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So I've finally finished the game...

With 100 hours logged in, I wanted to give my stupid opinions on this game for any of those who have been only seeing the very negative, (or even very positive) on the title. I also want to preface with I think The Witcher 3 is the greatest game ever made. The story, the scope, the gameplay, the characters, the performances, the world, I could go on for days on this modern masterpiece. But instead I want to discuss my time with CP2077 and how it's not Witcher 3.

Warning! There may be spoilers ahead!

i7 9700k 4.9ghz

RTX 3070 100/ 600

64GB RAM 3000mhz

Played from M.2 NVME SSD

Presentation:

By now it's no secret that Cyberpunk is amazing looking. If you have the appropriate hardware, of course. I played this game initially with a GTX 1080TI, which looked stunning and ran at a steady 60fps in 1080p with Medium/High graphics. Around 1/3 the way through my RTX 3070 arrived and I was able to play at 1440p DLSS Performance, Ultra Settings, Ray tracing on with Lighting at Medium. Going from the 1080ti with RT OFF, to 1440p with RT ON was such a vast difference, it was almost a different game.

It's easily the best looking game I've every played. Night City is filled with a ton of artificial lighting, natural lighting, & neon, which all throw soft shadows throughout the world giving you this amazing grounded feeling. The reflections dance off each surface with the correct type of refracted image depending on the roughness or smoothness, furthering this "realism".

All the main characters are modeled in high fidelity which add to their performances. Being able to truly "feel" their emotions just by looking at their faces (without needing cutscenes) was refreshing. But what was even more shocking was the amount of side npc's that had the same level of detail. Almost everyone you run into - aside from the literal random NPC's - have been modeled with an extreme amount of detail and care.

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Wakako rocks

The sound design is also great. You can "hear" the city at all times, and it's all done so with an accurate representation. All the weapons "sound" the way they should, NPC constantly chatting about nonsense, and I'm really in love with the almost grating soundtrack. Unfortunately, sound is where the presentation takes a hit.

Not because of the quality or detail. But because I often ran into sound bugs. The amount of times the audio would just be "missing" was staggering. There were numerous times slamming my car door didn't make a sound. There were numerous times where the sound was "desynced" from the characters mouth. There were numerous times sounds would get stuck and play repeatedly indefinitely, until I reloaded. Patching this stuff will of course remedy the issue, but I would lie to you if I told you it didn't hamper my experience. As soon as an audio glitch happens, I'm ripped out from the immersion - almost more so than many graphical glitches.

And speaking of which, we all know about the graphic glitches that can occur. If I were to ride too fast on my motorcycle, I'd see a T-posing V ghosting atop my bike at times. There are plenty of NPC's getting stuck. Pop-in is a big concern when driving. Actually, it seems a lot of issues come from driving. But luckily for me, the graphical glitches were few and far between, and nothing was too "immersion breaking".

Detail:

Now detail is still technically "presentation" but I wanted to give it its own section. To me, one of the greatest things about Witcher 3 was its attention to detail. Firstly, the world itself had so many little touches that added to their setting. The types of weapons you'd find, the characters you meet, the places they lived in, their friends, the fauna, the foliage, there was so much to get enthralled in. Well Cyberpunk takes that attention to detail, and multiplies it by 10.

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Wake up and smell the Genetically Modified Coffee Beans

The world of Night City is so fucking incredible, it's almost hard to imagine. Every district, every street, every alley, every apartment, every warehouse, hell - even the desert, everything is packed with so much detail, it's like each aspect of Night City was crafted by hand. This was something I was kind of expecting from CDPR, again, because Witcher 3 had this much attention paid to it. But not at this level. It's truly stunning.

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It's crazy this is a city that doesn't actually exist

Unfortunately, this level of detail isn't put to much use for those who like to wander. I'm going to dig into this further in the "Things to Do" section, but I wish this detail had a reason other than setting.

Story:

Now I want to start to get to the meat and potatoes of the game. This is very much a story driven RPG. And man, is it a good one. The main story involves you figuring out how to solve this "issue' that can end up killing you. Throughout this story, you'll meet a cast of characters that help you piece together a plan to tackle this issue head on. In order to get those characters to help you, you of course need to help them with the many different scenarios that trouble them first. All of which lead you down this web of side missions and stories that all have their own life in them. It's a story of mortality, decisions, and legacy.

Many modern games do not usually have a story gripping enough to keep me playing 100 hours straight. The story of V, in my opinion, is not just engrossing, but every side mission had so much depth to them I couldn't leave my PC. I needed to figure out what happens to these characters, which I did end up connecting to in the end. While it's not as "Grandiose" of a story as Witcher 3, it's much more focused and grounded, which never puts itself at odds with the futuristic setting.

For instance, there's a mission where you need to >! save someone from this Russian torture porn operation. In order to find them, you need to download illegal BD's (like a VR movie, kinda) from the dark web, find clues in the BD to locate the operation, and then infiltrate this place to find your friend. !<

It's a side quest that involves many themes of futurism, but never delves outside the realm of possibility. Unlike Witcher 3, where many of its fantasy themes can sometimes err on the side of ridiculous. This of course isn't for everyone. But I really enjoyed this side of Cyberpunk.

I'm also VERY grateful CDPR isn't afraid of mature themes. Like nailing someone to a cross to film their suicide for others to "experience", or dealing with themes of domestic abuse, grooming, sex work, it's all very reminiscent of a Rockstar title - but without the side of parody & sarcasm. Something I certainly appreciate.

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Gameplay & Things to Do

So what's the game like? What do you do? This is where things start to take a turn for the worse. So other than doing missions - where things are certainly varied and place you in really fun, engaging, and intense situations - there's really....not much.

The main story has you either blowing your way through enemies, or applying hacking and stealth, maybe a mixture of both, to complete your goals. You'll find cool Cyberpunk weapons to use on the way. I enjoyed using handguns and revolvers to make critical hits on my enemies heads and employing my hacking to employ crowd control techniques. I also enjoyed leveling up my Blade skills to face bosses in a dueling of the swords.

But unlike Witcher 3, there isn't a plethora of different types of weapons you can find. From what I've seen maybe 4-5 of each different weapon variety. So 5 different revolvers, 4 different AR's, 4 different Snipers, etc. On top of that, there isn't much variety in the weapon stats. You can add bleeding, chemical, thermal, or electrical damage types. I think thats it? This was easily the most depressing aspect to come to grips to.

The Witcher 3 had so many unique and fun weapons in the world. There were different Witcher sets you could find to give you really unique traits and abilities. There's really none of that here in Cyberpunk. You could wear this "ICONIC" T-shirt, which is a Tank-top that adds a bit of evasion. Or you could find a Legendary weapon which has a cool color scheme, but only really adds electrical damage and headshot multiplier. There's nothing that freezes your enemies. There's nothing that gives you unlimited sprint, there's nothing that allows your enemies to spontaneously combust. There's really just nothing that much fun to find in the world.

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Panam is a stupid name, imo

This is compounded by the stupid crafting mechanics. With crafting you need to gather "materials" (literally stuff called materials), and if you have the blueprint, you can craft it. Crafting Epic or Legendary gear costs a high amount and I'm not sure the juice is really worth the squeeze. I found finding weapons through missions and exploring the world much more satisfying. Again, this was a depressing notion to come to terms with.

So what do you need money for if you're not really buying weapons and not really crafting weapons? Well you can buy cars. Cars in this game are pretty fucking cool. I wish more attention was paid to weapon variety as there are car variety. I did find myself driving point-to-point than fast traveling.

That's...about it.

You do missions. You collect the same type of weapons over and over with slightly different skills. And do more missions / quests. There are gigs which amount to easily eliminating 5-6 dudes and collecting their loot. There are gigs where you need to fight these tough "Cyberpsychosis" dudes who can disappear, or dodge all your attacks and require a bit more thinking to defeat. After which they give you the same weapons you've already seen. And then you can, idk, go GTA & start shooting up the city to defeat the onset realization this game is quite hollow.

This makes Cyberpunk much more action/adventure than RPG. Easily the most disappointing aspect of the game.

I really hope CDPR continues to add different gameplay mechanics in the game. There's such an amazing foundation built. But for now, you really just have the story and their side quests to do. At least that aspect is really good.

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Talk to the hand, bitch

More Bad:

On top of the hollow nature of the game, is the AI. It's just....not good. I really don't know what else to say about it. You've seen the spawning police. But it's more than that. Enemies really just sit in cover, shoot at you, and throw grenades. That's really it. Sometimes you'll get an enemy that will charge you with a melee weapon, without regard to their own body. They don't employ any tactics. Stealth? Literally walk behind someone and you can take them out. As long as you're not in their line of sight, they won't notice you. Smash bunch of bottles by accident because they added a "Double Tap to Dodge" mechanic on a fucking keyboard? Well don't worry, they won't hear it. Gangs don't call in back up, squads don't try and flank you. It really, really sucks.

And there's almost no driving AI. There will be multiple times you'll see cars end up just stopping in front of each other indefinitely, because they don't have the ability to "go around".

CDPR, if there's one thing you need to fix first, it's the AI. Without it, the game just feels...amateur. The Witcher 3 didn't really need to have amazing AI, because there were so many different types of enemies. Ghosts, ghouls, bears, werewolves, they all had their own attacks, strengths, and weaknesses. Here - it's bad guy with gun, sit behind cover, shoot. There's nothing good to say here, really.

Conclusion:

The story is really great, and I think this needs to be said. I wouldn't have tolerated 100 hours of non-existent AI, and nothing else to do, if it wasn't great. So don't think I'm saying it's not worth experiencing. There were easily some of my favorite moments in gaming, embedded in the story of V in this game. I loved almost all the performances, and the characters all have such depth its hard to not get attached to them. Unfortunately, if you're looking for a deep RPG with tons of hidden goodies, loot, lore, and secret missions, you'll be sorely disappointed. There's some deep flaws that face this game that go further than just bugs, and I only hope CDPR addresses them. Luckily, if there's any dev to do so, it's CDPR.

Score:

7.5 / 10 aka 1/2 Witcher 3's

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Some Tips I wish I Knew Before Playing

Playing on Very Hard made enemies more lethal and quicker to spot you - and I recommend EVERYONE play on this level. I can't imagine playing on anything easier since I found Very Hard to be...well...not that hard. Crank the difficulty, I promise it will make the experience more enjoyable.

I overclocked my PC just for this game, and found it improved 1% lows tremendously. I was getting a lot of drops beneath 60fps 1440p, until I turned on XMP on my memory, and cranked my CPU to 4.9ghz. Also, DLSS in this game is truly great. It doesn't affect image quality that much, and drastically improves performance. I went from 15fps RTX ON to 60-70fps driving through city RTX ON, with DLSS PERFORMANCE. The slight aliasing is worth the added Raytracing effects. It makes such a big difference.

Lastly, save. A lot.

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EDIT: I don't know why I titled this "Quick"