Cyberpunk 2077 in 2022
April 21st, 2022
Platform Played On: Playstation 5
Disclaimer: Some photographs may hint at game progression, but should be vague enough. If not please comment and I will remove them to avoid spoiling the game for anyone else.
This game came out about two years ago (Dec 2020) so I apologize for the delay, but I’m not sorry that I waited to play it. There was so much hype about it, one big reason is due to the fact that it was from the same creators as the Witcher 3. This caused a lot of people to have very high expectations and excitement for it. I was playing a bunch of other games at the time and decided to hold off as I tend to not buy video games right away due to financial reasons. That was when my friend group at the time decided to purchase it. They seemed to put in an hour or two in before calling it quits. Two of them had Playstation 4 Pros while the other played it on the computer, and they mentioned how many issues were occurring on those systems. Bugs and glitches would constantly happen, but not only that, they felt that the game was lackluster. It didn’t fulfill the expectations they had for the game or what they felt they were told would be in the game. I personally didn’t read about the game too much, something I rarely do because I like to be surprised by games. I avoid gameplay and trailers as much as I can, which can be tough especially with social media and as an avid Twitch viewer.
It wasn’t the right time for me to attempt a $60 game on my Playstation 4 slim with my self proclaimed tech curse. It didn’t seem like it was the right time for most people as the game had a lot of issues when it came out, and what was said to be unplayable on anything less than a Playstation Pro. My curiosity for the game withered away and I was content as I had a ton of other games I was playing… like usual. A few months ago a co-worker of mine was telling me how much he enjoyed it and that it was on sale for $10. I changed my mind about buying it. There were multiple reasons why such as it was the rave review; the fact that I was bored with the repetitive First Person Shooter (FPS) games I was playing at the time; or that I got a Playstation 5 and thought maybe it would be able to run properly so I decided to buy a disc copy— let’s be real it was mainly due to the bargain bin cost. I didn’t realize at that moment the disc copy was only for the Playstation 4 as it was advertised as Playstation 5, but I found out that they would be releasing a Next-Gen updated in a few months so I decided to wait. I figured I could finish up my first play through of Mass Effect and that should give me enough time before the update came out.
Months passes, the update was installed and I turned the game on. I was excited to see the expansive customization that was involved for the character creation, then disappointed to find out that it wasn’t going to mean too much to me in-game. Your gender is determined by the voice you choose – masculine or feminine, and with it being a first person shooter, character customization really didn’t matter unless you were using photo mode. Even with the amount of clothing options in the game, you still were limited to seeing yourself unless you again used the drone option in photo-mode, checked out your inventory menu, or looked in the mirror every now and again. I wasn’t too surprised. I know other FPS games will have the characters in a Third Person view through emotes or cut scenes, but throughout this game they decided to mainly have you in First Person view to add to the immersion.
The moment I dove into the game I was a bit underwhelmed. I was annoyed by the menu white noise throughout the course of the game where I felt that I had to mute my TV as I couldn’t find an option to lower this specific noise. My significant other would mock the noise once I unmuted the TV and it was tough for me to read through it (and there’s a lot of reading). There are three paths to choose from, and I’m sure each would have interesting text, but it didn’t grasp me enough to want to partake in the game again as a new character. Sure there were specific speech choices for the path I chose, but I don’t feel like it made a huge difference with how the game turned out. The story was linear at first but I stuck with it after the first couple of hours. I realized that they were building up context and also it was a good way to implement a tutorial without feeling like a tutorial. Similar to Skyrim’s, “Hey, you. You’re finally awake.”
I appreciated how Cyberpunk provided unique summaries in its load up screen to your main game whenever big events occurred along with intuitive control schemes where I didn’t feel like I had to re-learn how to play it if I took a break from the game. Unlike the beginning of Witcher 3, this game didn’t grab me right away but it kept me engaged for the rest of the game. I had trouble every time I came back to the Witcher 3 as I felt like I needed a mini-tutorial session to recall the basic controls. I’m not saying that’s the Witcher’s fault but when you play a bunch of games at a time, it helps to have an easy way of picking a game back up and not feeling overwhelmed and like a beginner each time you attempt to play the game. This usually leads to frustrations and setting the game back down — I have yet to finish the Witcher 3 because of this.
Once I exited the initial linear storyline I found myself exclaiming how much fun I was having in the game every time my significant other would ask how it’s going. Even when he didn’t ask, I would make sure to tell him… I love this game! I’m a fan of FPS games and the mechanics of the shooting felt spot on; allowing you to customize various components to either make guns stable, more powerful and also the various styles of weapons to choose from. I enjoyed the adaptive triggers the Playstation 5 controller provided for the game when it came to feeling as if I was pulling a trigger and the rumbling of the bullets coming from the gun. The parkour exploration throughout the city and finding various areas filled with different missions, secret gear, and fun or unexpected decor had me spending hours avoiding the main story in fear I was going to miss something. The multiple Easter eggs I would find when it came to things like the Demolition Man and even Portal always brought a smile to my face. Of course there were a few Keanu ones too. Watch out for that barbed wire!
As an over thinker and multitasker I tend to find myself needing to listen to music, a stream, or a tv show while gaming, especially when games have a lot of downtime where I have to ride a horse for 20 minutes to get to one place, or travel up a mountain before I can get to my quest. I avoided fast travel for the longest time, because that’s what I do in open world games. Plus I had a lot of fun zooming around on my motorcycle and all the other vehicles offered to me in the game. I usually like to fill that down time with something else as I wasn’t the biggest fan of the radio stations, but it wasn’t until after I beat the game while roaming the city for the Night City Police Department (NCPD) Scanner missions that I decided to mute the game. Sixty-five plus hours (outside of the menu noise) the game was left unmuted and grasped my attention with ease. I did appreciate some of the music but it was mostly the random conversations on the street, phone calls, or commentary within the game that kept me listening. Photo-mode was also fun to use (as you may have noticed by the amount of photos in this blog). Although some effects were never used and I didn’t dabble in the stickers, I found enjoyment in being able to take pictures of mostly every scene. All the photos found in this blog were taken from the game, downloaded to my phone, then Air dropped to my computer. Hopefully the quality stays intact because the graphics were wild.
Yes, the occasional car flip high in the air out of no where; the annoying noise from hacking that wouldn’t stop (Quick Fix: paused/unpaused); or even the pop up screens clinging on to my screen until I reloaded the game would slightly be annoying, but it never felt as if it took away from the game. After I played the game for a long period of time I would sadly get an error and the game would shut down, but thankfully the auto-saves and quick loading didn’t allow time for me to be filled with frustration. Hell, I played Fallout 4 and Skyrim. I am a magnet for bugs/glitches and this was minor compared to what people probably went through in the beginning. Only one T Pose character occurred!
Playing Gran Turismo 7 right now definitely assisted with my driving capabilities in this game. Spinning out will happen if you aren’t driving the vehicles with sensitive movements. Treat your cars like you would in a car simulator otherwise you will go flying into a wall or a group of people on the sidewalk where you will have the police on your ass. Don’t worry, the police are not as bad as they are in other games and tend to be gone in less than a minute to not disrupt your gaming experience. Side note — why do games have police telling you to stop but they won’t stop shooting you? I’m talking to you, Grand Theft Auto (GTA) and Cyberpunk. If I stop, hit me up with a fine, like in Skyrim. Hell even bring me to a jail for a little bit. Something outside of trying to murder me because a pedestrian decided to jump in front of my car (while I was driving on the sidewalk). The haptic controller feature on the Playstation 5 was used in the driving as well. Just like in Gran Turismo you get to immerse yourself a bit more by feeling as if you are pushing a pedal down (adaptive triggers) or the sensation that you are running over multiple speed bumps aka cars that wouldn’t get out of your way.
The introduction and encounters with characters were amazing. Each character I wanted to learn more about, and at times I did with all of the Side Quests they provided; shards they had lying around for you to read at your leisure; or emails you would see when hacking into other people’s computers. Even being able to call them up randomly and having additional conversations was enjoyable. I’m going to limit what I say about Keanu’s character, because I think you should just meet him yourself. At times you’d get an interactive text from them and felt like you were texting someone in real life with the flow of the conversations. I never felt alone in Night City. I do feel like they could add more choices when it came to conversational lines and at times, some of the choices didn’t feel like they made too big of a difference, but I wasn’t disappointed as I had plenty of people to talk to. Only towards the end did I feel like I was waiting around for a message or call to move the game forward, but that’s where the skip time option was available or the numerous gigs and scanner missions you could complete to pass time, make money, level up your character, and work on Trophies.
Romance options were limited based on your gender (aka voice) but there were a few options. I won’t spoil anything but I definitely urge you to find love in Night City, and I’m not talking about the sex workers on the streets. They’re no Pretty Woman. The sex scenes definitely were more intense than other games I have played before. Yes, a bit awkward at times, only because when my significant other would start talking to me during these scenes and I would have to tell him to shush as I’m having sex. I appreciated his playful banter where he would quickly respond with who is she/he where I would have to let him know that my girlfriend and boyfriend (okay yes I did have a relationship with two people in the game, but only took one fully serious) wouldn’t appreciate me talking to anyone during this and I’ll talk to him later. The first person route definitely brought a different element to these scenes. When your character would blink when they kissed it would turn the screen to black for a moment and at times would switch to another scene which was a clever way to transition scenes. I’d say CyberPunk came a long way from old games that had polygons kissing or more like lip to lip with dead eye stare embraces. Definitely more than the car rocking you would get in GTA.
Moving along, the story for the main portion of the game was enjoyable, but like most games for me, I loved the Side Quests. I found myself enjoying the last hour of the main story game more than I enjoyed the rest of the main story. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of scenes and portions of the game that included main story material that were incredible, but mission wise I found myself uninterested. Side Quests were amazing and some of them even were implemented into the end game, so definitely take time to enjoy those to add more to your main story. Each Side Quest felt unique and although some were as simple as meditating or even something similar to what you would find in GTAV, others would feel like ones I haven’t experienced before in games. Thankfully you are able to see these on the main map so you don’t have to miss them. My favorite Side Quest characters were: “Brendan, Skippy, and Delamain.” I don’t think those will disappoint.
Yes, you would get the repetitive gigs and NCPD scanner missions, and to be honest, those made me feel the same enjoyment I did when playing the Spiderman games. The city never felt boring to me. There was always something around the corner. Each fight feels fresh if you allow yourself to expand on a different play style. The various guns, melee weapons, grenades, cyberware, and even cars would give you a different feel to the game, allow your skills to improve, and opened up more skills too. The cyberware portion, although can be expensive, was well worth the amount of money. Don’t worry, you can quickly make money by selling weapons, gear, and other items or just by doing missions. Most of the money from missions will be small in the beginning part of the game, so I do recommend selling weapons unless you are working on your crafting skill tree. Tip: I sold white and green weapons/gear and disassembled blue and purple ones to balance out money and crafting. The slow motion slide into an unexpecting Tiger Claw or setting off car alarms confusing people while I went in for the sneak attack kill and dumpster drop made the game fun and allowed for me to not feel like I needed to settle on one game style similar to Batman games. There’s even an option for non-lethal attacks, which I find pretty cool to have that option available, but my character was out for blood. I recommend role playing your character and avoid meta gaming if possible. Allow your character to live in this world and take full advantage of what it has to offer.
I don’t want to go into the main story line to avoid spoilers, but the effects they added to immerse you more into the character and game were amazing. I often found myself saying, “Whoa!” or “OOOOoooooo”. I even would squint my eyes at certain scenes in which I had to do something I personally wouldn’t want to do, but my character did. Then there were times when I would laugh out loud at a silly character or be in awe of an amazing view. There was some limited detective work implemented in the game done in a cool Minority Report style way and mini games for breach hacks which is always fun for puzzle gamers.
This game may not have been everything other people wanted it to be, but it was everything I didn’t know I wanted in an FPS open world game. I highly recommend it as long as you have a good enough system to run it, and if you don’t I would wait until it is on sale.
SandraScenarioS 