m not here to praise “Cyberpunk” for the whole video. I actually walked away with more criticisms than I originally had. Of course, the technical performance still could be improved - I found a dialogue bug with Judy, and one part of my city has a permanent car inferno, but version 1.06 has put the game in a more playable state than it was at launch. However, most of the problems I have mostly lie in user interface and a small portion of the gameplay. Let’s start with character builds. Part of the appeal of RPGs like “Cyberpunk 2077” is the character building, the restructuring of skill points, attributes, and which perks are active. It adds some replayability to the game and lets your player experiment with different combinations. This is why people go back to “Borderlands” and “Fallout: New Vegas”. While they experience the same story in general, it’s a vastly different way to play it. “Cyberpunk” puts on that face in the beginning, but as I was approaching the level cap, I realized this wasn’t as deep as I had hoped. You’re most likely going to end up strong in everything but one of your attributes. In other words, spending Attribute Points boils down to “which stat do you care about less”. Sure, I kept playing as the jackass hacker I am and coding people to make them vomit their guts out, but it concerns me how samey my second playthrough may become. While we’re on the topic of monotony, NCPD scanner missions can be pretty repetitive, and it often leaves a sense of unfulfillment. See, it isn’t enough to just off everyone with a quickhack and a few bullets. Once everyone is down, you typically have to go and pick up one of the game’s countless shards or you get a random item like a baseball bat or a random pair of shades. It quickly feels more like busy work to do while you wait for the next mission, and it’s not even that fun. I managed to get a few “hyuks” out of it, but again, I have the power to blink and set people on fire. Of course I’m going to be cackling like a maniac! Still, I would rather have had a few more solid side missions than a hundred of these one-minute missions. My biggest issue with “Cyberpunk” was mainly the user interface, particularly when it came to inventory management. I don’t mind the inventory itself - “Cyberpunk” is quite generous when it comes to storage. (That reminds me, did Todd ever weigh those bobby pins?) My problem lies in how tedious it is to dismantle and sell the crap I don’t want or care for. Selling and dismantling items can only be done ONE. AT. A TIME. So, when you sell or dismantle, the screen freezes for a second before it refreshes the menus. I don’t understand why there’s no function to sell in groups. I could forgive the screen freezing, but when I have to do this for every...single...item...it feels like I’m spending more time in my inventory than I should be, and it isn’t by my own will. Another feature I consider a tad user-unfriendly is the auto-save system. Mind you, I’m all up for auto-saving. The less time I spend on menus and more time I can spend playing, the better. Unfortunately, auto-save became my enemy on a few occasions. Some deaths would result in me respawning in the middle of a previously completed mission. Thankfully, it wasn’t, like, two or three missions ago. It would literally be the previous mission. Still, like anyone who plays video games, a few minutes of progress lost can be enough to kill your momentum and your mood. I’m not frustrated all that much by it, but I couldn’t help wondering why auto-save didn’t just trigger upon completion of a mission. Yeah, I could manual save just about anytime I wanted, but at least make auto-save go off whenever I reach a milestone or something. And couldn’t there have been a setting that adjusts how often auto-save occurs? One other crucial feature that befuddled me was the armor rating system. This is basically the concept of “power levels” in a different form, and if you saw my review and Review Recap on “Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla”, you’ll know why I despise power levels. To me, they are a lazy way to manage difficulty, and they force the player to simply equip whatever gear has a higher rating rather than allow the player to customize as they see fit. “Cyberpunk 2077” falls into this trap with its armor rating system. Let me put it this way - do you want your character to look cool, like they look like they belong in “Cyberpunk”? Or would you rather wear a straw hat, bra, and jeans because they had the higher armor rating? We’re basically back to that custom character meme where Big Bird is in an office meeting. It really would have made more sense to keep clothing entirely cosmetic and strictly tie cyberware to armor rating instead. Probably would have encouraged me to visit ripperdocs more often. If I could describe “Cyberpunk 2077”, I’d say it’s a fantastic seventy-hour game of “why’s”. There’s a lot of design choices that don’t make much sense, and it really could have benefitted from a somewhat more simplistic system. Even with these problems, I still had a ton of fun with the world, vehicles, combat, and characters. Is it enough to warrant me to start a second playthrough? Not too sure when I still have “Persona 5 Royal” to finish and future Reviews and Retro Reviews. Is it enough for me to try and pop the Platinum trophy on PS4? Absolutely. As far as naming it MojoPlays Game of 2020 goes, I fully stand behind our decision. I just hope that CD Projekt takes that launch as a warning and learns to not rush their next project.
