One of the most anticipated games of recent years on release provoked a lot of scandals: bugs, poor optimization, unplayable state on PS4 and Xbox One consoles, unfulfilled promises - this is only a small part of the infopodovodov around the brainchild of CD Projekt RED. Against this background, it's a shame to criticize the friv game, because it's a good game developer Friv2Online with all its shortcomings. Well, it's time for us to share our impressions about Cyberpunk 2077.
Forums are abuzz, Sony is taking Cyberpunk 2077 off the PS Store, disgruntled players are requesting refunds and posting videos of ridiculous bugs. Who's to blame? Both the developers and their audience.
The former have obviously taken on too much. Ambitions did not match the possibilities, and as a result, some mechanics had to be cut out of the game (it's normal for development), and what remained does not work as it should.
CD Projekt RED should have taken into account that the attention to the friv game will be more than close, and be more careful in making promises. Taking advantage of the huge credit of trust that was given to the friv game makers after The Witcher series, they were preparing an even bigger project and willingly kept in touch with the community. As a result, every piece of news about changing this or that content - for example, the removal of the subway, car tuning or running on the walls, which, according to the developers, broke the whole leveldesign - was received in a flurry.
Perhaps the authors should have chosen the approach used by Rockstar Games - to quietly develop the game, keeping gamers in the dark about its content and status, to limit themselves to a couple of trailers and not to make vain promises. Of course, it was important for CDPR to maintain the image of a "people's studio", but this ultimately backfired.
On the other hand, many players had high expectations for Cyberpunk 2077, having fantasized that it would be a mix of GTA, The Witcher, TES V: Skyrim and who knows what else, an undeniable masterpiece and a friv game of the generation. We made it up - we were disappointed ourselves. Of course, it's hard not to succumb to the wave of hype, when the friv game is talked about on every corner, but still it's better to critically perceive the future product in order not to feel frustration from the discrepancy between the desired and the actual. All the more so because the preconditions for a cautious attitude towards it were there.
Where the story with the problematic release of Cyberpunk 2077 will turn, is still unknown. CD Projekt RED will probably partially fix the situation: release patches, improve performance, announce story DLC. Well, and I will try to consider the game in isolation from the hype around it. So, what's waiting for us in the vibrant and adventurous Knight City?
A mercenary named Vee strives to achieve success in a huge metropolis, for the sake of which he takes on a variety of jobs - including, of course, illegal ones (in general, the concept of "legality" in Knight City is very relative).
There are three backstory options available to players - the Nomad, who arrives in the city for a better life; the Street Child, who wants to rise to the top of the underworld; and the Corporatist, who has fallen out of a job at a large corporation. In fact, it's an illusion of choice, as each option only affects a half-hour prologue, after which the story develops the same for everyone. Well, except that players will get unique branches in dialogs - for example, the "Child of the Streets" can insert a couple of lines in a conversation about urban gangs. More serious consequences from the choice of this or that backstory should not be expected.
Taking another order, Vee along with his partner Jackie infiltrate an expensive hotel to steal a certain chip. On the spot, the heroes witness the murder of the director of the influential corporation "Arasaka", and the very chip turns out to be in Vee's head - and as it turns out, it stores the consciousness of Johnny Silverhand, a rock star, anarchist and terrorist, who 50 years ago organized the explosion of a nuclear bomb in the main office of "Arasaka".
You won't be able to walk around with the chip for long: very soon the protagonist's personality will be superseded by Johnny's mind - not because he wants to, but because of the peculiarities of the chip. The mercenary will have to throw all his strength into solving the problem, and do it as soon as possible, because a simple antivirus will not do.
The story is one of Cyberpunk 2077's greatest strengths. It's well written, wonderfully staged, and generally logical in relation to its setting. The characters are memorable: Silverhand is a real, sorry, asshole; Judy is seemingly tough and hard but actually very vulnerable; even the AI Delamain turns out to be very interesting. By the way, be sure to complete the quest chain to find the "lost" cars from Delamain's taxi park - this adventure discouraged me with an unexpected reference to Portal.
There's not as much role-playing wagering here as I would have liked. Vee isn't Shepard, but rather Geralt, a hero with a set character, so there's no way to be rude left and right or, on the contrary, to be obligingly polite. This makes Cyberpunk 2077 not so much an RPG as an action friv game with role-playing elements, where you move along the rails without being able to turn or at least reshape the character's personality. I won't say that's a bad thing, but it's worth accepting that fact.
Relative freedom in dialogs only comes after pumping. Some answers require a character check: for example, Vee can threaten the interlocutor with force if the corresponding parameter exceeds, say, 10 points. This opens up some forks, but of course it doesn't affect the global development of the plot.
Similarly with the variability of the quests: you can act in the style of Deus Ex - you can break into the enemy's base with guns drawn, use stealth and find a way around, become a hacker and hack into tracking devices and enemies remotely. But as a result, with few exceptions, you'll arrive at the same quest's denouement. Some stories may intertwine with each other, and the completion of secondary missions indirectly affects the dialog and events of the main story, but this influence is minor, and mostly serves as a fleeting reminder of the fate of actors we've previously met.
Nevertheless, despite these shortcomings, I repeat - the story in Cyberpunk 2077 is excellent, and the scenes are staged in such a way that other developers of first-person games should learn from CD Projekt RED: there are no "talking heads", and the characters move actively, gesticulate vividly, do not shy away from the mat, which in this friv game was very appropriate - and how do you think they talk on the streets?
Knight City falls in love with itself. Both day and night, the metropolis looks amazing, with its ubiquitous advertising, sky-piercing high-rises, and the contrast between wealthy neighborhoods and slums. It attracts the eye even when V is outside the city - the towering advertising panels are clearly visible in the Wasteland, and the mountains of garbage are a reminder of the unsightly side of human civilization.
The city is big - there are wide highways, where it is so pleasant to ride a motorcycle, and narrow alleys, where you can run into gopniks, and street restaurants, and the neighborhood with the "talking" name of Chpok Street, and much more. Knight City is exactly what a metropolis in cyberpunk setting should be - noisy, dirty, futuristic, repulsive and attractive. The developers have hidden a lot of pass-hacks and flooded the city with activities that make your eyes go wild.
We should warn you at once: not all the quests in Cyberpunk 2077 are equally interesting. By and large, it makes sense to pay attention only to the yellow icons, behind which lie the main and additional quests. Blue icons hide optional skirmishes, which are worth closing only for the sake of experience and money, and even then - at will. Moreover, behind the "yellow" point of interest can be a boring task a la "go - kill".
At the same time, very quickly comes to realize that the city is just a fiction, a picture. There is nothing to do outside of missions. Its inhabitants are statisticians, who react sluggishly to the player and his actions. The maximum they can do is to curse Vee when they collide, run away or crouch down if a firefight starts. Dialogs between NPCs are looped, characters and cars disappear into thin air, and there are no hints on the daily routine. They are interesting to watch only in the context of the "here and now" moment - for example, when you enter a club and overhear a conversation between prostitutes, which is played out in front of you only in this time and place.
However, once again, it's impossible not to fall in love with the city. It's beautiful, big and very atmospheric. You just have to make yourself believe in it, be fooled by its shaky realism and close your eyes to the details that confuse you. Which, obviously, not everyone will want to do - and they'll be right.
Even the cheapest "car" in the game looks very good. What to speak about sports cars, the best models of which cost hundreds of thousands of eurodollars? Talented people worked on the design of cars, and in each of the cars you want to sit, look around, check what it can do.
Unfortunately, as soon as you press the W key, you realize that you do not really want to drive local variations of Plotva. The driving model here is very mediocre, the cars are unruly and hard to get used to. Of course, this is not a racing friv game, and you will spend much less time behind the wheel than on your own, but still I would like to see a better realization of these mechanics.
No, not the one who runs the smart cabs and homing weapons in the friv game's lore - there's nothing wrong with him, but Delamaine, as noted above, turned out to be a very interesting character.
But the intelligence of ordinary NPCs and enemies is disappointing. The former are incapable of the simplest actions, such as driving around a car left in the middle of the street. The latter demonstrate rudiments of tactics, but no more than that. They are able to hide in shelters, throw grenades and remotely hack into Vee, but they are quite easy to deceive, you can easily hide from them, so the battles are not seriously challenging.
Increasing the difficulty will make the enemies tougher but not smarter, turning them into sponges for bullets, so I recommend avoiding the maximum difficulty level at least the first time to save yourself from having to spend a long time picking on bandits, taking off a measly percentage of health with headshots. Hopefully the AI issues will be fixed in the upcoming patches.
Most of the missions in the friv game are reduced to battles in one way or another. There are a lot of weapons here, slots can hold up to three firearms or melee tools, and another slot is reserved for hand enhancements - "gorilla fists", "mantis blades" and so on.
Guns bang confidently: a volley from a shotgun will topple the enemy, and a shot from a sniper rifle will remove most of the health, or even empty it at once. Weapons are divided into levels of rarity, from "simple" to "legendary", they can be crafted, pumped up and customized with modules - install an advanced sight, equip with non-lethal bullets and so on. Guns will have to be changed frequently, and they accumulate in the inventory with astonishing speed: after each skirmish, "vacuuming" the battlefield, you have to spend time on sorting the found items, deciding what to keep, what to dismantle, and what to sell.
By the way, the inventory here is not very convenient, is sharpened for mouse control, and not always intuitive. This, however, applies not only to the management of items, but also to other elements of the interface. You can get lost among the tabs, consumables are similar to each other, and with the quest log I was not able to figure out at once: at first it seemed that messages about cars available for purchase are not marked in the list of tasks.
Returning to the combat system - this is probably the second factor after the story, for which I want to praise the friv game unconditionally. Yes, the combat is not fully balanced, there are "imba" guns and frankly unnecessary gadgets, but it fulfills its task - to bring pleasure - to the fullest extent.
But RPG elements are not so lucky. Vee is pumped by basic characteristics and abilities. The first are the usual RPG strength, intelligence, technique and so on. The more points invested in a characteristic, the better the skills associated with it: for example, strength affects athleticism, melee, and destruction. In addition, characteristics, as noted above, open up additional response options in some dialogs.
Abilities are Vee's active and passive skills, which are divided into branches by skill. For example, the aforementioned athleticism branch contains 22 skills, which include increasing carrying capacity, reducing damage received, increasing armor, and so on. By investing the skill points you receive when leveling up, you pump your character in one direction or another.
And not all of these branches are equally useful. For example, in the stealth branch there are almost unused skills, such as immunity to poison or knife throwing.
I found the intelligence branch the most valuable, as it reveals the hero's existence in the cyberpunk world - the hacking skills you want to actively use in battle. Vee literally sends viruses into the brains of opponents that can deprive them of sight or the ability to move - and after that, who is still interested in stealth? Of course, you can emphasize the use of firearms, blades and so on, make the hero universal or develop in a particular direction, but you should expect that some abilities are not as good as others.
In addition, Vee can enhance her body with implants that can be purchased from local merchants. Each of them has a different set of goods, so it makes sense to go through all the stores. Augmentations will allow you to, for example, perform a double jump, increase your health reserve, use "gorilla fists". It's only a pity that almost all of them, except for weapon implants for hands, are not displayed visually on the character's body.
But not everyone will be able to enjoy the beautiful graphics. On PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles the project is almost unplayable, and on PlayStation 5, working on backwards compatibility, is played in 1080p and shows a weak picture. On Xbox Series X the situation is better, but not much. Owners of next-gen consoles will have to wait for the friv game to be adapted to their platforms.
MS users are luckier. Here Cyberpunk 2077 looks like a real nextgen - especially if you enable RTX effects and set the maximum graphics settings. However, even on an average system by modern standards the game looks very decent. But the requirements to the computer are not modest, so you often have to sacrifice part of the effects for the sake of a stable high frame rate per second.
The detailing of faces is impressive, you want to look at the cars both inside and outside, and study each room in detail, noting many details. It is noticeable that a lot of time and effort has been put into the game.
And how it sounds! My advice - play with good headphones to enjoy the gorgeous surround sound, the rumbling of cars, the thunder of gun shots and the music coming from everywhere. Cyberpunk 2077 has a great soundtrack, and I often didn't even want to finish the battles - so cool are the "battle" songs here. And that's not to mention the tracks on the radio, in bars and nightclubs.
Yes, the game is full of them. Starting from "T-poz" and getting stuck in objects, ending with cars sleeping in front of your nose, AI disabling and, unfortunately, broken quests. In my playthrough, the latter fate did not even pass the story missions, which was cured by restarting the game. And it is good that only restarting - it is not excluded that some of the quests can break irrevocably.
It is expected - in such a large-scale project with a lot of interconnected mechanics it is simply impossible to do without bugs. You can laugh at some bugs. Others are annoying: I was annoyed by the need to cut circles around the car of a fixer with the body of a criminal, who had to be handed over to fulfill the order. In the end I had to give up and drive away, resigned to the failure of the task. Conclusion - we need to wait for patches.
It is difficult to give a clear assessment of Cyberpunk 2077. In fact, in front of us - the version from early access: the game can already be passed, but the authors have a lot of work to do to bring it to the ideal state. That's why I'm evaluating the friv game with a small advance, based on the studio's name and keeping in mind the situation with The Witcher 3, which was just as buggy at release and eventually received a lot of updates that fixed the situation.
Is Cyberpunk 2077 worth buying now? If you can't wait to play - yes, you should: interesting story, atmospheric city and pleasant shooting will compensate some of the project's shortcomings. However, you should temper your expectations and be patient - maybe the game will not be as good as you imagined.