Recent reviews by Dr. BreezeAir ♣

I was happy to do my part. Big major props to Arrowhead and our amazing community for standing up to one of the worst companies in the industry. I'll forever be salty about Bloodborne, though.

Way better value without any shenanigans, unlike the latest installment.

I was review bombing it. But the latest updates really knocked it out of the park. It looks and performs great. The free cars they add are really tastefully selected apart from wierd Chinese pack, but if it pays the bills it deserves a pass. A strong recommendation to any Horizon fan.

The game is worth it for the soundtrack alone. One of the best beat 'em ups ever.

Best atmosphere.
Best WWII multiplayer FPS in my opinion.
Best community. Just look at the awesome art and that sweet sweet teamplay.

Buy it.

Foreword.

As a preface, I wanna say that I like hunting games and I know a thing or two about hunting IRL. I've spent a sizable amount of time in COTW and hunted a lot in RDR 2. I'll be honest, I bought this game for the sole reason of having SAKO and Beretta firearms which I'm a huge fan of. The screenshots seemed decent, and the dreaded IGN review painted a pretty picture. There's a little bit of paid videos of the game on YouTube by a couple of somewhat popular content creators, if given time you'll get a good look at the game and it's mechanics. But what I wanna get into is...

The Devil is in the detail.

Long story short, it's just plain lazy. The environments are large enough but they lack variety. While in COTW you'll come across landmarks and unique locations which are memorable and interesting this game offers you the bare minimum. Here's a mountain forest with a river and a few lakes, here's a meadow with some ponds, etc. It's as unimaginative and uninspired as possible. The weather system is really weird. There's a precise "forecast" for each biome and if it rains there, it'll rain for the whole time you stay there. Day/night cycle is absent.

The weapons are a big disappointment. Selective ejection? Forget it. The barrels don't have bores in them. That shotgun would've exploded in your face. Metal textures and controls look like they're wet even when it's dry. No matter how big or small caliber you select the magazine capacity and the receiver size will remain the same. Iron sights are plain unusable. The in-game reticle stays on even when you mount and it doesn't line up with the actual sights. The scopes are just plain atrocious, They look like a jumbled mess of random scope parts glued together with no thought put into it. The mounts look extremely ugly especially the part where rings meet the base. And as icing on the cake, they are mounted half a meter forward for a single stupid reason. So that you can see the scope on your gun in the first-person view. Spare my eyes, I can't look at this travesty. This is supposed to be a hunting game, aimed at gun enthusiasts. So let's insult their vision and intelligence with the worst excuse for scope and mounts in existence. Variable zoom hasn't yet been invented in this game. Night vision and thermals are also omitted. This is especially baffling given that the game is obviously sponsored by a number of big brands including Bushnell who specialize in optics. There are even specific models of binoculars and rangefinders but not a single real-life scope. Go figure.

But guess what, there's more. Every ejected casing sounds like a shotgun shell falling on the concrete floor. Enjoy your rifles! This is cringeworthy. What's the point of making a hunting game when you obviously don't give a rat's @ss about the subject? Beats me. But I'm just getting started with this review.

The wildlife is also really lazily implemented. Animations are hilarious and destroy all immersion if you look at them for too long. Some animals go totally in sync, which I admit is rather amusing. Red deer look nothing like their real life counter part. Which in my case is especially annoying because the red deer is my one of my favorite examples of the European wildlife and it's such a majestic and proud animal and a sight to behold. Traces of bodily functions are realistically scarce compared to COTW which is ridiculous. Besides tracks and poop, there's urine food leftovers, and bitten vegetation. For all of these, there are multiple states of freshness which is cool but it breaks often when you find half-eaten corn on the top of a mountain in the Colorado wilderness. The fur would've been passable for a game made 5 or 6 years ago. For such a recent title it leaves a lot to be desired. Callers work 100% of the time on every single animal in hearing range. Just spam it while running and you'll get answers for your calls then wait for a bit, don't worry it won't be long because the critter will go straight to you stopinng for a split second occasionally. You are garateed a perfect shot. If you are in a stand you'll have to try very hard to mess it up. Dog mechanics are not explained and will require a Dark Souls like approach of some reading which will tell you that one dog additional capability is retreving birds and the other one points. Everything else regarding tracking will require experimentation.

In their promotional video developers of this title promised that you'll see predators hunting. Never saw that. Perhaps I'm just unlucky. But from what I was able to gather this is the worst animal behavior I've seen in a hunting game yet. The only good thing I can say about them is that they do vary in age and size. That's it.

So, in conclusion, obviously, I don't recommend this game. As mentioned in other reviews, this game definitely has a lot of potential, but sadly it is wasted by devs laziness and lack of attention to detail. And the main reason is that the devs just abandoned improving the game and switched over to creating paid DLCs which are terrible. Just read the reviews for the warden DLC. I only bought bears and Berettas. And feel silly for doing so, Berettas have their bores welded and the bears are as bare as all the other animals. (pun intended)

If you suffered through my ramblings - thank you sincerely. I hope I can help you in making the right decision.

- AMAZING AI that directs enemies during combat/patrol but also citizens and npcs' daily life (https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/comments/kbk4ap/the_ai_of_cyberpunk_2077_an_indepth_look_at_the/)

- wanted system and corrupt police (https://gamerant.com/cyberpunk-2077-wanted-system-corrupt-police/)

-Immersive police involvment changing with the area where you commited the crime (https://www.usgamer.net/articles/cyberpunk-2077-producer-details-law-enforcement)

- (half kept) in general, more interesting combat and hacking (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FknHjl7eQ6o). Some examples are the ability to use your wire to hack people (https://youtu.be/vjF9GgrY9c0?t=2540), hacking reveales information about the network, more interesting viruses to upload, more loot from hacked devices. DISCLAIMER: the changes here may be due entirely to balace issues and/or making the game better and more intuitive. I keep this as a promise "half kept" as the hacking system gets really boring really soon and doesn't even many abilities you can upgrade. The skill tree is filled with passive and all you do is press tab, pick whatever, kill, repeat. For a better explanation please read this: https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/comments/kcve8s/promised_but_missing_feature_list_will_update/gfyly34?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

- more interesting gameplay, for example: trauma team that plays a key role, freequent flying avs, ads that target the player point to the merchant that sells that product, merch could be pre-viewed before purchase (Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVAryZ0GLwE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjF9GgrY9c0&feature=youtu.be&t=2531) NOTE: this section is by far the most oversimplied one. There are a number of minute key things I am not stating in this thread because I don't want to dilute it too much, i.e.: https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/comments/kcve8s/promised_but_missing_feature_list_will_update/gfvxkxw?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

- Strong RPG elements (https://wccftech.com/cyberpunk-2077-is-a-much-deeper-roleplaying-experience-than-the-witcher-3-says-dev/). This was actually subject of lengthy debates in this thread, as some of you are happy with the "RPGness" of CP2077. Personally I have not seen a lot of elements that make a game an RPG, such as relevant checks (speech, perception... right now all we have are options to break a door or go around it), solid companions, defined power dynamics between factions and a general sense of progression achieved through meaningful upgrade to your character. The game right now is more akin to a shooter/looter with stats. Which is not "strong RPG element". Mind you, if you like it this way it's perfect, and I personally don't mind it too much. But the lack of RPG components does stay in the list as a promised not fulfilled. And no, madqueen, having 7 different finales that you get to choose doesn't make a looter/shooter an RPG.

- NPC unique daily routine and AI (https://www.vg247.com/2020/06/08/cyberpunk-2077-npcs-1000-daily-routines/)

- Quest decisions will have relevance in the world (https://onlysp.escapistmagazine.com/cyberpunk-2077-changes/)

- (half kept) Meaningful day and night cycle (right now it's mainly cosmetic and doesn't impact the gameplay a lot, e.g.: you aren't more stealthy at night) as described in Exploring Cyberpunk's Night City with CD Projekt Red - Cyberpunk 2077 - Gamereactor but it does something, like opening and closing some venues and modifying some population density. I have not seen evidence of places being more dangerous at night. If you have please record a clip and send it over.

- Incredible character customization during creation / in-game (https://gamecrate.com/cyberpunk-2077-boxing-power-weapons-militech-spider-robot-and-more/23426 and https://www.gamesradar.com/uk/cyberpunk-2077-character-creation/)

- Use of drones for more than just some missions in the game (https://gamecrate.com/cyberpunk-2077-boxing-power-weapons-militech-spider-robot-and-more/23426)

- three different lifepaths and more that would actually have more impact than what we are getting now (Wall running and metro system are not the biggest thing to be cut out from the game. Its the plot : cyberpunkgame (reddit.com)) for a better description on why lifepaths are poorly implemented. this post (https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/comments/kdmrju/the_corpo_life_path_makes_no_sense/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is a good example.

- to add on the previous point, lifepaths leading to non-linear quest design. (https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2019/09/12/cyberpunk-2077-lifepath-system/)

- Nanowire and gorilla arms have a lot of different uses that are still in the description of the item (https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1153684171606450178?s=09).

- Runs very well on last gen consoles (source NOT needed)

- The game will launch when it's ready (source NOT needed)

- Variety of braindances instead of it being just few cutscenes (can't find reference, please link)(so far videos like this https://youtu.be/ToWfeUEAeeQ?t=1167 point that braindance is a cool mechanic but they never said we'd be able to purchase and use the braindances on our devices and all. I don't feel this is a broken promise, rather an aspect of the game that we would love to have had implemented).

- Challenging weather system that would pose a threat to your survival (https://www.windowscentral.com/cyberpunk-2077-features-acid-rain-and-other-deadly-environmental-challenges)

- At time of writing I haven't finished the game. However sources say there are very very few options for ONS and/or deep romances (this article summarizes what was expected https://www.ginx.tv/en/cyberpunk-2077/cyberpunk-2077-everything-about-relationships-romance-and-sex)

- Finishing the game without finishing the main quest ( https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thegamer.com/cyberpunk-side-quests-so-in-depth-finish-game-without-main-quest/amp/) At time of writing I haven't seen any progression just following the subplot and it looks like the main story is the quest to follow if I want to see an epilogue. This appears to be an error in translation during the interview.

- The game will let you select your body type and your gender freely, allowing you to obtain whatever combination of voice/gender/genitalia you want. Sex/Gender complete fluidity was something allowed in the cyberpunk tabletop games and very very relevant in the lore of the cyberpunk society (https://www.gaytimes.co.uk/culture/cyberpunk-2077-will-include-gender-free-character-creation-and-queer-relationships/amp/).

- A polished game and smooth experience (https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/comments/kd5qow/2018_interview_cyberpunk_2077_will_be_as_polished/)

- weapon customization (https://nightcitylife.de/index.php/features-artikel/341-xxl-preview-cyberpunk-2077-angespielt?start=5) although we got mods so this is half kept.

- 4 different styles, clearly highlighted, that you can adeere to and will make NPC react to it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=YlyDJVYqfpA). Please note that this was advertised as true 2 months before release.



Features that were initially promised but later they announced to have been removed:

- Properties purchase and customization options (https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/comments/9bu0d5/purchasable_apartments_confirmed/)

- Transportation system (https://www.gamepressure.com/newsroom/cyberpunk-2077-wont-show-subway-travel/z41f9d)

- Scaling walls (https://www.ign.com/articles/cyberpunk-2077-wall-running-mantis-blades-cut)

- Vehicle customization (https://www.altchar.com/game-news/cyberpunk-2077-wont-have-vehicle-customisation-aonab8e3yY6b)

- V voice customization beyond choosing the gender (thegamer.com)

https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/comments/kcve8s/promised_but_missing_feature_list_will_update/

A very welcome innovation brought to the FPS genre. Runs perfectly, looks great, plays amazingly. Develop a habit of chainsawing fodder enemies every 30 to 50 seconds.

It requires UPLAY. Hard pass.

It's a tough one to recommend because the gameplay is really slow and requires patience. But if it's up your alley then go for it. Several things you should know before you jump in: the ATV DLC is almost mandatory because the maps are huge. African and Alaskan DLCs are totally worth their price. I'd recommend getting the base game when it's on sale (which is pretty often) and giving it a shot. If you like it then like me you'll slowly get all the DLC you need.