I have such deeply held nostalgia for this game that, despite all the negative reviews and photographic evidence they were entirely justified in their disappointed tone, the game went on sale and I gave these shucksters some of my cash. I think some of the graphical complaints might be a little overblown, but my mistake was made obvious stupidly quick for something that should've been even more obvious to me as I hovered over the purchase button: this game plays like trash on a controller.
Having played Civilization IV and V for hours and hours (and hours) on my 2011 MacBook and my 2008 iMac before shifting to hours and hours (and hours) of Civilization VI on PS4/5, and also having not owned a proper gaming computer since an ill-fated 5-year sabbatical from Mac Life in my early teens (Windows XP, get wrecked!), I'm not as easily reminded of how poorly suited to controllers some PC games are...even though I probably should be. Hello, Tropico 5, Crusader Kings III, Planet Coaster and more! Mayhaps I'm just a fool...
That being said! The voice acting is the same as it always was and that's still absolutely fantastic, as is the writing. It could come off a little stilted compared to modern games but overall, even beyond the voices, this game sounded and sounds awesome. It's the one thing about the Blade Runner aesthetic that just can't be diminished by shoddy ports or endlessly debatable alternate edits or decades later sequels.
But I have to actually give this a super poor rating despite barely making it back to Ray McCoy's apartment. While I didn't find it as ugly as advertised, it IS ugly as sin on a big 4K screen as compared to a late-90s/early-2000s PC monitor, the controls ARE that bad without a mouse and all the charm of the real-time storytelling, as someone who played this game over and over and over as a kid, absolutely has to be ruined by how clunky this all is. So much of that mechanic involves being in the right place at the right time or doing the right thing at the right moment and that must be impossible here.
Lastly, this game does have two infamously bad bits involving a time bomb at one point and McCoy's pistol in another. These are the most precision (and luck, honestly) dependent bits of all and I'd bet the timebomb escape alone is an absolute padlock on progressing through the rest of the game when using a DualSense.
Having played Civilization IV and V for hours and hours (and hours) on my 2011 MacBook and my 2008 iMac before shifting to hours and hours (and hours) of Civilization VI on PS4/5, and also having not owned a proper gaming computer since an ill-fated 5-year sabbatical from Mac Life in my early teens (Windows XP, get wrecked!), I'm not as easily reminded of how poorly suited to controllers some PC games are...even though I probably should be. Hello, Tropico 5, Crusader Kings III, Planet Coaster and more! Mayhaps I'm just a fool...
That being said! The voice acting is the same as it always was and that's still absolutely fantastic, as is the writing. It could come off a little stilted compared to modern games but overall, even beyond the voices, this game sounded and sounds awesome. It's the one thing about the Blade Runner aesthetic that just can't be diminished by shoddy ports or endlessly debatable alternate edits or decades later sequels.
But I have to actually give this a super poor rating despite barely making it back to Ray McCoy's apartment. While I didn't find it as ugly as advertised, it IS ugly as sin on a big 4K screen as compared to a late-90s/early-2000s PC monitor, the controls ARE that bad without a mouse and all the charm of the real-time storytelling, as someone who played this game over and over and over as a kid, absolutely has to be ruined by how clunky this all is. So much of that mechanic involves being in the right place at the right time or doing the right thing at the right moment and that must be impossible here.
Lastly, this game does have two infamously bad bits involving a time bomb at one point and McCoy's pistol in another. These are the most precision (and luck, honestly) dependent bits of all and I'd bet the timebomb escape alone is an absolute padlock on progressing through the rest of the game when using a DualSense.