Keeping up with my trend of coming late to the big games (and thereby getting a good deal), I picked up Cyberpunk 2077 for about $30 from the Playstation Store. I did so with not a small amount of trepidation: while hardly a die-hard gamer, I had seen plenty of bad press about the early releases of the game, with some people demanding their money back as the game was basically unworkable. I knew that the producers had worked to ‘fix’ the game, and I was running it off the PS, rather than PC, so I was willing to give it a shot!
It’s a great game.
I’ll say that again. It’s not a perfect game. Not by a long shot. There are peculiarities, and frustrations, and some bugs – though thankfully, nothing that I’ve come across in more than 100 hours that is game-breaking. But, in sheer terms of storytelling, of scope and scale, it’s a great game. I can’t remember a recent game that was as meticulously plotted – and funny. Part of that is down to the mythos that the game taps into (Cyberpunk was a TTRPG, and it’s spawned a lot of computer games, too, some good and others… not so), which is rich, evocative, and perhaps a bit concerning, too (there have been some well-founded criticisms of cyberpunk – as a genre – being derivative and prejudiced). And part of it is down to the bewildering charisma of Johnny Silverhand, the main characters ‘partner’, voiced by Keanu Reaves. But mostly it’s down to the hard work of constructing a fascinating story, made up of three interwoven tales, and then filling it with gritty, difficult characters. There are prostitutes – and a gang that’s basically a union for the streetwalkers. There are gangasters and wannabes. Business people and bad cops. Bar owners. Nomads, drunks and druggies. And the story weaves them all together in a rich, surprising and exciting tale. To give you an idea of the depth of the story, I was 10 hours into the game before I got to the title screen!
Normally, I get a but frustrated with the ‘Get the quest – go there – kill/ steal the thing – return for reward’ linear nature of the quests in games like this. And there are plenty of those kinds of quests in this game – usually called NCPD scanner hustles. But the side quests and main quests are far more creative. My personal favourite was the one that involved knocking an Antigravity carrier out of the sky with an EMP blast.
And Night City, the main setting for the game, looks brilliant, too. Whether it’s daytime or night-time, the developers of the game got it exactly right; you can almost smell the rubbish in the street, and the glow of the neon lights at night look fantastic, especially through the rain. It’s like Bladerunner come to life.
So what’s wrong with it? Some of the controls are a bit off. The calibration between looking at something, and being able to interact with it seems just a touch off. You adjust quickly, but it’s a bit weird. The inventories are a bit of mess. Again, you work it out, but it’s like the logic is just a bit different to what you expect. Some of the hacking mini games get a bit samey after a while. And so too with some of the smaller missions.
But overall? The game is held together by an environment that is stunning to look at, fun to navigate, and has a story that makes you want to follow it to the end. Great.