Cyberpunk 2077
CD Projekt
As a gamer, you’d have to had been living under a rock if you didn’t catch all the hype train that is Cyberpunk 2077. It’s simply one of the most highly anticipated games in the history of gaming. The hype reached such levels that some people were practically doing backflips every time a new preview video was posted online. So now that it’s been released, the question becomes: Did the game actually live up to the massive expectations that folks heaped onto it? In my opinion, yes.
First off—for the uninitiated, the setting of Cyberpunk 2077 is Night City, a gigantic megalopolis that is just teaming with gangs, crime, drugs, sex, cybernetic implants, and wanton violence. You step into the shoes of a character named V, whom you can fully customize at the beginning of the game. It sort of reminds me of a cross between a Grand Theft Auto game (as far as the open-world aspect) but set within a Deus Ex-like universe.
There’s a big main storyline you can follow, but if you are to get the most out of the experience, you’ll want to take on the game’s various side missions as well. As a first-person action RPG, you’ll mainly see things from V’s point of view, but things will usually switch to a third-person vantage point when you hop into vehicles.
One of the things I really like about Cyberpunk 2077 is that Night City feels truly alive. Events are going on that are independent of you—so for instance you can get caught up in different random shootouts or races that you happen upon. The various NPCs that wander around look great and seem to have their own mannerisms—you can even follow each of them as they go on about their business.
You can take different approaches to how you tackle each mission or job you take on, depending on what suits your playstyle. All of the Rambo types out there can simply go in guns blazing, but others may want to take more subtle approach and utilize stealth. Unfortunately, the game’s combat is reminiscent of Ubisoft’s Division titles. In other words, expect enemies to soak up an inordinate amount of weapons’ fire before they go down, at least in most cases.
Cyberpunk 2077 offers some pretty decent RPG elements. You’ll do the typical RPG thing of earning XP, which gives you attribute points or perk points that you use to upgrade particular skills or specific perks within those skills. What I liked about this type of system is that it gives you a lot of freedom to build your character up to be what suits your playstyle. I found both the gameplay and XP systems to be pretty good and fun to tinker around with.
Visually, Cyberpunk 2077 looks absolutely stunning. Even the smallest things, like dials and nobs within a vehicle, have astounding levels of detail. This is definitely the best looking open-world game out there right now. Its optimization also seems to be in pretty good shape and I didn’t experience much in the way of frame-loss during my play throughs.
I’ve heard that this game is a bit of a mess in terms of bugs and glitches, but I hardly experienced anything of the sort, certainly nothing game-breaking or immersion-killing. However, I would suggest playing Cyberpunk 2077 on at least a mid-level gaming PC, since it does have some pretty stringent requirements as far as hardware is concerned.
In the end, I feel as though Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the best (if not, the best) open-world RPGs out there. When its developers, CD Projekt, manage to fix and patch more of the various bugs and glitches it has, it could definitely be one of the greatest titles in PC gaming history.
RATING: 9.2/10
Cyberpunk 2077 has some pretty amazing graphics so you’ll need a pretty beefy gaming PC or gaming laptop in order to play it at a decent framerate. Therefore, you may just want to invest in a superior gaming rig:
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