Cyberpunk 2077 is a massive single-player open-world first-person RPG/shooter game. The gameplay takes place in Night City. Think Blade Runner or a Sigue Sigue Sputnik music video. You'll find it all here: guns, violence, cyber implants, hacking, cyber drugs, sex, virtual reality, prostitutes, booze, slum, rich areas, neon lights, crime, heavy traffic, people everywhere, politicians, police, gangs, outlaws, you name it...
When you begin the game, you'll have to choose between 3 character types and they can all be shaped and configured further in different ways. Both the look of your character and the skill levels can be fine tuned. The skills will have some effect on how you are able to solve different gameplay situations. Your character's name is "V" and you can be either male or female. I chose the female V with a female voice. The bonus of that is that she is topless when you change her clothes. :)
The gameplay is driven by a main story that eventually will lead to one of several different endings. What you do, what options you choose and how you interact with various key characters will determine what ending your character will meet. The endings are not Hollywood happy but it is possible to get a fairly satisfying ending. If you play differently than I did it is also possible to trigger a rather dark ending. Apart from the main story there are tons of side missions to choose from. If you are looking for some girl-girl sexy time, you should focus on Judy. Panam is nice, but she is not into that sort of thing, trust me I tried hard.
Whether you decide to play using stealth tactics and hacking or with guns blazing Rambo style, there is plenty of fun to be found throughout the game. Some of the enemies and bosses can be quite hard, so the more of a Rambo style you choose, the harder it will get. Hint: just lower the difficulty setting if it gets too hard or annoying for you.
There is a lot of dialogue you have to respond to in various ways. It can be a bit much at times, but the story is good and somewhat complex. There is also a lot of driving between missions in cars and on motorcycles. The driving is really fun and it is very forgiving if you drive like a total maniac. One time I managed to crash my motorcycle on a bridge. Both motorcycle and my character ended up in a canal. I managed to swim back on land and I could just use the "Call Vehicle" shortcut and magically my motorcycle reappeared on dry land.
After you finish the main story you'll get the option to go back to Night City and play some of the side missions you didn't choose to play before you entered the end game aka point-of-no-return.
There are tons of ways you can interact with machinery, computers and enemies. Tons of ways you can configure your weapons. Tons of ways you can modify your character with implants. Items you buy, pick up, drop and sell. It all seems a bit overwhelming to begin with, but you'll soon learn to focus on the essential stuff and ignore the rest of it.
The game had all kinds of bugs and problems when it was launched in 2020, but most of those have been fixed here in 2023. There are still a few bugs left though:
- A few "teleporting" enemies that looked a bit like a multiplayer shooter when the network connection is bad.
- Some minor graphical glitches here and there. Generally the graphics are really stunning and beautiful, but they are not always perfect.
- I also discovered a very annoying bug. Near the end of the game, you'll run into the last boss fight, only I did not. I arrived at what had all the signs of being a battle arena, but there was no boss to fight. It took me more than an hour of trying to figure out what the hell was wrong, until I restarted at an earlier auto-save and boom - there he was, the boss that should have been there from the beginning.
- I had 3 crashes to desktop during the time I played.
So yes, the game is not entirely perfect or bug free, but it is fully playable and the few remaining bugs shouldn't take much away from a nice gameplay experience.
Finishing the main story and also including a lot of the side missions, I have now been playing for 47 hours. The game is not perfect and I'm not sure the replay value is great, but I absolutely think the game was well worth the money. The developers deserve credit for trying to create something this massive and different. It is a very enjoyable game and I will certainly recommend it for fans of first-person RPG/shooters and/or anything cyberpunky.
MY PC SPECS:
- GPU RTX 4080 16GB VRAM
- CPU Intel i9-11900K @ 3.50GHz
- RAM 32GB
- DISK: PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 - 1TB
- GAMING MONITOR: 2560x1440(QHD) @ 165Hz
UPDATE 2023-10-06:
I really liked this game when I played it in the spring of 2023, but now I totally LOVE it. The new 2.0 update plus the DLC "Phantom Liberty" takes this game to the next level. Yes, I still had a few crashes along the way when I completed it and I'm still not a big fan of a few of the boss fights, but other than that, this game is nearly perfect now.
It looks stunning, it runs smoothly and there is so much to see and do in Night City. The new DLC offers a lot of new content and difficult choices, and a lot of the existing content has been made even better. I have no doubt, this is one of the best games I have played in a very long time.
Just look at my stats on Steam: 121 hours and still running. Not many games can keep you around for that long. I have changed my rating from 4 to 6. Who knows when we'll see a game that is this great again?
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Content Type: Game Review
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Updated: 2023-10-06 18:58
Created: 2023-05-14 09:50
