Cyberpunk 2077

 

            Hello. I’m done my first play through with Cyberpunk 2077 and @NEETproxy is on his second character so I think I have enough information to start this. The world of Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t quite what I was hoping for. I’ve been watching a lot of cyberpunk/dystopian movies lately to refresh my memory of what I think of when I think cyberpunk. I agree with William Gibson’s 2018 tweet of "The trailer for Cyberpunk 2077 strikes me as GTA skinned-over with a generic 80s retro-future." Not that there’s exactly anything wrong with it, it is a fine game as is and I do like types of games but it is not what I expected. The game definitely feels more like Elysium then anything else.

            So the game follows the typical, stealth/action with crafting to try and please as many people as possible. Like, I get why companies do it but it always just seems to turn out shitty in one way or another. Trying to go through the game stealthy and get to boss fights that you’re not strong enough to deal with sucks. Going all in on guns and punch punch is fun but half the time you’re told to be discreet. I feel like they could’ve just focused on one aspect and made it really good then make another Cyberpunk game with another aspect. Make an interweaving franchise out of it. I was hoping with their first trailer that the game would be more like a detective game similar to Blade Runner or the first few episodes of Ergo Proxy. Like someone is some how weaponizing people or hacking them to kill other people and you’re the one tasked with figuring it out. You need to examine crime scenes and use that Remember Me mode of looking through cameras or other peoples few points to find other clues. I’m pretty sure I only did that two or three times through the whole game. Then, maybe if you have all the evidence you could convict the wrong person for one reason or another. They paid you off or they’re “important” and someone else could take the fall or you just feel like screwing someone over. Maybe make another game where you play a netrunner like T-Bug. There was a mission like what I’m thinking in the new Modern Warfare where you had to guide an office worker out of the building by using CCTV’s. So something similar to that but your watching your crew through TV’s and hacking doors open for your crew or locking doors from their pursuers. Maybe there’s a netrunner trying to hack you so you simultaneously are trying to help your crew do their job and put up firewalls or viruses for your hacker. Then make another game based on the street kid or nomad bit of Cyberpunk. The three options you have at the beginning of the game don’t seem to matter much either. The first thirty minutes or so of the game are unique but other than that nothing. Maybe some dialog options that pertain to what you picked but they don’t really affect the outcome of the dialog at all, that I’ve noticed.

            When I watched the “Styles” video of Cyberpunk I thought there’d be a little bit more you could do with your character. For one, I don’t really think the character customization is all that great. I remember people were making it into a big deal but there’s not that much to it. I didn’t really care much for the options and just went with the generic character look. When you put a character on the box art I’m pretty much going to assume that’s the character. I’m not one to project or impose myself into games I play. I play them as a character and typically do what I think the character themselves would do. Going back to the “styles” though, I was really hoping for some salons and tattoo parlors or something. “Neon hair, illuminated tattoos and chrome,” that’s what I want, that’s what Cyberpunk is to me. I was hoping I’d be able to switch out tattoos with different buffs or something. In the StarCraft Nova book Nova has to fight some big guy who has different tattoos on him that are linked to different drugs. Depending on which one he presses he gets a different high or pain numbing or whatever it is drugs do to people. I thought it interesting and thought something like that would be in Cyberpunk.

            About a few days before the game came out and reviews were coming in I was thinking, maybe there’s a reason Keanu is in the game similar to how Jon Bernthal is in Ghost Recon Breakpoint but I don’t think Cyberpunk is as big a dumpster fire as Ghost Recon was. Yeah there are glitches and shit gets weird sometimes but it’s not unplayable for me. Most games have these glitches and sometimes I don’t think they ever get addressed. I feel like the first play through of Dishonored was clean but all the other times there’s always something weird with the characters during dialogs. And pouring liquid never looks good in any game that I can remember. The GPS was pretty annoying at first, I’ve gotten used to it but I think it could be better. Again, in the age of AR and holograms I think they could’ve used some kind of GPS on the actual roads like Rage 2 does.

            I like the little things in games. Like in the Metroid Prime games, Samus’ mask will fog up when walking through steam, her gun steams when shooting a lot and her eyes will track the pointer when scanning things. I like that the cursor for menus and such are the same with a controller as they are the mouse in Cyberpunk. I hate it when games make the mouse just a normal pointer but the controller has its own cursor. I like the crosswalks say when to walk or don’t walk on the road and that there is a voice telling you what the signal is for the hearing impaired digital life forms of Night City.

            As far as the future goes, concerning expansions and DLC, I’d like it to continue from the main story. Judging by the few endings I’ve gotten that doesn’t seem likely and that really sucks. I hate when finish a game but after reloading you are put right before the final fight. It was like this in Breath of the Wild and its DLC. Like the game assumes you haven’t finished and the DLC is still for before the final battle. That to me just comes across as things they were going to put in the game but cut to get extra money out of us. I want to continue what I started. I want to move forward. It’s probably great for people who get like the “game of the year” addition or whatever later on but for people who got it on release it’s just kind of lame. Like I’ve finished the game and now there’s some DLC with new weapons or gadgets that will make it even easier?

            But overall I like the game, I have fun with it, I just wish I could specialize my talents more. I think it’s better if you put your points towards one or two aspects where I’d like to be able to utilize at least three of them. Maybe I can if I do all the side missions and such, maybe on my next play through. I just wish it was more Total Recall (2012) and less Elysium. But I think all the characters are voiced really well and the story is an interesting concept.

                                  @AztecSauce                                    @H4mmerBros