Before I start I would like to say that this version that I am reviewing was played on a PS5 and there has been two patches released while I have been playing the latest beng 1.21.
With that said let’s get into it.
I got this game for Christmas back when I didn’t have a PS4 and all the media and comments around it made me put it aside. I got to a point where I wanted to sell it without having removed the seal and playing the game. I knew that it was unplayable on the PS4 and waited until I had a PS5 where it was supposed to be better. When I finally did pick up a PS5 I was uninterested in playing still and it wasn’t until I had finished some games that I decided I would give it a chance and I haven’t stopped playing it since!
The map itself is massive and the best way to describe the game is a futuristic first person GTA and it’s when you start comparing the games is when you start realising how far behind GTA it really is. Bugs and glitches aside the game looks fantastic, I love the futuristic setting and the different areas of the game captures perfectly that upper class versus lower class and wastelands. Where the game quickly lets you down is in the mechanics. Driving isn’t as easy to grasp, collisions don’t feel right, cars will just stop on the road for no reason whatsoever and there isn’t even that many of them around especially when you leave the main city. And it’s on big roads where you realise how alone you actually feel. When you move to 3rd person there isn’t much in the way of dirt or water coming off the wheels and on a bike your clothes don’t even move with the wind! all stuff that has been captured on older games. Get into a police car and drive and no one moves out of the way for you, it’s a pointless vehicle and while on the subject of the police the wanted levels are also pointless as not once in nearly 100 hours did I feel I was being chased by the cops. The stars will disappear as quickly as they appeared rendering the whole thing useless.
Pedestrians will appear out of nowhere and seem to walk all over the place and when you approach them with a vehicle their reactions are hilarious and more often than not they would jump into the way of the vehicle.
Bugs and Glitches
I could talk about them all day, the main problem was the game crashes on you, this would originally happen 3-4 times a day however, with the latest patch this was down to once. It doesn’t take too long to get back and you will find the autosave has caught you not far into progress but this isn’t the case. If a pedestrian hits your car it will flip around like crazy and talking of flipping on cars they normally keep flipping till they are back on all four wheels. It’s hard to get hit off a bike, in all the collisions I had I think I only came off twice! You can die for no reason! sometimes getting trapped or even a minor fall can kill you, check my twitter feed, it’s a thing!
More often than not the bugs are funny, people would get back up when they are dead only to fall back down again, cars half sticking out of the road, people half sticking out of buildings and pavements, I can get over that.
90% of the time hit detection works but there are some enemies that just don’t seem to be hit even at point blank. That or they just won’t notice you when standing next to them.
The biggest glitch I had was killing a Psycho Killer before the mission and now that mission won’t complete which has cheated me out of two trophies.
Two issues I had towards the end was a bar that would appear at the bottom and would no go and my character reset himself to the starting character and he was naked. Both were cleared with a reload of the previous save.
Issues
Cash is a big one, there was a glitch that could help but that looks like it’s patched (weirdly considering the other issues). You will struggle to purchase all cars in the game, I ended a 100 hour gameplay and I am 5 cars short. Second is that your level is capped at 50 and there is no way to reset attributes once you have placed them. If you haven’t looked at the trophy list like I didn’t than you will miss some trophies tied to certain skills and you also won’t get the trophy for completing a skill area as there are not enough. A way around this would be someone sell you an item to clear them all.
The other and final one I have is constantly carrying too many items, like skyrim you will pick up a lot of stuff, 80% you wont need and than you move slowly until you clear that space. You will get so many weapons in this game and find most of your time is dismantling them or selling to a vender who only has a certain amount of money. Crafting items also takes a long time and getting to a skill level to be able to craft legendary weapons can take ages and a lot of components you only find when dismantling stuff.
The Good
I know I have spoken a lot about the bad but the game does offer you a lot in return. I love the city everything about it. I love the characters I felt the bonds with them did grow over time (even with Johnny). I love the story line main and side quests. There are some better than others but on a whole I enjoyed them all. Quick hacking and Braindances offered me something new not seen in other games. I felt like I was lost in a big city at times and I really appreciated that in a sandbox game. The map can be a little overwhelming and it does suffer from the usual go here defeat these enemies, go there defeat those but these are all optional and you don’t have to do them.
Other things
The soundtrack is so/so there isn’t much in the way of music and most of the time you will get into a car and hear the same old stuff. City sounds are pretty good apart from the honks of the trucks and sound of the police sirion which is just horrible! Didn’t have any control issues only with bugs and glitches.
Verdict
I am sure I went into this game with a low expectation but I honestly wouldn’t play for 92 hours on a game I didn’t like and with Cyberpunk I must say I really enjoyed it. Sure it has problems and a lot of them. I am sure less patent people would stop playing but you will miss out on a fantastic game underneath all the problems and it’s a shame that things turned out this way for CDPROJEKTRED. I am happy that I got more than enough out of this game which was purchased at full price.
Rubix Gaming 