8 years of hype to launch what looks like an Early Access game.
It's glitchy, it's buggy, it doesn't run well unless you have an RTX card and DLSS enabled. And that's barely passable.
But those can eventually be fixed.
The core of the game, the massive open world, is incredibly superficial, with nothing to do in it. CDPR crafted a beautiful, detailed world, with braindead AI and overly simplistic gameplay.
There's no roleplaying involved like you would find in Deus Ex. There's no extracurricular activities that doesn't involve shooting a bunch of bad guys like you would find in Red Dead Redemption 2. You won't find tight gunplay like you would see in Destiny 2.
The AI completely lacks any sort of intelligence. Enemies rush you without the sense of self-preservation. Oftentimes standing there letting you blast them in the face. Cops spawn literally yards behind you without any chase, or any threat. Walk a block down and they completely forget you exist. No bounty on your head, no search and apprehend procedures. But stand next to them for 3 seconds and they'll shoot you on sight.
Really, there's not much to do except shoot things. Guns feel impactful enough, if you use revolvers or tech weapons, and melee combat is passable. You can go for a stealth or hacking approach, but those don't feel as good as just pulling the trigger on some thugs. Hacking is just pointing your reticle at someone, and then make a selection from the menu. And depending on what you chose, sparks just fly out of their head. That's it.
The story is engaging, yet forgettable. This is a cyberpunk setting, but it's in appearances only. There's all these talks about megacorporations taking over the world, but only one corporation takes center stage. There's no political intrigue, no conspiracy theory that actually turns out to be true, no investigation into a greater mystery. Keanu Reeves is literally taking your breath away and you go out to make sure that doesn't happen.
Your personal backstory is forgettable. It's literally 20 mins long, and your entire introduction to Night City is a montage. CDPR failed the show, don't tell aspect. They could've squeezed in a few good hours of character development and worldbuilding with the opening hours. Instead, you get taken straight into Night City, told to care about certain things, and want to have this lofty ideal of becoming a living legend for some unknown reason. You don't have a story to tell, there's a story being told to you.
The characters definitely carry the narrative, from Silverhand's personal vendetta, to Panam's sense of belonging, and Takemura's strong honor code.
Regardless, I did enjoy this game. But there's so many glaring flaws that becomes hard to ignore.
So it pains me to say, I do not recommend this game. The numerous technical issues make this equivalent to an Early Access title. But the gameplay loop, the promise of an immersive experience, a sandbox for you to get lost in are totally nonexistent. It's a beautiful world CDPR created, but it's just a glorified loading screen going from one mission marker to another.
That review hits home for me. The game was ok. It can be beautiful at times, but everyone has done it already and did it better ( GTA, Fallout, Deus, Skyrim, Half-life ). For some reason, I decided to try out Stadia version and it was an acceptable experience for me.
But the part about the immersion breaking over ridiculously bad AI, shallow world... Yeah.
I read the transcript and based on what I saw, there is no way there is not a CYA email saying something along the lines of 'it is not ready. if you release it, it will bomb'. I wonder whether board members will be removed.
edit: Well, now I am annoyed. I can't mow down children in car ..sigh
> It's glitchy, it's buggy, it doesn't run well unless you have an RTX card and DLSS enabled. And that's barely passable.
I haven't found this to be true. it took a bit of playing around with the settings, but with dynamic fidelityFX, I am getting great image quality on my 1080 ti at 4K, sitting right around 50 fps.
Maybe it's just me, but I definitely wouldn't consider this the core of the game. For me the core is the single player story ("main quest" I guess). Maybe this is because I have played every CDPR game and The Witcher 3 is the only one so far with an open world and, and even there it was clear that the main story line was the crown jewel.
I think you're ok feeling that, especially with your CDPR experiences. But a lot of the promotional material heavily emphasizes 'night city' and the whole worldbuilding aspect. They even coin it as 'the next generation of open world adventure' at the end of this trailer. I think the promotional material definitely focused more on the setting rather than the characters and their stories.
Don't you think you should wait for a reply to the question "Is that your review?" before attacking the commenter?
Or, better yet, formulate this comment as a response to that reviewer rather than even asking, let alone attacking the commenter? i.e. "They dissed it, but then played for 25 more hours. They sure played..."
"Janky. If I can describe it with one word.
8 years of hype to launch what looks like an Early Access game.
It's glitchy, it's buggy, it doesn't run well unless you have an RTX card and DLSS enabled. And that's barely passable.
But those can eventually be fixed.
The core of the game, the massive open world, is incredibly superficial, with nothing to do in it. CDPR crafted a beautiful, detailed world, with braindead AI and overly simplistic gameplay.
There's no roleplaying involved like you would find in Deus Ex. There's no extracurricular activities that doesn't involve shooting a bunch of bad guys like you would find in Red Dead Redemption 2. You won't find tight gunplay like you would see in Destiny 2.
The AI completely lacks any sort of intelligence. Enemies rush you without the sense of self-preservation. Oftentimes standing there letting you blast them in the face. Cops spawn literally yards behind you without any chase, or any threat. Walk a block down and they completely forget you exist. No bounty on your head, no search and apprehend procedures. But stand next to them for 3 seconds and they'll shoot you on sight.
Really, there's not much to do except shoot things. Guns feel impactful enough, if you use revolvers or tech weapons, and melee combat is passable. You can go for a stealth or hacking approach, but those don't feel as good as just pulling the trigger on some thugs. Hacking is just pointing your reticle at someone, and then make a selection from the menu. And depending on what you chose, sparks just fly out of their head. That's it.
The story is engaging, yet forgettable. This is a cyberpunk setting, but it's in appearances only. There's all these talks about megacorporations taking over the world, but only one corporation takes center stage. There's no political intrigue, no conspiracy theory that actually turns out to be true, no investigation into a greater mystery. Keanu Reeves is literally taking your breath away and you go out to make sure that doesn't happen.
Your personal backstory is forgettable. It's literally 20 mins long, and your entire introduction to Night City is a montage. CDPR failed the show, don't tell aspect. They could've squeezed in a few good hours of character development and worldbuilding with the opening hours. Instead, you get taken straight into Night City, told to care about certain things, and want to have this lofty ideal of becoming a living legend for some unknown reason. You don't have a story to tell, there's a story being told to you.
The characters definitely carry the narrative, from Silverhand's personal vendetta, to Panam's sense of belonging, and Takemura's strong honor code.
Regardless, I did enjoy this game. But there's so many glaring flaws that becomes hard to ignore.
So it pains me to say, I do not recommend this game. The numerous technical issues make this equivalent to an Early Access title. But the gameplay loop, the promise of an immersive experience, a sandbox for you to get lost in are totally nonexistent. It's a beautiful world CDPR created, but it's just a glorified loading screen going from one mission marker to another.
It's all style but no substance."