CYBERPUNK 2077 REVIEW

It's been a little over eight and a half years since Cyberpunk 2077 was announced. For the majority of the time, developer-publisher CD Projekt told us we could expect it when it's ready, and not a moment sooner. Unfortunately, it isn't. Cyberpunk 2077 has finally arrived, thunderous and yellow, after months of reported 'death march' crunch - enforced overtime extended repeatedly to shifting deadlines - and sadly it shows.

Availability: Out now on PC, PS4 and Xbox One, next-gen versions to follow next year
Even putting the human cost aside, it is an enormous shame. As much as the excitement has been at times irresponsibly over-fanned, Cyberpunk 2077 is a game of vast ambition. It's driven by a core of characters wonderfully written and performed, a story of genuine layer, momentum and depth, a technical feat of immersive decision-making, and pumping, sim-inspired action. But the undeniable potential is drowning under the tidal wave of little issues. An uncharacteristic carelessness to the finer points, some pervasive immaturity of thought, and distracting, recurring bugs leave Cyberpunk 2077 as a game in conflict: a world of unmatched detail, in dire need of attention.

After almost a decade in the oven, Cyberpunk 2077 is now finally available for users everywhere to play and even stream via Google Stadia. Reviews have been pouring in with near universal appraise for the game's production values and virtual world while slamming the laundry list of initial bugs. One or two "bad" review scores are inevitable for a title of this size, but the review from Gamespot has struck a nerve with gamers not for its final score but for the author's seemingly lethargic attitude toward the games cyberpunk themes and activities.

The unpopular 40-minute long Gamespot video discussing Cyberpunk 2077 in detail was uploaded two days ago and it was only this morning that the comments section was disabled. Upvoted user responses at the time attacked the reviewer Kallie Plagge for, in her own words, "not being interested in typical combat" or "not fully exploring" the weapons system which are all major gameplay elements of the title. At one point, the reviewer complained about avoiding a side quest involving fistfights because she "didn't want to do brawling" and that she wasn't familiar with "half the things" in her inventory because of the massive scope of the game.

A major downside to the game according to Plagge reads:

"The incorporation of different cultures and backgrounds is wildly inconsistent, from good to inaccurate to downright offensive"

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, of course, but this appears to have been a mismatch between game and reviewer. Perhaps a writer who was more willing to fully dive into all aspects of the gameplay and explore the dystopian open-world cyberpunk streets would have been a better fit to review the CD Projekt Red title for Gamespot.

In fact, everyone in Cyberpunk 2077 is barely keeping it together. The plot is some straight-up Paul Verhoeven - late '80s edge, future dystopia, gore - and through the cloud of guts and technobabble it sizzles and cracks with raucous momentum. It's paced impeccably, balancing the techno-action-crime-thriller narrative with an uncanny ability to slow things down. There's a narrative game buried in Cyberpunk 2077's noise in fact, as it becomes clearer with each lengthy, intimate conversation between the carnage. Where other games of its kind would give you a minute or less for the perfunctory heart-to-heart, Cyberpunk gives you hours, talking over childhood and life as you stake out some joint for a heist. Talking belonging and personhood and the homeliness of love in the desert. Talking identity with yourself, Keanu Reeves cast ingeniously against type as an atomic arsehole stuffed into the back of your head, loveable and vile.

Cyberpunk 2077 is not just a narrative game, of course. Maybe it's worse off for that, but there are other places where it shines almost as bright. Combat itself is simple, almost alarmingly so. Blades are more or less quick attack, block, or heavy attack, for instance, like Skyrim with a hand behind your back - and it's utterly chaotic. But it's fun, fluid, ridiculous, after you desensitize yourself to the puerility of the gore. After a long while, the guns do warm up to the more excessive kind that Cyberpunk 2077's tone requires, and the stealth and hacking aren't full immersive sim stuff - the depth of physics just isn't there - but they are varied, and the sandbox full of toys.

The impression here is a lack of care - maybe a lack of time to give it care - and it persists. Driving for instance is pretty poor, with motorbikes' turning circles like trucks and again just the little things missing. Notice in GTA how, at high speeds, the minimap zooms out, giving you a view of where you'll need to turn up ahead. In Cyberpunk 2077 you're past the turning before you know it's there.

The UI, in particular the world map, is dreadful. Across the blood-red smear are hundreds upon hundreds of exclamation marks. Some of them are for missions you've received, some of them aren't - there's no way to tell without hovering over each one, and so there's no at-a-glance readability to the world. You can't plan your exploration in any meaningful way, and so you end up relying on just completing the missions you already have. And those will, inevitably, come via your phone.

Honestly, it's a dilemma. Technical issues are often passing, but what lingers is the lack of readiness, in the wider sense. The lack of requisite care. The story is a marvel, as is the sheer, red mist hostility of the world that houses it. The promised depth of systems are there, but mishandled. The maturity - and recall CD Projekt describing Cyberpunk, on announcement, as "a mature RPG for a mature audience" - is often not. Maturity in the immature sense, maybe: the teenage idea of it, that 'maturity' equals Rated M and can be found in nakedness, coarseness, blood and guts, when in actuality it's closer to something like the forced perspective gained from time. My lingering impression of Cyberpunk 2077 is of a game that's shouting over itself, relentlessly at odds with its own creative voice. Amidst it all, the nuance that does exist in Cyberpunk 2077, the intense, intoxicating humanity at its heart, is so nearly engulfed by all the noise. But I think I can still hear it, just about.