Recent reviews by V

This game saved my life.

In beginning my review with that sentence I already know that people will think I am being facetious, exaggerating, or plain being a clown. However, I wanted to start that way as it is the truth.

Now for context.

While I initially identified as a transman since the age of four, I came to the realization around '19 that I am, in fact, transmasculine nonbinary. I live in a state that is consistently stripping me of my rights to exist--over 171 laws passed as of July, I have yet to check on how many more--and in a world that is consistently judging, berating, harassing, and outright assaulting me verbally and physically, slowly stripping away the layers of my mental health.

CP2077 gave me a world where I did not have to worry about who I was and, in fact, openly allowed me to not only create a character who looks, acts, and grew as I did, but to live out a life that I could only dream of. Not only do I have the aforementioned problems with existence, I am autistic and do not interpret the world as someone who is neurotypical would. I was able to play me, directly in line with those aspects of myself that I was unable to safely explore in real life for fear of... well, a multitude of things.

The brilliant writing, art direction, story, plot beats--all of it felt so deeply personal and true to my life. While it hurt like hell at the beginning and especially at the end, doubly when I went with a route I did not expect to end in suicide, it was deeply cathartic. Everyone felt like real, breathing people, thanks to the voice acting, direction, and writing, and I loved every moment I spent with them.

Now while I am keenly aware of the bugs and glitches, of which I was lucky enough to only run into two upon release-day download (both of which were humorous rather than game breaking), I do not think they take away from the beautiful experience you get from this work of art. Granted I have more patience than most when it comes to the aforementioned, possibly due to having been Q&A for a while, but even then I do not think it takes much to allow yourself to be swept into this expansive, deep, and immersive reality.

I look forward with great anticipation and excitement to the future of this franchise, and I wish CDPR all the best in their future titles. Though hopefully management will step back and allow the devs to retain the reins of their property, instead of forcing them to meet artificial deadlines. Although one has to admit that it fits in disturbingly well with the vibe of the game and what they are saying about corporations in the first place...

I wanted to enjoy this game. The setup, the way it plays, the focus on tactics and communication--everything was right up my alley. It was the perfect storm. Unfortunately, after completing the tutorial and going into my very first mission, things quickly went downhill.

Initially the people I was playing with were disparaging of the fact that a "gorl" was playing in the round with them. Okay, I can handle that, I run into that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with every single MMO I play and dare to speak up in. However, what broke me and led to me requesting a refund was the fact that, not even a few minutes into the next round, I flipped a circuit breaker just to see what it would do. Of course the lights in the entire building were shut off, whereas I thought it would just knock them out on the current floor or shut off the camera systems.

One of the players using a shield said, "Why did you turn off the lights?" To which I responded, "I just bought the game and did not know it would shut all of them off." I tried to go back to the breaker to turn them back on, but another player who was also using a shield and not communicating with us flipped it, turned around, and immediately shot me in the head.

I experience enough team killing, sexual harassment, and berating in Rainbow Six, let alone in the multitude of other games I play. I do not need to experience it in a game with this slow of a pace and realism within less than 20 minutes of actual gameplay, given the majority of my time was initially spent in the Training Grounds just to get the hang of it.

I cannot stand behind a community that finds it acceptable to TK as a "lesson" and who are more than happy to verbally assault someone because of their perceived gender.

As much as I want to recommend it on the basis of game play, general replay value, the unique operators that are steadily released, among numerable other features... I cannot ignore the community, which is the largest part of this game. When I started playing in the beta days and up until... I want to say late '18 or whenever the Outbreak event ended, the community was wonderful. However when the event was over and they began releasing some bog standard types, I stopped playing for a bit. I came back before the April Fools event 'Rainbow is Magic' and loved the way everyone was interacting then and how people were talking, chatting, and being supportive of one another, with very few abusing the Vote to Kick function or being toxic in general.

Continuing within that framework, I watched the community take a steady slide downward. VTK was beginning to be severely abused, to the point where Ubisoft had to remove it, Team Killing was becoming rampant with no punishment (and the current one is not much help if you are a single person against a four stack, unless you make it beyond two rounds and all are marked), and the verbal abuse is... severe.

While I will continue to play periodically, the sole reason is that I met two phenomenal people through the 'Squad Finder' feature, which has allowed me to mute both text and verbal chat since they give more than enough in-game information that is helpful and enables me to play to the best of my ability.

Unfortunately for those who are playing solo or even dual, this is not a viable solution as there is so much going on within the game that you require intel, especially when you're relatively new. And if being verbally toxic was not enough, people have decided that if they have the team kill marker, they will instead destroy all of your gadgets as you deploy them or tell the enemy team in all chat your position as well as when you're peeking or aiming down a particular corridor/wall/etc.

Until something is done that provides a viable solution--that does not, in turn, make the game even more difficult due to lack of information--I will not change this recommendation. I know Ubisoft is working on a feature that they are slowly injecting into the game that should assist in lowering toxicity, by matching players of certain ratings with others within that same rating, but I do not know if it will be enough when fully implemented. While I sincerely hope it will as I love this game (hours played should be a hint at that), that is something for which we will have to wait and see.

~V