The_Observer
Member
As a foreword, I’d like to highlight my journey with this game before explaining why I think it’s one of the best videogames ever.
First of all, I have no experience with either CDPR games (except for Witcher 2 for an hour maybe) or Cyberpunk itself, so I didn’t really know what to expect.
When I first saw the reveal trailer I found it interesting and cool and looked forward to more but many years passed by until we saw it again in 2018. That trailer looked amazing, it depicted an insanely cool futuristic world with infinite opportunities. Then came the very long gameplay video and I was sold, it looked amazing. Although I had some reservations as it looked to good to be true. Then a couple of years went by again before release with numerous delays and I wasn’t too hyped but still looked forward to it. I knew that this was something I would want to play on a nextgen console, so I didn’t really mind the late release. Then came the bad news that there will be no native nextgen versions at launch but I still bought it day 1 because I was excited. Then came more bad news, bugs, comparisons etc. that suggested I should wait more. Still I played a bit just to see what this was and I knew already that despite the problems at launch, it was something special. I decided that I will definitely wait for the real nextgen version as this was something I had to experience in the best possible way (at least on console). Then came the nextgen release, played about 10 hours which I really enjoyed but life took a relatively big turn for me and I also started playing other games so I just abandoned it until this January. I saw the praise for both the main game, the updates and Phantom Liberty so it was finally time to really join the ride. And wow, what a ride it was. In the end it was even better than I could ever imagine. I won’t try to write a coherent text as I will just type the thoughts that come to my mind, but below are some of the reasons why I think it’s one of the best games ever:
-Fitst of all the technical side as I’m a graphics whore. Well, what this Polish studio did with this game is just unbelievable. I cannot comprehend how were they able to release this game in 2020 on lastgen consoles, while it still looks better than well, 98% of games. What I would put next to it is TLoU2, RDR 2. It’s crazy that a game developed by an Eastern European company can be put next to the very best of what the industry can offer technical wise. I know it’s cool to hate and laugh on it because of the bugs, and while I feel it was over-exaggarated I assume there was some truth to it, but if you play this in 2024 it’s almost perfectly okay. I only encountered really minor bugs during my 200 hours that happen in almost every game and some crashes but that’s it. The visuals and animations are really something else. I have never seen such detailed animations in gameplay where you are free to move while these happen. I guess the first person camera helps in achieving the immersion it provides. It’s unbelievable, you have to see it yourself. Seriously, it feels like something really went side ways with this industry as this is a cross-gen game made by an Eastern European developer from 2020 and ever since then nothing has been released that even got close to this level. Yet it runs even on an Xbox One. Wtf?
-But the technical side is not the only aspect that helps in achieving the most immersed feel I ever got from a videogame. Yes, the visuals and the animations are a great part of it, but it wouldn’t mean much if we were not presented with the most realistic city (and world) ever created in a game. This is how you create a unique open world, where every location feels unique and has a purpose, not just copy pasted fields. Yes, I heard a lot that the city is dead but I’m not sure we played the same game. I guarantee that the people who say this never took the time to just walk around the city and take in the sights. Don’t tell me that going to Corpo Plaza and looking up and around you is not a breathtaking experience, for example. The “dead” city feel might come from that initially you only see wandering people without cause. But if you take the time and check out smaller streets, alleys, inside locations you will find a lot of life in the world. Then there are the crazy amount of advertisements, TV shows and world building elements, all commented by Johnny, that all help you getting immersed in this world. To sum up, the “dead world” argument is just bull in my opinion. It’s one of the most immersive games ever, period.
-Another critique I always heard that “your choices don’t matter”. Again, wtf? Did we play the same game? It’s maybe just me, but I have never seen a videogame where your choices matter this much. I’m sure they exist, but in the AAA space what this game offers is outstanding. Even your answer to a totally minor character can result in small consequences. I mean, what more do you want? So many things can be different between playthroughs that even thinking about it is tiring. And believe me, I tested the game many times with my decisions or at least checked online the different outcomes, and I’m crazy impressed with what I saw.
-The writing and voice acting: I cannot express how much of a breath of fresh air was to play something that was written by actual adults who can write, covering a crazy amount of thought provoking topics without lecturing me about woke bullsh. Actually, if you want to do diversity, this is how you do it. I don’t think there is any other game that has such a diverse set of characters, yet there is no woke brainwashing added to it, they just simply exist in the game world, and none of it feels out of place.
But back to the topics involved in the game. It’s another aspect of it’s immersiveness as it feels that this future world could exist in reality. I don’t want to get too political, but this seems like it can be the actual future if things go the same way as they are now and this is why it’s so immersive. Corrupt politicians, institutions, power hungry corporations, it’s all there. This is among the best writing in video games, that’s for sure. And why this works is that the voice acting is superb everywhere (I played as male V).
-The character progression is also amazing. You can actually be a half-god by the end of the game, with eliminating groups of enemies at the blink of an eye merely with your “mind” or be a Matrix samurai and slice groups of enemies into pieces in bullet-time. It’s insane. And the best in this is that the world-building is so good that all of this is constructed in such a way that it still remains realistic, you can easily imagine that everything you see here can exist in our reality in the future.
-As an FPS fan, I have to say that this is one of the best of the genre (I know it’s technically not an FPS, but you get it). Actually, I can’t remember when was the last time that a game had such good gunplay. (TLoU2 maybe). The weapons you can use here have real power, what you can do with them is gruesome, especially with some late game iconic weapons. I remember a thread here about the best shotguns in FPS games. Well, welcome the “new” king.
-Music: the OST of the game is also really good, but I felt it could have had a bit more of them. What was really cool is that the radio stations played relatively unknown artists and there are some really good songs in there. Plus the Johnny Silverhand/Samurai part of the game is f’n cool.
-Story (or rather stories): I already talked about the writing, and that it’s superb and as a consequence all the stories in this game world are. So many characters, so many different, thought-provoking stories, with some really unique character building moments. The many different endings could also surprise me, thankfully they were not what I expected. Simply awesome.
It was funny that I was so immersed in the side jobs because of their uniqueness that I was afraid to start doing the gigs, assuming that those were the general open-world filler fetch quests. Ho boy, how wrong I was. In this game, even the side content is on the level or above other games’ main parts. It’s crazy.
I think it’s time to stop here for now because I assume some of you may already think that I’m astroturfing after the neverending praise but this is truly how I feel about this game. I don’t know what to expect from the sequel, neither from technical side (IMO they shouldn’t have ditched their state of the adt engine for a more generic one) nor from writing side (I’m afraid moving development to the USA will certainly result in huge quality degradation with woke brainwashing, but I really, really hope that I will be proven wrong). But what is sure is that this game will be among the greatest of all time forever and the memories of what I experienced will never fade away.
Thank you CDPR!
First of all, I have no experience with either CDPR games (except for Witcher 2 for an hour maybe) or Cyberpunk itself, so I didn’t really know what to expect.
When I first saw the reveal trailer I found it interesting and cool and looked forward to more but many years passed by until we saw it again in 2018. That trailer looked amazing, it depicted an insanely cool futuristic world with infinite opportunities. Then came the very long gameplay video and I was sold, it looked amazing. Although I had some reservations as it looked to good to be true. Then a couple of years went by again before release with numerous delays and I wasn’t too hyped but still looked forward to it. I knew that this was something I would want to play on a nextgen console, so I didn’t really mind the late release. Then came the bad news that there will be no native nextgen versions at launch but I still bought it day 1 because I was excited. Then came more bad news, bugs, comparisons etc. that suggested I should wait more. Still I played a bit just to see what this was and I knew already that despite the problems at launch, it was something special. I decided that I will definitely wait for the real nextgen version as this was something I had to experience in the best possible way (at least on console). Then came the nextgen release, played about 10 hours which I really enjoyed but life took a relatively big turn for me and I also started playing other games so I just abandoned it until this January. I saw the praise for both the main game, the updates and Phantom Liberty so it was finally time to really join the ride. And wow, what a ride it was. In the end it was even better than I could ever imagine. I won’t try to write a coherent text as I will just type the thoughts that come to my mind, but below are some of the reasons why I think it’s one of the best games ever:
-Fitst of all the technical side as I’m a graphics whore. Well, what this Polish studio did with this game is just unbelievable. I cannot comprehend how were they able to release this game in 2020 on lastgen consoles, while it still looks better than well, 98% of games. What I would put next to it is TLoU2, RDR 2. It’s crazy that a game developed by an Eastern European company can be put next to the very best of what the industry can offer technical wise. I know it’s cool to hate and laugh on it because of the bugs, and while I feel it was over-exaggarated I assume there was some truth to it, but if you play this in 2024 it’s almost perfectly okay. I only encountered really minor bugs during my 200 hours that happen in almost every game and some crashes but that’s it. The visuals and animations are really something else. I have never seen such detailed animations in gameplay where you are free to move while these happen. I guess the first person camera helps in achieving the immersion it provides. It’s unbelievable, you have to see it yourself. Seriously, it feels like something really went side ways with this industry as this is a cross-gen game made by an Eastern European developer from 2020 and ever since then nothing has been released that even got close to this level. Yet it runs even on an Xbox One. Wtf?
-But the technical side is not the only aspect that helps in achieving the most immersed feel I ever got from a videogame. Yes, the visuals and the animations are a great part of it, but it wouldn’t mean much if we were not presented with the most realistic city (and world) ever created in a game. This is how you create a unique open world, where every location feels unique and has a purpose, not just copy pasted fields. Yes, I heard a lot that the city is dead but I’m not sure we played the same game. I guarantee that the people who say this never took the time to just walk around the city and take in the sights. Don’t tell me that going to Corpo Plaza and looking up and around you is not a breathtaking experience, for example. The “dead” city feel might come from that initially you only see wandering people without cause. But if you take the time and check out smaller streets, alleys, inside locations you will find a lot of life in the world. Then there are the crazy amount of advertisements, TV shows and world building elements, all commented by Johnny, that all help you getting immersed in this world. To sum up, the “dead world” argument is just bull in my opinion. It’s one of the most immersive games ever, period.
-Another critique I always heard that “your choices don’t matter”. Again, wtf? Did we play the same game? It’s maybe just me, but I have never seen a videogame where your choices matter this much. I’m sure they exist, but in the AAA space what this game offers is outstanding. Even your answer to a totally minor character can result in small consequences. I mean, what more do you want? So many things can be different between playthroughs that even thinking about it is tiring. And believe me, I tested the game many times with my decisions or at least checked online the different outcomes, and I’m crazy impressed with what I saw.
-The writing and voice acting: I cannot express how much of a breath of fresh air was to play something that was written by actual adults who can write, covering a crazy amount of thought provoking topics without lecturing me about woke bullsh. Actually, if you want to do diversity, this is how you do it. I don’t think there is any other game that has such a diverse set of characters, yet there is no woke brainwashing added to it, they just simply exist in the game world, and none of it feels out of place.
But back to the topics involved in the game. It’s another aspect of it’s immersiveness as it feels that this future world could exist in reality. I don’t want to get too political, but this seems like it can be the actual future if things go the same way as they are now and this is why it’s so immersive. Corrupt politicians, institutions, power hungry corporations, it’s all there. This is among the best writing in video games, that’s for sure. And why this works is that the voice acting is superb everywhere (I played as male V).
-The character progression is also amazing. You can actually be a half-god by the end of the game, with eliminating groups of enemies at the blink of an eye merely with your “mind” or be a Matrix samurai and slice groups of enemies into pieces in bullet-time. It’s insane. And the best in this is that the world-building is so good that all of this is constructed in such a way that it still remains realistic, you can easily imagine that everything you see here can exist in our reality in the future.
-As an FPS fan, I have to say that this is one of the best of the genre (I know it’s technically not an FPS, but you get it). Actually, I can’t remember when was the last time that a game had such good gunplay. (TLoU2 maybe). The weapons you can use here have real power, what you can do with them is gruesome, especially with some late game iconic weapons. I remember a thread here about the best shotguns in FPS games. Well, welcome the “new” king.
-Music: the OST of the game is also really good, but I felt it could have had a bit more of them. What was really cool is that the radio stations played relatively unknown artists and there are some really good songs in there. Plus the Johnny Silverhand/Samurai part of the game is f’n cool.
-Story (or rather stories): I already talked about the writing, and that it’s superb and as a consequence all the stories in this game world are. So many characters, so many different, thought-provoking stories, with some really unique character building moments. The many different endings could also surprise me, thankfully they were not what I expected. Simply awesome.
It was funny that I was so immersed in the side jobs because of their uniqueness that I was afraid to start doing the gigs, assuming that those were the general open-world filler fetch quests. Ho boy, how wrong I was. In this game, even the side content is on the level or above other games’ main parts. It’s crazy.
I think it’s time to stop here for now because I assume some of you may already think that I’m astroturfing after the neverending praise but this is truly how I feel about this game. I don’t know what to expect from the sequel, neither from technical side (IMO they shouldn’t have ditched their state of the adt engine for a more generic one) nor from writing side (I’m afraid moving development to the USA will certainly result in huge quality degradation with woke brainwashing, but I really, really hope that I will be proven wrong). But what is sure is that this game will be among the greatest of all time forever and the memories of what I experienced will never fade away.
Thank you CDPR!
