Looking for the cyberpunk in Cyberpunk 2077 [review]

[tomchick]

@Timex

Did you not upgrade your legs?

Ah, I did not. What will you find if you jump to inaccessible areas?

@fox.ferro

There are lots of little hidden things in there too which I’ve enjoyed stumbling upon, things that aren’t specifically called out with an icon on the map (in fairness, usually ending up with a corpse and a datashard containing a Tale of WoeTM). Anyway, I found just exploring it to feel pretty rewarding, especially with the mobility upgrades.

Do you have examples of the lots of little hidden things? I mean other than text logs? Because I felt the text logs were just clutter. Again, I’m talking gameplay here.

@fox.ferro

I didn’t play the games you mention specifically; Crackdown or Agents of Mayhem. What made these so special? I hope you’re not selling us on some blue/yellow/red key but as an ability! schtick (hello, Metroid )

You mean like double-jump legs?

Crackdown and Agents of Mayhem have lots of battles up in the skyscrapers. They have lots of things you can find to upgrade your characters. The gameplay is distributed horizontally and vertically in both games, especially Agents of Mayhem. Lots of traversal challenges, as well.

If there’s anything similar in Cyberpunk with the leg upgrades, I’d love to hear about it. I tracked down a ton of tarot cards, but never go the sense there was anything else out there worth grabbing. Again, text logs weren’t doing it for me.

@stusser

Dense traffic would make driving suck. Gameplay should trump immersion every time.

Traffic is gameplay. Driving in a city involves navigating traffic. Are you seriously defending the empty streets of Night City as if it were an intentional design choice? Do you think CD Projekt wanted to make a game in which traffic is heavier when you’re not in it? You can tell it’s a limitation of the way the city is designed, because they half-hearted throw a few cars at you the longer you drive.

Meaningful traffic is a consistent failing of open world cities:

What open-world game with driving has the best traffic density?

Besides Red Dead Redemption 2, of course. You can’t ride two minutes without meeting someone else on the open frontier. What a traffic jam! I recently revisited Need for Speed: Most Wanted (and quit out as soon as I saw Electronic Arts’s DLC had peppered it with unavoidable microtransactions) and was disappointed at the traffic density. It was pretty much just one or two cars in your way here or there. Par for the course for most driving and open-world games. Which made me fondly recall Mi…

It’s yet another example of how there’s nothing “ambitious” about Cyberpunk’s design.

@stusser

If I had to weave through traffic driving with mouse+keyboard, that would be literally unplayable.

Plug in your gamepad! You’re not supposed to be driving with your mouse and keyboard. Actually, I don’t CD Projekt cares whether you drive or not. There is no incentive to bother with cars.

RE: having The Division as your only frame of context

@TheWombat

Not quite fair.

I misread your earlier comment then. I thought you were saying you could only compare it to The Division.

@TheWombat

What other games feature a sprawling modern urban setting, first-person movement and combat, and complex geography/geometry?

Agents of Mayhem, Crackdown, Spider-man, and Grand Theft Auto V come to mind. You’ve played The Division 2. Watch Dogs 2. Sleeping Dogs, Prototype. The Saints Row games. Probably the Yakuza games. Assassin’s Creed: Liberation and Unity have a ton of city focused gameplay, but they aren’t modern. You can also see modern open-worlds in caRPGs like The Crew, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and Driver: San Francisco.

-Tom