This review contains SPOILERS! Click to expand.
Though I can only speak for the PC version of the game, I've found it to be superb, and to be just what I expected including the glitches I've encountered thus far. The world is often depressingly bleak and the in-game advertisements of fictional products in Night City sexualized to the point of extending beyond just vulgar to be downright obtuse. But I consider that part of
Though I can only speak for the PC version of the game, I've found it to be superb, and to be just what I expected including the glitches I've encountered thus far. The world is often depressingly bleak and the in-game advertisements of fictional products in Night City sexualized to the point of extending beyond just vulgar to be downright obtuse. But I consider that part of the central themes of the game, the dehumanization of others including women in such downright pornographic public advertisement in a manner as gratuitous and shameless as much of the exploitation mentioned or depicted tucked away in-private basements and alleyways of Night City. Still, the reference to The Witcher series through the Milfguard advertisements of what I can only assume to be some **** site on The Net will never fail to earn a snicker from me. And I've come to find the past few days that driving from objective to objective, through deserts of the Southwestern former United States and neon-lit cityscapes to be a relaxing joy of its own, feeling far from tiring of the drives to the point I'd consider using the fast-travel system to any extent.
Though I find the total lack of bicycles to be a personal annoyance in an urban setting, as someone who prefers to cycle for their transits when possible, but perhaps the lack-of bicycles also lends itself to themes latent in the game; the acceptance of technology by most of the population as superior and preferable to that their own natural body's are capable of, to be in-truth a necessity to maintain a competitive edge. Still, an alternate path to transhumanist cybernetic augments would have been interesting through making of abilities the player has against other opponents, such as blinding them by disactivating optic implants, also viable against the player. As well as introducing perhaps other body upgrade options through use of body-enhancing supplements of science-fiction capabilities to heighten natural senses and the capabilities of organs and limbs one is born with, like one particular tribe the player is pitted against at one point does so to themselves eschewing technological implants as part of their ideology while embracing body modification and supplement use directed at making them more beast-like. Another detail of the setting that personally peeved me at first was ultimately explained away in a satisfactory manner, by revealing that urban life had become so ridden with smog and toxic that even animals that had once found havens tucked out of sight among human dwellings, such as cats, rats, and pigeons, came to find the environment so inhospitable that places such as Night City came to be almost devoid of any such presence of pests or stray animals. This combined with a heavy tax placed upon those who'd keep pets such as dogs or cats does offer a believable explanation for their otherwise unusual absence. And stray animals do make the occasional pleasantly surprising appearance.
Up until reaching Pacifica through the main quest-line the game runs surprisingly smooth for my aging system, i3 6100, GeForce 1050 Ti 4gb VRAM, 16gb DDR4 RAM, with most graphics settings on high. The environments are lush, rich with detail, and many objectives to accomplish tailoring to many different play-styles. My main gripe as a fan of first person shooters is the constant need to upgrade your guns or swap them out for more damaging versions of the same fire-arm, compared to other FPS RPGs like Fallout New Vegas where while this holds true, you aren't using anything resembling the .38 revolvers and .22 lever-action rifles you begin with by the end-game having held in your arms all manner of weaponry. There is some variety, but ultimately you'll find yourself at times swapping out your firearm for an identical one with higher damage values as you level-up, or needing to upgrade the weapon. That and I personally would have preferred faster TTK's for both player and opponents to make of all gunfights as sleek and fast-paced as those which place you playing through the memories of a side character with a pistol that is a 1-2 hit KO to most enemies you encounter during those segments. Still, these aspects do clearly have a basis in the mass collecting of increasingly effective items as well as the bobbing and weaving against the occasional boss enemies while striking back found more commonly as a staple of encounters in The Witcher series. Not that I'd enjoy all encounters having such fast TTK's, given the presence of augments granting some superhuman abilities as well as other protective gear worn, but sometimes it does come to feel grating grinding down the health of individual opponents among the squads pitted against you. And I do sometimes find myself wishing those super-human abilities would be shown through the athleticism and acrobatics to dodge gunfire and position themselves into firing positions against the player exhibited by some, while still making it possible to destroy most opponents within an instant if caught off-guard or out-of-cover rather than spraying most of an SMG magazine into them before securing a kill.
Another aspect born of the game's RPG-like nature is the stats of specific clothing items, which didn't relate to each other in a logical manner based on what qualities they clearly should have compared to another. And so, you can find a tank-top with better armor values than a ballistic vest you earn upon conclusion of the first act soon afterwards, as well as matching hot pants with better protection individually than a full-set of combat-gear if you find them afterwards at a higher level. This I think is meant to promote variety in a player's wardrobe, but I feel it could have been better addressed by maybe having some detriments or consequences by arousing suspicion wearing combat gear in some sections as a way to promote not always looking as if you're decked out for battle without making other clothing items equal to or surpassing ballistic vests and helmets in protective stats. This peeved me personally, while it does promote constantly swapping out for new clothing items, you are usually pushed into choosing between what is better in-regards to statistics or personally desired aesthetic leading to mismatched outfits unless you dedicate yourself to continuously upgrading through crafting and accumulating items for crafting a particular set of items you've come to prefer having your character wear. I understand ultimately in the setting the characters themselves through augmentations become their own weapons and armor, hence why I don't find the mid-riff exposed gun-toting punk chicks out-of-place in a gunfight given the specific science-fiction cyberpunk urban context where their skin also hides sub-dermal armor more effective than today's kevlar vests, but I still would have personally liked to have seen instead a hard distinction between civilian attire however normal or flamboyant it may be in-appearance, and more specialized combat gear, even perhaps differences in such related to movement and abilities.
Speaking of side characters, for all he was advertised, I found Keanu Reeve's Johnny Silverhand to just be a downright asinine self-centered jerk-wad to the point of being insufferable despite some sympathetic motives regarding his campaign against a total control of the human psyche by the powers that be. At points he was a welcome presence but half the time he seemed to be a completely intrusive preferably banished headache I wish the game gave me more options to slap about for being such a gratuitously self-centered jerk. Some of his intentions are indeed noble, but he makes the same pitfalls some other historic movements fell into when confronting unabated soulless Laissez-faire Capitalism; Falling into that same treating of others as a means to an end that Capitalism does to produce, to attempt to direct them to destroy instead. Let us remember that a good character is not necessarily a like-able one. Another side-character would declare words I'd agree with, that the opposition to the corporate vision depicted in Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't seem to offer any preferable replacement or cure to the state of decay such unlimited exploitation has led parts of the world into while uplifting others. While also mentioning for himself a desire to join what it seemingly the only escape from it all through becoming a Nomad.
I did hold a personal grievance as a person attempting to quit smoking cigarettes against the gratuitous tobacco-use in-game. Something I also felt towards another game I highly enjoyed this past year, The Occupation. But it is fitting to the setting, I'd rather not see it censored, and Johnny Silverhand does mention in one of his more agree-able declarations that the smog of such a cluttered sometimes decayed or ecologically devastated environment would be just as detrimental to health as a tobacco-smoking habit. And the presence of such abundant cigarette smoking lending itself to the theme of defeatism and unwilling acceptance of fate beneath such conditions experienced by most of the characters, even if they'd be the type to deny it if confronted with the fact that defending their cigarette habit by pointing out the dangers of urban smog is just playing the rebel without doing anything constructive to truly tackle the issue. Thus, in a minor way, accepting defeat against that they oppose while still flailing against it.
Instead of continuing into a tirade down that path as I very well could, I'll conclude by summing up the game as such through rating individual aspects.
Narrative/story/characters and character interactions: 9/10
World-building/Settings/Ambience and aesthetic including sound production: 10/10
Quests/tasks/objectives whether to further the narrative, explore additional optional world-building, or partake in tasks not demanded of the player to complete the story-line: 6/10
Gun-play/combat including melee/stealth/other environmental interactions to further player objectives and sabotage opponents: 7/10
Item-collecting/Arsenal hording/Crafting/Upgrading/Growing wardrobe: 5/10