New folks aren’t likely to reach that review though this particular forum link
Now that will be cyberpunk. People on one side saying “yeah, the game sucks, this review is the best review in the history of ever” and others saying “you know nothing about games or reviews or life or anything, how can you even be on metacritic if you don’t like the best game in the history of ever”…
I didn’t realize metacritic was how those people always found these.
I am not sure, but I am getting vibes from this review that Tom you might not be aware that CP2077 is based on Cyberpunk pen and paper game series? Or at least not be familiar with the lore of CP pen and paper?
It is well explained why corpos are bad and especialy why Arasaka is bad, it’s also explained why Johnny did what he did ect.
Also there are plenty of data shards thrown out in the world that kinda explain the lore a little bit, and kinda motivate the player to read more on the internet if he is intrested in lore.
An epic breakdown.
That’s a great idea about making an AR user interface that fits within the world. You asked why the developers didn’t do more or any of that. The answer is because they’re building directly from The Witcher 3. There’s a minimap and armor values and flavor dialogue because that game had it and they didn’t overhaul the systems.
It makes me wonder what their focus has been the last 6-8 years. They’ve produced a massive amount of enjoyable content: a huge, beautiful city, semi-random (maybe?) encounters and side gigs, and tons of objects, plus their usual stories and characters, though maybe not up to their standards. I’m not an asshole, so I would never accuse a developer of being lazy. But I’m really curious if they went back in time whether they’d prioritize the same things. Or at least pay the writers that left the company a lot more money.
Anyway, I’m that guy who’s happy to turn his brain off and enjoy my Eurojank RPG in a cool setting, so I’ll get back to that!
If this is original, chapeau, sir
Let me ask a better question. Does the Cyberpunk pen and paper series have anything interesting to say about cyberpunk? If the source material was shallow and didn’t ask any tough questions that the genre novels or films did, that would explain a lot.
I have no idea, so maybe it does.
I had many, many uneasy feelings that this game was going to be a letdown. I hoped for the best, but it just felt like that writing was clearly on the wall for anyone willing to look hard enough.
I’ve uninstalled it for now. I hope to return at some point to find something better patched into existence here, but there are foundational flaws in this that I don’t think the biggest patch in the world can rectify.
Great review. I’m enjoying this far more than Tom, and it will take me quite some time to finish, but I agree with the general impression.
This is obviously not the responsibility of the player (or reviewer) but when setting the context of ‘cyberpunk’ it probably would be fair to mention that this is an adaption of an 80’s pen and paper RPG. It’s the view of the future, from the 80’s and through the perspective of Pondsmith. CDPR is ultimately responsible for taking that inspiration and making it their own. They knocked it out of the park w/ The Witcher series. There was less to work with from Pondsmith’s RPG other than a sense of style, and their value add to the philosophy and mechanics doesn’t amount to much.
That said, on a next gen capable PC, the tech is still a wondrous accomplishment, that’s vastly ahead of the Valhalla’s and WD: Legions of the world. I’m greatly looking forward to Cyberpunk expansions and multiplayer in the coming years.
I am not extremaly familiar with the pen and paper game myself so I won’t be able to asnwer that, but at the same time I don’t think that every cyberpunk media has to be about this cliche ‘what is life’ questions.
Okay, I think this answers my question. CDPR wasn’t trying to say anything profound. They simply wanted to make a good adventure in a cool setting.
I don’t recall them ever implying otherwise. (There’s the lack of ambition I suppose, so you can fault them for that.)
This might be another case where an individual is bringing expectations that CDPR was never going to be able to satisfy and that individual’s expectations were left unfulfilled. 2077 is not GTA 6 + Blade Runner + Skyrim, which means anyone looking for one or more of those things is sorely disappointed.
[EDIT] To be fair to Tom, he tried to resign himself to this but still didn’t like the game as presented, which is perfectly reasonable too. We’ve got others here that are disappointed but do really like it. But I still say these expectations for “game of the decade” are the most interesting aspect of this release.
In any case, this game is a standalone product. I have never heard of the tabletop game before this videogame, I suspect it’s the same for the vast majority of players.
It’s not that CP2077 is supposed to engage with specific themes, it’s just that it touches those themes because it reuses cyberpunk tropes, but it never does anything with them. Tom mentions Watch_Dogs and even that game has something to tell you about the things it showed you. Here you have an evil corporation cause corporations are evil in cyberpunk. But it’s evilness is not really explored. Same for a person in your brain, or mystical elements. It’s not like they are required to do something extraordinary with it, but with the excellence of visuals and techs it feels like a waste. It’s less ambitious than Ubisoft open world game, and those aren’t developed for 8 years.
If I had to make comparison, CP2077 is the Fifth Element of videogames.
+1 for the Lusty Argonian Maid shout out.
Not really. Obviously, as a tabletop game, the onus for storytelling is on the players and GM, but the game was more combat focused in mechanics. The only part that mechanically examined the question of humanity in tabletop form was the Empathy stat, which acted a lot like the Sanity stat in Call of Cthulhu. As you added more cyberware to your character, you took the risk of losing Empathy and turning into a psycho-killer NPC because your humanity was being stripped away.
Curiously, it’s the one thing 2077 gets completely wrong. There’s no reason not to load your V up with as much cyberware as possible.
The game that took a decade. It absolutely floored me when someone pointed out that the game was announced a full year and a half before the PS4 and Xbox One (whose problems with the game are by now well known) even came out.
Just gonna point out that the review spoils a pretty major plot point in a way I wouldn’t have expected from someone as spoiler-averse as you, Tom. I’m like 7 hours into the game and I absolutely did not know that I was going to get Johnny Silverhand in my head and would have appreciated some sort of warning before that was spoiled for me. (I do suspect it’s coming pretty soon because based on what’s going on now I can bet how that happens. But, still.) And no, it doesn’t matter to me if trailers or promotional materials made the same spoiler because I deliberately avoided that shit. All I knew was that Keanu was in it, because he’s on basically every article and ad before the game released.
Doubly curious when CDPR already have experience in The Witcher games with providing some gameplay-related choice and consequence to players when it comes to the wanton chugging of potions and decoctions as Geralt. Which makes it feel like a deliberate design decision for Cyberpunk 2077.
I was going to say I don’t blame them for not restricting or challenging players with things like cyberware limits or main quest time limits in a mainstream game. But you’re right, The Witcher 3 at least made a small attempt at modeling the downside of potions. That gets back to Tom’s point — it’s like they didn’t even try to address these things.
Since the game is built on The Witcher 3 engine, they could’ve easily designed a simple visual static effect or something after chugging too many health potions or for an hour after installing an implant. Something with minimal gameplay downside to appease gamers but at least makes an effort. Missed opportunity.
I mean, if you drink your vision gets blurry. Totally the same thing!
Perhaps Cyberpunk 2077 is, like life, a tale told by an idiot, full of visuals and sound and fury, signifying nothing.
But if I can have fun with that, it’s OK. Not all games have to say something; very few of them actually do.
So I take it the whole cyberpsychosis questline never leads anywhere as far as your own character is concerned?