Sunday 20 December 2020

Cyberpunk 2077 - Thoughts so far, on console.

 














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.

Wednesday 9 December 2020

Yakuza: Like a Dragon Review - Persona 5, but with organised crime.

 












By Sam Coles:

The Yakuza series is a game franchise I have fallen in love with over the past few years, it is a series that has always struggled to gain an audience in the west. However in 2017 its popularity exploded onto the scene with Yakuza 0, and here we are now with a new instalment which is a soft reboot of the series. We no longer play as the hardened veteran The Dragon of Dojima and the game is no longer a brawler, this time it is a turned based role playing game. Does this work for this franchise? To put in short terms, yes!












The story starts off in the year 1999 where we take control of a young Yakuza member named Ichiban Kasuga, or Ichi as he is affectionately called by his friends. He is ready for the new century; however things take a turn for the worse as his boss asks him to take the blame for a murder so he can protect one of his most trusted captains. Ichi is then sent to prison for 20 years and expects a fan fare welcome as he gets out, but no such luck so he tracks down his old boss. Unfortunately he is not welcomed back with open arms, he is shot and left for dead but fortunately he is nursed back to health by a homeless man named Nanba who was once a nurse. They slowly form a bond and become close friends as Nanba shows him the ropes of surviving the homeless lifestyle, where he then helps him go on a quest to find out why his former employers turned on him.

Like the other Yakuza games the story is very dark but has goofy moments, however in this game there are more goofy and fun moments which I welcome with open arms. They do include English dub in this game, but I’m sorry it’s not very good so I stuck to Japanese with English subtitles. Ichi is a loveable character he is extremely loyal, but he is a bumbling idiot and I can’t help but love him because of it. His Japanese voice actor brings this across more than his English counterpart, and it is brilliant as he references Dragon Quest for the 50th time.












This time the gameplay goes into a new direction as this is a soft reboot of the series, it is no longer a brawler but a turn based RPG. Now I know this would turn a lot off and I’m usually one of those people, but unlike other turn based games there is more interactivity then one would expect. If you are familiar with Persona 5 then the UI layout will be instantly familiar to you, with the buttons for different menus splayed out on the left hand side of the screen. Think of it as a hybrid between Persona 5 and Paper Mario (yes hear me out), you have the standard fare of turn based attacks but you can block, dodge and increase damage with attacks with will timed button presses. It’s great as it makes the combat feel less stagnate compared to other games within the genre.

Like other Yakuza games there are slew of side stories and activities to partake in, where you can play classic arcade games, drink, play darts, pool and more than I can handle sometimes. Again like usual it is a nice change of pace from the main scenario, and again is always oddly engaging to take part in these side stories and activities as they can be stranger than what you find in the main story.












Presentation wise it looks fantastic and I was playing on a standard Xbox One, the Dragon Engine once again shines showing a huge amount of detail. What I like is the presentation with Ichi’s over active imagination when you engage in fights, enemies will transform into more fantastical characters as he thinks that he is in a real world RPG. It’s a nice touch and adds to Ichi’s childlike buffoonery. The pure spectacle of the combat is what truly shines with the visuals, with particle effects flying everywhere when Ichi winds up a punch before hitting them like a sledgehammer. Not only that the summons are a joy to watch, which these can range from lobsters attacking your foes to Goro Majima running down a skyscraper as he throws thousands of knives which then electrify the ground. It’s over the top and that is what makes both the gameplay and presentation excellent.

Are there any issues with the game? Well to be honest nothing really got in the way of my experience too much, but I suppose I should talk about the one issue that sticks out like a hairy crisp in a bowl and that is the framerate. The framerate does stutter from the time to time on the Xbox One platform, this happens mostly in combat when particle effects take up the majority of the screen not only that it happens in the cutscenes too. This doesn’t happen too often and honestly I have myself to blame for playing it on a 7 year old piece of hardware, but worth mentioning.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a fantastic step in a different direction for the series, it still retains the dark serious crime drama narrative but this time turns the goofy metre all the way up. The turn based combat really suits the series and is a breath of fresh air, as we have had the same brawler combat for about 15 years at this point. Ichi is an endearing character where he is extremely loyal, but he is also a bumbling idiot which makes him more lovable. If you are looking for a J-RPG with a crime drama flare, then this is the game for you.    

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