Cyberpunk 2077

[Anduin]

Of all the upcoming games in the next couple of years, I'm most excited about this one. The cyberpunk genre isn't my favourite, but I believe CDPR can deliver something on a par with Witcher 3. Maybe even better. I try not to get carried away with expectations, but I can't help it. Helps that in this case, they have the creator of the source material on board.

In the last year, I've been looking into the genre beyond just Shadowrun. I've watched the Blade Runner movies, the Matrix, reread Neuromancer and even Count Zero. I have the original Deus Ex game and Johnny Mnemonic to play and watch, which I swear I'll get around to. Funny, isn't it? I don't normally research games in this detail, but CP2077 has just grabbed me like that.

So, what are our hopes and fears? From what we've seen, what do you like and dislike?

[Danny Franks]

I love cyberpunk as a genre, but it's really easy to get lost in the weeds of technology and transhumanism, if a writer isn't careful. The humanity and warmth can be lost in the bleakness. I have decent faith that CD Projekt Red will get this right, because they imbued The Witcher games with so much life and personality.

The ambition for this one is staggering, and it looks like a mix of Deus Ex, GTA and Mass Effect, in terms of its scope and gameplay. Not exactly the easiest standards to live up to!

For a lot of new games, I tend to be very sceptical because it usually turns out that the single player experience is hurt by a focus on multiplayer, but I don't believe that will be the case with CDPR.

I just want something with a huge, sprawling storyline, but a keen focus on character and story, and I want to have a real attachment to my player character. That's something I find lacking in games by Bethesda - there's a big, interesting world to explore, but no one in it has any personality.

[Anduin]

9 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

For a lot of new games, I tend to be very sceptical because it usually turns out that the single player experience is hurt by a focus on multiplayer, but I don't believe that will be the case with CDPR.

Yeah. They've announced that this game will have a multiplayer component, but haven't elaborated much. So far it's all been on the SP. As a strict SP type, I don't care if multi ever appears or not.

[Danny Franks]

10 hours ago, Anduin said:

Yeah. They've announced that this game will have a multiplayer component, but haven't elaborated much. So far it's all been on the SP. As a strict SP type, I don't care if multi ever appears or not.

Agreed. A lot of people will moan about a multiplayer experience that feels tacked on, but to me that's actually a plus point. If I'm spending £50 or more on a game, I want to be getting my money's worth out of it. And if it's good, I'll also be willing to pay for DLC. CDPR's record with The Witcher games suggests they share that feeling.

[Anduin]

This is interesting. They've done some work on character creation.

Quote

And our character creation menu, for instance, compared to the last demo we now give you so many more options. For instance, you don’t choose your gender anymore. You don’t choose, ‘I want to be a female or male character’ you now choose a body type. Because we want you to feel free to create any character you want.

So you choose your body type and we have two voices, one that’s male sounding, one is female sounding. You can mix and match. You can just connect them any way you want. And then we have a lot of extra skin tones and tattoos and hairstyles. So we really want to give people the freedom to make their own character and play the way they want to play.

Some people are apparently up in arms about this. Like, their characters won't be real men, just identifying as such. Of course they aren't real, they're a collection of mindless animated pixels that obey instructions given through the controls. No matter what your character looks like, they'll never be more than that.

If a virtual creation looks and sounds like a man, then I say he virtually is. There's no point in getting carried away about these things. This is shaping up to be the best game of 2020, and I intend to enjoy it.

For that matter, I'm not opposed to transhumanism. The stranger the better.

[Anduin]

So we got some more footage.

They originally said it was going to be gameplay. They later cut it down to almost meaningless clips. If they'd shown the same situation from two different styles, that would have been good. Instead they chose different moments to highlight the different approaches, taking away any sense of meaning or purpose. This was just an exercise in timewasting. Bad form, CDPR.

[Anduin]

Delayed to 17 September. I have mixed feelings. It was originally going to launch the week of Mike Pondsmith's birthday, and I'm kind of surprised they're missing that date. Also, damnit, I want it now. On the other hand, I don't want an unpolished game, and don't want the devs to work themselves to burnout. For that matter, I was considering moving house and/or taking an international holiday. If I don't have the game to play, I have time to do those things properly.

[Anduin]

Delayed again. Bug-fixing and balancing. 19 November.

On the one hand, it'll now be coming after I move house. That's good. On the other, I wanted it sooner rather than later. And what have they been doing in the meantime? Night City Wire better blow my socks off.

[Anduin]

Okay, my socks stayed on. It was still good, though. I'm guessing everyone has seen Wire by now, but Kotaku Australia has assorted articles, 14 minutes of footage, and an art post that includes good pictures of both Judy and T-Bug. Worth checking out.

[Danny Franks]

I really don't mind the delays. Get the game right, don't released an unfinished product, like so many publishers do. And it will give me time to play The Last of Us Part II and the Final Fantasy VII remake. Oh, and Star Wars: Fallen Order.

I'm just glad it is actually coming out on the PS4, and they're not waiting for the PS5.

[Anduin]

Okay, the specs are out. I know the official recommedations, but what would the tech-heads here actually recommend? I'm guessing it'll be something beyond the CDPR recs.

[xaxat]

4 hours ago, Anduin said:

Okay, the specs are out. I know the official recommedations, but what would the tech-heads here actually recommend? I'm guessing it'll be something beyond the CDPR recs.

Unless you need to have it on day one, you can always wait until reviewers like Digital Foundry do their assessments of gameplay on a variety of hardware. 

In the end, I think it comes down to your expectations. If you regularly game at 1080p and are comfortable with 40-60 frame per second performance and don't need the highest visual effects, then I think you will be fine on their recommended specs. 

(Crosses fingers because my rig is right at the recommended specs.) 

 

[Anduin]

1 hour ago, xaxat said:

Unless you need to have it on day one, you can always wait until reviewers like Digital Foundry do their assessments of gameplay on a variety of hardware. 

In the end, I think it comes down to your expectations. If you regularly game at 1080p and are comfortable with 40-60 frame per second performance and don't need the highest visual effects, then I think you will be fine on their recommended specs. 

(Crosses fingers because my rig is right at the recommended specs.) 

 

I'll go for something over the recommended, but I won't be going for a 3,000 series card. I don't want to sell a kidney. Okay, someone else's. But unless someone volunteers, I'm thinking 2,000 series.

[xaxat]

9 hours ago, Anduin said:

I'll go for something over the recommended, but I won't be going for a 3,000 series card. I don't want to sell a kidney. Okay, someone else's. But unless someone volunteers, I'm thinking 2,000 series.

Take a look at the pricing for the 3000 first. Not only do they offer better performance than the twos, they are similarly priced. (Too everyone's surprise.) The 3080 outperforms the former flagship 2080ti and it's hundreds of dollars cheaper. I'll eventually upgrade to the 3070 which will retail for about $500. The current 2070s? About the same.

The problem is that the 3000s are either impossible to find (3080) or haven't been released yet (3070, which will also be impossible to find upon release.)

Another thing to consider is that AMD will be releasing a new GPU next month. Choice is always good!

[Anduin]

7 hours ago, xaxat said:

Take a look at the pricing for the 3000 first. Not only do they offer better performance than the twos, they are similarly priced. (Too everyone's surprise.) The 3080 outperforms the former flagship 2080ti and it's hundreds of dollars cheaper. I'll eventually upgrade to the 3070 which will retail for about $500. The current 2070s? About the same.

The problem is that the 3000s are either impossible to find (3080) or haven't been released yet (3070, which will also be impossible to find upon release.)

Another thing to consider is that AMD will be releasing a new GPU next month. Choice is always good!

Aha, thanks! God, tech is endlessly annoying. I can really see the appeal of consoles.

[xaxat]

I admit I was tempted to pick it up early, but I am so glad I waited to buy this game. PC sounds buggy at best and I've read that console is pretty much unplayable. 

[Anduin]

1 hour ago, xaxat said:

I admit I was tempted to pick it up early, but I am so glad I waited to buy this game. PC sounds buggy at best and I've read that console is pretty much unplayable. 

Yes, there are certainly a few PC bugs. My character's hair disappeared a couple of days ago and hasn't returned. Sometimes dialogue is delayed a few annoying moments. And I know I scanned one NPC in one quest, but the game isn't registering it. At least that's just a sidequest.

It's a good game, but it's not quite as good as it could be. On the other hand, I support ethical game development. I don't want the devs crunching themselves into the ground to fix every single little thing.

[starri]

9 hours ago, Anduin said:

It's a good game, but it's not quite as good as it could be. On the other hand, I support ethical game development. I don't want the devs crunching themselves into the ground to fix every single little thing.

I mean, CDPR still made them crunch, it was just a few months instead of a year.  

I haven't played much (PS4 here), and haven't noticed issues yet, but when your Day One patch is a big as the game...

I love, love love sci-fi RPGs, and was REALLY into the tabletop version (second edition, set in the distance future of...2020) when I was in high school.  Hearing "netrunner" and "cyberpsycho" in the opening narration just filled me with joy, and I was encouraged that CDPR had been attempting to course correct on their issues with homo- and transphobia.  

I'll withhold final judgment until we get some kind fix, although that's probably going to come in spurts.  I just think it's funny that this has turned out to be just as big of a clusterfuck (if not bigger) than Andromeda and Anthem.

[Danny Franks]

I won't be playing this until I get a PS5 next year. Hopefully by then the teething troubles will be done and the game will be the polished experience I really want it to be. 

I'm about a third of the way through the Final Fantasy VII remake (so about a twentieth of the way through the full game) and then have The Last of Us Part II and Spider-Man: Miles Morales to play, so I should be fine for the next few months.

But the problem with a lot of these big, massively hyped games is that they can't win - if they keep delaying release to fix bugs they get ridiculed by the gaming community for broken promises, but if they rush a release and it's buggy they get ridiculed for that as well. I long ago came to terms with the fact that most games, on the day of release, simply won't work like they're intended to, and just being patient while the developer figures things out makes me a much happier gamer.

[BetterButter]

Sony is pulling Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store and offering full refunds

[xaxat]

10 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

But the problem with a lot of these big, massively hyped games is that they can't win - if they keep delaying release to fix bugs they get ridiculed by the gaming community for broken promises, but if they rush a release and it's buggy they get ridiculed for that as well. I long ago came to terms with the fact that most games, on the day of release, simply won't work like they're intended to, and just being patient while the developer figures things out makes me a much happier gamer.

Another huge aspect are the investors. There's only so long that a studio/developer can push expected revenue down the road. 

I wonder if the fix for this is a bughunt or a major overhaul like Anthem/Fallout 76. . . 

I feel bad for the developers working on the console version. They went through crunch probably knowing that it wouldn't make a difference. The result was still going to be underbaked shit.

 

[Rushmoras]

Well, all console issues aside, the game was really not the game that was advertised all these years. On top of that, much of the game mechanics seems to be missing and/or roughcast. While the main and side-story might interest people, but the overall game is just... mediocre, if even that. It's hard for me to believe that these guys made Witcher 3 (or, maybe, since I don't follow what's going on in the gaming world, a new team was formed). Regardless, traffic mechanics are better in an eighteen year old Vice City! How about that 😀

[Chaos Theory]

Got  the game for Christmas.  It’s buggy as all hell.   But that is only it’s first problem.  It’s character system and crafting are stupid and kinda pointless.  I am not a huge gamer.  I maybe buy two or three games a year so I look for the kind of games I tend to enjoy.   RPGs with a good story.  I really liked Ted Dead Redemption 2.  Cyberpunk had potential. I really liked the lifestyle story choice wish it went  on long with or without Jackie before the storyline melded into the main plot.   Honestly the story isn’t bad I just can’t get a grasp on the actual gaming aspect of the game. 

[woffoukigritoi]

Played the game after the release of updates and fixes all the bugs and I will say that I liked the game

[Anduin]

4 hours ago, woffoukigritoi said:

Played the game after the release of updates and fixes all the bugs and I will say that I liked the game

I never saw many bugs, though obviously I can't speak for anyone else. However, as time went on the devs fixed one exploit I really liked. If you got the double jump legs, you could get into the Grand Imperial Mall by a side window. Funny thing, enemies don't spawn in there until that quest starts. Anyway, a couple of patches ago they put bars over the window.

Also, they removed stash access on motorbikes. I can understand why, real bikes don't have that much storage space. But it makes them useless, at least for my purposes. Also on vehicles, the minimap used to show the driving route to your goal, and now it's closer to a straight line. Finally, it feels like sneak got a little nerfed. The detection rate feels a little quicker than it used to be.

[xaxat]

Are the updates just bug fixes or are they changing the gameplay like Fallout 76 and No Man's Sky?

[Anduin]

43 minutes ago, xaxat said:

Are the updates just bug fixes or are they changing the gameplay like Fallout 76 and No Man's Sky?

Mostly the first, but there've been a few changes. Two new ugly starter jackets, a new car you only receive half way through, respec option, new appearance for Johnny. Nothing exciting.

[BetterButter]

Patch 1.5 & Next-Generation Update — list of changes

[Anduin]

11 minutes ago, BetterButter said:

Patch 1.5 & Next-Generation Update — list of changes

Just from reading, my feelings are mixed. They made easy harder? Seriously? If I wanted to play Dark Souls, I would. Did anyone think this through beforehand? There's a reason I play on easy. Because it's easy, you fuckwits! Considering how the sneak got nerfed a couple of patches ago, this is a very bad idea.

They 'improved' handling on some cars? Uh huh. There's only one car and one bike with decent handling to start with. My bet, they made it worse.

Muzzle breaks. Suppressors? I never bothered with those. Sure they made sniping easier, but regular combat harder. Also, a couple of new guns? Maybe. I always found assault rifles had more ammo distributed in the world, and the longest scopes.

New apartments and appearance changes are good. Sadly the apartments are only to rent. Unless by one-time fee they mean the rental never expires. As for appearance, yes. Too often, what looks cool in the character creator looks different in the actual game.

Have to say, I'm overall skeptical about this patch.

And frankly, I played though the story twice. That really felt like enough. Not one I especially enjoyed. I'll check out the new content, but will I continue playing? Unlikely.

[Anduin]

So I started a new game. Frankly, I'm not impressed. Yes, the difficulty has been increased. The enemies hit a lot harder. Why? I don't know. I play on easy for a reason. I don't play soulsborne games for the same reason. And adding insult to injury, they removed the armadillo from that car park in Northside. Completely gone.

On the bright side, you can skip the braindance tutorial. You have to watch that holdup, but you don't have to interact with it. I hated it from the moment I saw it in one of their prerelease hype videos, so that's one small improvement.

There are other changes, like different map icons, and some of the skills have been changed. All in all, I'm really not happy with what they've done over time. It feels more like a downgrade than an upgrade.

[Anduin]

This time they've added some more appearance options, change appearance options, and some new weapons. However, the save and load feel a bit slow on PC. Enough to be noticeable and annoying. Anyone else?

[BetterButter]

 

[BetterButter]

 

[Anduin]

New patch, new game. When I try to manual save, the game crashes. FFS. What are they playing at? Of course, I'd forgotten how annoying Jackie is. What makes him worse is that the game is convinced I actually like him. No, he was annoying from the start.

[BetterButter]