By Sam Coles:
Cyberpunk 2077 almost became a myth within the video game
industry, first announced in early 2013 (I wasn’t even 20) it disappeared as it
was used more of an elevation platform to announce The Witcher 3. Everything
was quiet until E3 of 2018 when CDPR finally showed off the game in motion,
well what we thought the game would play like but I’ll get into that later.
After delay and delay the game is finally in my hands on PS4, so is it a good
game? Yes and no, leaning more towards the no in terms of technical issues.
Just a disclaimer this is not a full review as I have yet to finish the game,
more of a first impressions of the game, so let’s get into it.
Cyberpunk 2077 takes places in Night City during the titular
year where you play as a mercenary named V, where he is out to make his mark in
the city. V can have three distinct backgrounds which will effect dialogue, he
can be a Nomad someone who lives in the Badlands outside of Night City, Street
Kid where he gets involved within the gang culture and Corpo where he is a
corporate slave to the world. Anyway he is tasked with obtaining a special chip
called “The Relic”, however everything goes wrong, his friend gets killed and
is shot in the head and left for dead in a landfill. The story is very engaging
and well written the voice acting across the board is leaps and bounds of what
we got with The Witcher 3, V and his interaction with Johnny Silverhand (played
by Keanu Reeves) is excellent and adds a bit of comedic flare.
Now let’s get into the gameplay and technical side of
things, I will be discussing issues before and after the 1.04 patch. Let’s
start with gameplay, as fun as this game is it’s not anything innovative as
they were touting within their marketing. It’s an open world game with the same
stock standard mission structure that we have seen from the past seven years,
and there is nothing wrong with that at all but the way it has been presented I
was expecting something more.
Combat is meaty and satisfying; guns have an excellent
weight to them when you pull the trigger coupled with the fantastic sound
design for each firearm. I wish I could say for the same for melee combat which
is rather pathetic, I feel like I am waving a wet fish at someone’s face and
not a sword that could cut through steel and the same goes for the stealth takedowns.
You can go silent which is serviceable, but the stealth takedowns are not good
as clothing will clip through your arm when you have someone in a headlock and
when you snap someone’s neck it sounds like a bag of pork scratchings.
The game is not only about shooting as this is an RPG at the
end of the day, in most instances you can solve scenarios in a diplomatic
manner with branching paths with the dialogue. I like this as it makes you
think on your toes as you have to be careful with what you say, and makes a
nice change of pace of filling someone’s skull with cordite.
Now let’s tone down the positive and twist the dial to what
gets Sam’s knickers into a twist, let’s start with the massive sticking point
before the patches the framerate. I was very suspicious that CDPR showed no
footage of the base PS4 and Xbox One, and when the game came out it was abundantly
clear why. The game when it came out and even with the 1.04 patch ran
abysmally, now I’m not talking about a framerate drop here and there we are
talking about framerates as low as 15 frames per second. The last time I
checked it is not 1997 and I’m not playing Goldeneye, for a 2020 release framerates
this low is unacceptable. I had to take a break when analysing the game
initially, the low frame rates were making me sick and that doesn’t happen with
me playing games.
Next are the bugs and glitches which were and still are
everywhere, with the initial release the textures were awful. Character models
would have horrendous pop in issues where they would look like plastic
figurines dipped in lava, and then their textures would pop back in as if they
realised “Oh sorry we’re late”. Car models also have the same issue, where
sometimes inside of the car would look like as if they are filled with bin
liners, coupled with the external paint work having the same issue.
Glitches also stem from your own character model and
animations, sometimes when you change your clothes (armour) V would suddenly be
nude in the specific area you would change. I don’t really want to be wondering
around Night City with my meat hanging out. Animations are bugged too where I
would be shooting someone with my fingers and hands, due to my gun failing to
load in my hand so I’m basically going bang with my own voice. Hilarious if it
was a joke feature, but it’s not it is immersion breaking.
I want to take the time in this section to add a bit of a
personal statement to this situation, as I feel rather disappointed in CDPR. It’s
not that game is terrible because it’s not when it is working, as it has a
solid foundation with its world and story. However I feel that CDPR completely
dropped the ball and they have lost a sizable trust from me, these are not the
same people I fell in love with in my late teens and early 20’s with The
Witcher 2 and 3. I hope they have learnt a big lesson from this, and take the
time to fix it and get it right. It is going to take more than a simple
apology.
To conclude I cannot recommend Cyberpunk in its current
state, the foundation is there but the execution is about as flaccid as a
battered sausage with no filling. The bugs, glitches and overall performance is
not good enough, this is not a hardware issue as there have been some great
looking games on the base PS4 this year. This is an optimisation issue, and I
hope CDPR are now taking the time to fix this, very disappointed and I hope they
will take the time next time.
