Recent reviews by GreatWenis

This review has no (or very little) spoilers - 20 hours in so far

The basic premise behind a review is to give others your opinion as to if this game is $60 worth of fun. I’m not here to defend the game company, the reviews or their choices. I do want to argue that despite the flaws, you are getting PLENTY to keep you busy for hours of good fun for your money. Does it live up to the hype? Does it ever?

I am running this game on 11 year-old hardware with a 980ti and a solid state drive stuffed inside. I don’t expect the game to run at 4k 9fps but the game still plays just fine.

Here is my short list of pros/cons:

Pros
-The visuals are stunning and immersive.
-The characters are very expressive and I could connect with them on an emotional level
-The story is interesting (so far)
-There are a lot of options to completing each combat situation
-The cyberware upgrades are awesome

Mehs
-AI is ok.

Cons
-Lots of little bugs.
-The skill trees are (mostly) boring
-Missions tend to be either running around murdering everyone or sneaking around and knocking everyone out.


Pros first:
Night City is amazing. This is where I think CD Projekt Red succeeded beyond all other games. The city feels like a real life, 1:1 scale city that you can explore. The people everywhere and the cars breathe life into the city. At times you have to fight your way through crowds of people and you have to watch where the traffic is going or risk being run over. The buildings, the (fake) advertising,and the smut can give the city a gritty feel in places and there are tons of stunningly beautiful spots with neat architecture, statues and markets.

I’m not sure if everyone has the same experience, but I really connected with Jackie. The characters are very expressive. It didn’t feel like he was just spitting out random factoids whenever you walk by. Walking in on him talking to his mom or chatting up his girlfriend made him feel real and I connected with him emotionally after only a few hours.

I’m about 20 hours into the game and only a few hours of that is the storyline. I’ve gotten past the main title sequence and I’ve been surprised and very interested so far.

The combat encounters offer some loads of variety. You’ve got basic first person cover mechanics, long distance sniper shots, a usable (and sometimes explosive) environment, grenades, stealth and melee. I LOVE the quick-hacking though. I think it adds a ton of options. Hit a group with a spreadable virus and a grenade, disable other netrunners completely, reboot someone’s optics and rush them with a sword, lock their legs and hit a barrel next to them. Lots of fun!

One of the common complaints I see but don’t understand is that the game is not immersive because there are a limited number of places you can go and only a few characters you can interact with. I hated how each commoner in the Witcher 3 would shout some random personal statement whenever you entered their space. Writers (the good ones at least) do not go into excessive detail on characters that do not advance the plot. If you expect to stop a random citizen on the street and ask them details of their personal life, then yes, you will be disappointed. But when you visit one of the apartments of story characters, there is plenty of backstory. Jackie and Judy are great examples. Both of their apartments are full of fun details that tell you about who they are. What game (or how would it be more realistic to do so) would allow you to march into the home of any one of 1000s of characters and interrogate them about their history or rifle through their stuff? The real world is full of locked doors.

I LOVE the cyberware. Each little piece opens up new options in combat. Swords, that come out of your arms, eyes that can help you track combat and legs that jump up 2 stories. What’s not to love?

Mehs:
The AI is AI from the Witcher with some cover mechanics thrown in. It’s not amazing but it’s certainly not the worst I’ve seen.

Cons:
There are definitely bugs. I played a key part of the storyline with a character named “Dum Dum'' following me around for an hour. This included following me into my apartment, and staring at me while I hid in a closet and watched a mudrer take place. Yet, although annoying, none of those bugs have interfered with gameplay and nothing has persisted beyond a restart of the game. If I had a choice between playing the game with little bugs and waiting another 6 months for release, I’m glad I got to play it now. However they should have announced the game’s release date after they fixed the bugs..

I get that the skill tree is an accompaniment to the cyberware but I always think that the end points in a skill tree should be something I’m excited to get. Increasing or reducing stats by a couple of percent for a few seconds just isn’t something that gets me excited to pour through the tree. I can see that overall, getting an entire tree would have a big effect, but none of them seem particularly interesting.

While the combat itself provides a lot of options, the missions don’t quite have the same flexibility. You can choose alternative entry points into a building and find creative ways to sneak around, but ultimately in every mission, your choice is either to sneak past everyone or to kill everyone.

There ARE a decent variety of missions. Helping a fleet of AI vehicles, driving a man to a doctor who screwed a defective piece of cyber-hardware, stealing, assassinating or rescuing does provide a variety of interesting outcomes.

I think there is no doubt that there is plenty of game here for your money. The decision to announce the release date before the game was really ready was a mistake and I wish they had been more honest with us. For now, if you are worried about a game breaking bug, I’d wait a few more months.