Cyberpunk 2077

Sounds like this big game has come out. Getting pretty good reviews, but it sounds like it's coming out very, very hot and buggy as fuck. More noir than cyberpunk narrative plot, is what I'm getting, though those genres are somewhat related. Also, Keanu is really good? This should stop surprising me.

I couldn't *believe* this though (also, love that it caused people to send the author epileptic seisure inducing videos to try to kill them. Love to be a gamer). How does stuff like this pass cert on console? I know on PC basically anything goes but...

www.gameinformer.com/2020/12/07/cyberpunk-2077-epileptic-psa

"When "suiting up" for a BD, especially with Judy, V will be given a headset that is meant to onset the instance. The headset fits over both eyes and features a rapid onslaught of white and red blinking LEDs, much like the actual device neurologists use in real life to trigger a seizure when they need to trigger one for diagnosis purposes. If not modeled off of the IRL design, it's a very spot-on coincidence, and because of that this is one aspect that I would personally advise you to avoid altogether. When you notice the headset come into play, look away completely or close your eyes. This is a pattern of lights designed to trigger an epileptic episode and it very much did that in my own personal playthrough."

I'm going to play it sometime in maybe the next year or two when it has been polished and I get a next gen console, so I'll probably check out of this thread when the spoilers come in.

It's out Thursday. Until then my question is not going to be answered, which is how it runs on the consoles that everyone actually has. Aside from that it sounds like what you'd expect. A buggy open world rpg with passable shooting that's massively in love with it's own coolness.

I pre-ordered it and have it downloaded on PC. Supposedly it unlocks at some point tomorrow, maybe Thursday, I don't know.

I am certain that it will have issues, but I have looked forward to this game for a long time, and GOG has given me so many free games over the years, I figured I'd jump in on day one for a change.

My expectations are of a futuristic Skyrim style game and I doubt I'll be disappointed in that regard. I don't expect the second coming of Gaming or anything. I also expect it to get patched up in the coming weeks.

As for the epilepsy thing... that is really wild. It's easy to wonder "how the hell did no one catch this?" Well I bet someone said something, numerous times. This game had to be an immense undertaking. And you know they'll patch that part out. Kind of crazy that Microsoft or Sony didn't stop it, though.

Yeah, I think this thing is going to be a fucking trainwreck on the base PS4 that I have. I'll wait till next gen. When I got around to the Witcher 3 a few years after it was released, it was a pretty polished experience so I'm fine with it.

I recently pre-ordered the PC version, and should get it before Christmas. It's usually easy enough to apply patches to a PC game, so my biggest concern is actually information overload and maybe an overly complicated user interface. Information overload is thematically appropriate for the setting, but might add a degree of difficulty to gameplay. I have seen a couple of demo videos for the game, and it appeared that there are some fairly complicated options in combat, like hacking nearby tech and using it against your opponent in a fight. I don't want to frantically attempt to navigate complex menus in real time while some simulated enemy is stabbing me in the chest. I thought that I read somewhere that Witcher 3 initially had an excessively complicated interface that they eventually simplified for the players.

I come with news of the future!

I spent the last two hours playing Cyberpunk 2077. There is a LOT of tutorial / intro stuff. I *think* I'm at the point where I could start doing whatever jobs I wanted, but it also makes it quite obvious what the main thing to do is.

So far it doesn't feel as open as a game like Skyrim, and I'd call it more like first person Grand Theft Auto so far. But with dialog choices. How much those choices matter, I could not say. So far I have only had one dialog choice show up that was due to which of the 3 "backgrounds" you can choose. I chose Corpo, which means I start the game working for a huge arms corporation. I expected this to have more of a bearing, but so far it has not.

Graphics are great, but I am lucky enough to have a card that does ray tracing. Mirrors are buggy; my character was wearing a hat but it didn't show in the mirror, and neither did my hair!

I bought the game on GOG.com since the devs own it and they get all the money. They included some custom gog / witcher gear, including a cool Witcher leather jacket. BUT it's totally useless, since by the time I actually got the jacket, I had already procured a jacket that provided more armor. This game is weird like that; clothing has armor levels, and sadly, dressing stupid provides more protection than dressing cool. I had to ditch my leather pants for some basketball trunks. :/

hotseatgames wrote: This game is weird like that; clothing has armor levels, and sadly, dressing stupid provides more protection than dressing cool. I had to ditch my leather pants for some basketball trunks. :/

Kevlar Booty Shorts?


(25 minute mark if it doesn't start there automatically)

I just watched the giant bomb quicklook and it doesn't look super impressive, to be totally honest.

The city itself is damn impressive. Blade Runner on a sunny day impressive.

Thoughts so far, with roughly 6 hours play (who needs sleep, anyway):

- It feels a lot like Witcher III.

- You get to make your own character, and can now be male/female/trans (I guess). There are a few default characters, you can tweak them to your heart;'s content, or lean on the random character button. My experience with the random character button was that they were all fucking hideous. You can pick male/female/covered genitals, independent of the character's male/female physiognomy. And it's the first game I've played that gives you a "Penis Size" slider.

- Its map looks like technicolor vomit at first, but it's actually just like the Witcher III map. Vendors, places to look, etc.

- At least for me right now, my sword is much deadlier than ranged weapons. I wasted a couple of hours last night fighting with just ranged weapons. I died a lot.

- If there's a counterpart to the Witcher III "Make food last a half-hour" skill, I haven't found it yet. That makes combat a little deadlier.

- They did add "Sneak up on the mob and kill it," a'la Shadow of Mordor.

- So far, cutscenes are done in the game engine. So you can be staring out the car window while having a conversation.

- I'm playing mouse and keyboard, and that fucking car is a great big PITA. Maybe there's a way to drive it with a mouse, and I just don't know it yet. Or I just suck at it. I've been playing it like I did Witcher III; I fast travel as close as I can, then run to where I want to go.

- A lot of what you do in Witcher III is replaced by other mechanisms. You have hacker skills, which can give you offensive, defensive, and searching skills. You can pick and choose what you like, but you are limited by the capacity of your hacking deck (or whatever it's called).

- You also have a really cool mechanism where you can play back an audio/video recording to search for clues. The game drags you through a 15-20 minute tutorial on it, but it's kind of neat.

I'm liking it so far. I can see (or think I'm seeing) it's Witcher III bones. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

Gary Sax wrote: I just watched the giant bomb quicklook and it doesn't look super impressive, to be totally honest.

I was hoping for a sci-fi version of The Witcher 3 in scope and depth, but this does not seem like it is that.

hotseatgames wrote: The city itself is damn impressive. Blade Runner on a sunny day impressive.

Yeah, so far the Witcher III outdoors (which I thought was awesome) is replaced by the bustle of the city.

Disgustipater wrote: I was hoping for a sci-fi version of The Witcher 3 in scope and depth, but this does not seem like it is that.

I would argue that it has Witcher 3 guts. I don't know what the rest of the map looks like, because I'm literally locked into one zone of the world map. Its quest system is very reminiscent of Witcher 3; there are main quests and side quests, and they are segregated. They don't have level numbers now, but will say easy, moderate, or hard difficulty. I haven't run into anything as dramatic/melodramatic as the Witcher 3 storyline, but I'm only a day's play into it.

Important cyberpunk news this morning

Am I the only one that finds the "cyberpunk" setting to be utterly predictable? Always a packed dystopian urban landscape populated by downtrodden plebs from whose ranks a champion rises to challenge the always shadowy corporatocracy who inevitably exists to further the interests of shadowy rich guys. Always with cybernetic parts enhancement & neon film noir tropes & "hacking" & floating automobiles & cyborg bad guys & eternal night. Same setting, same roles, same methods, same technobabble.

I'll give a pass to the kids who never watched Bladerunner or read Neuromancer or played Netrunner, but otherwise I struggle to buy into the hype.