A game that has been discussed to death, so I’ll try to keep this brief. Yes, the cover-based shooting (and reloading!) mechanics are still very much enjoyable. The story and world building are simple yet effective (I was surprised at how likable the characters are, even though they ooze early 2000’s macho energy including Marcus’ soul patch, Jesus Christ), the berserker sections are usually tense (although her AI can sometimes break), the weapons are very satisfying to use. To anyone who has missed this game for whatever reason, I still very much recommend giving it a try, not just as a milestone in game development history, but simply as a fun gaming experience.

I did, however, encounter a number of issues that I’m going to list below that prevented me from enjoying the game to the fullest. Bear in mind I was playing solo on hardcore difficulty, perhaps these issues are not as prevalent in other configurations:
sprinting is just plain bad - it takes forever between pressing the button and Marcus beginning to run;
it’s difficult to move your character around quickly - not an issue when you’re behind cover far from enemies, but when you find yourself amongst them there’s a low probability you will get out of the situation alive;
assigning sprinting, ducking behind cover and rolling to the same button should be a criminal offense;
some sections, like driving the junker, were clearly designed for co-op play - switching between the UV light and driving is extremely cumbersome;
AI of your companions turns them into morons that will jump out of cover and charge the enemy, getting shot and rendering himself useless - I am NOT leaving cover to pick you up from the middle of the battlefield (yes, I know you can give your companions simple commands, but when you don’t use them at all the AI should be able to exhibit some sensibility and at least shoot from behind cover);
using chainsaw is extremely unreliable, I died countless times just because the game didn’t think I was worthy of revving the engine for whatever reason, leaving me standing next to an enemy like a total idiot;
torque bow enemies, good God, I can’t recall the last time I was so annoyed by an enemy in a TPS;
the final boss design is simply lazy and disappointing.

‘Planet of Lana’ is a 2D, narrative-driven puzzle platformer that reminded me heavily of Playdead’s most famous game, ‘Inside’. The core of the title is running (mostly) right, solving puzzles, evading enemies and learning about the world through environmental storytelling. The main difference, other than lack of oppressive atmosphere and inclusion of a more pleasant color palette, is that in Wishfully Studios’ debut game you are able to give commands to a tiny cat-like creature, Mui. This adds some flavor to the puzzles, although unfortunately most of them are much too easy to force you to rack your brain or to stay in your memory after you’ve solved them. The mechanic of ordering your animal companion around is underutilized, same with controlling hostile robots. I feel like there was potential for more complex and memorable puzzles, but as I’m writing this review - roughly a week after finishing the game - I struggle to remember any particular moments or set pieces other than the wind turbine section, mostly because that was the only place where I died several times.

The visual style is on the minimalist side, but that’s perfectly fine in a game of this type and scope. I liked the lively colors of the forest and the final chapter introduces some surprising backgrounds, although they could’ve used more variety and at least a little bit more detail to make each particular level more visually interesting. Storywise, the game only gives clues as to the nature of the events unfolding before our eyes, but it is told competently and welcomes various interpretations. Also, I liked the simple yet effective way the devs build the relationship between the titular character and her ‘pet’, Mui.

The controls feel a little sluggish, which also reminded me of some more famous narrative platformers. There aren’t too many places where it bothered me, though, as only in a few instances the game forces you to be perfect with your timing, although I did struggle with the flying sections as the controls were definitely too floaty and caused me to bump into obstacles and die a number of times.

Reading the previous paragraphs I feel like I’m complaining a lot, but I want to emphasize that the game isn’t bad by any means. It simply felt like it was a little too plain, perhaps too safe (understandable given this is the studio’s first game), but I definitely see potential and hope that future games by Wishfully Studios will take some more risks to differentiate themselves from other representatives of the genre. And drop the QTEs!

Damn, this game still looks exquisite. The environments, the animations, the character models, the lighting - all perfect. Wanted to get it out of the way first since when I think of the Resi 2 remake I always remember the gameplay trailer reveal and the jaw-drop effect it had on me. Still does!

When it comes to the gameplay, I think it’s enough to call it a proper Resident Evil-type game. Walking around a large area, using your map frequently to check whether you’ve cleared each room (the map can sometimes be confusing, though, mostly involving staircases), solving puzzles (simple but sufficient for this type of game), managing your inventory and occasionally shooting down a zombie or two when they get in your way. The devs really pulled all the best bits from the original entries and modernized it to accommodate for the third person view and larger levels. Overall, it is a very satisfying experience, although the definite highlight is the police station and the weakest link are the sewers. Mr. X adds some tension, stomping around and making you check every corner twice, although he can be a nuisance sometimes, e.g. when he takes forever to leave the area of the safe room you are hiding in.

The story is extremely cheesy, but serviceable. Both Leon and Claire are likable, although the male protagonist is a total airhead whose lines and decisions had me rolling my eyes a number of times. The short interludes where you control Ada (Leon’s playthrough) and Sherry (Claire’s) are a nice way to break up the main gameplay loop and introduce some fresh gameplay elements.

What brings down the game’s quality significantly in my eyes is its treatment of the two campaigns. Leon’s and Claire’s stories are supposed to intertwine, but after finishing off Mr. X with the R.P.D. cop I found that I had to redo most of the puzzles and open the same doors again, this time controlling Chris Redfield’s sister. Narratively, it just doesn’t make any sense. Sure, some key items can be found in different places and you can get key A instead of key B to open a different room with some helpful item, but overall it felt like a chore. Since I knew where to go and what to do, playing as Claire felt more mechanical rather than truly exploring each of the main areas. I really did suffer through the second playthrough, save for the few levels that were unique to her. I treat these two campaigns as equally important to the game - after all, finishing them both is required to achieve the true ending - and I think that the devs could’ve come up with some new areas or puzzles for the second playthrough. Even the boss fights are repeated (except for the final one), which was a major letdown.

Overall, this is a very good experience for the first playthrough, whoever you choose, but then the second one is just a rehash that will probably make you try to speedrun to get to the proper ending.

I think it’s safe to say that 2021’s “Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion” caught everyone by surprise by blending competent 2D Zelda-like gameplay with quirky, plant-based humor and a pleasant visual style. I enjoyed it quite a bit and was looking forward to its sequel. And I was caught by surprise yet again, because it turned out that the devs decided to switch the genre from an old-school adventure game to a roguelite mixed with bullet hell. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work as well as the original.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a fan of roguelites, and this is no exception. Running over and over through the same couple of areas and mowing down the same enemies gets old really quick for me, and Turnip Boy doesn’t provide enough scope or variety to make traversing through the map a truly enjoyable experience. Most of my time playing the game was searching for NPCs that I had an outstanding quest with - there are a lot of characters you can help throughout the 5 hours or so that it takes to finish the story. Honestly, I mostly walked aimlessly searching for an NPC whose location I had completely forgotten (the map is utterly useless) or simply because I had confused one NPC with another. This can be frustrating not only because there is no good way to memorize this (and some NPCs only show up in rooms that spawn at random, so you can be looking for a guy and never stumble upon him simply because his room didn’t spawn for this particular run), but also because you’re always under a time constraint. At one point I found myself with a long list of NPCs to interact with, a map that doesn’t help at all in finding them and a thought “yeah, I don’t remember where any of those characters are”.

Perhaps this problem is exacerbated by the writing. The trademark quirkiness is still there and some NPCs’ lines should make you smile, but either the novelty factor has worn off or the writing simply isn’t as sharp because I found the NPCs in “Tax Evasion” funnier, more memorable and their plotlines easier to follow than the ones in “Robs a Bank”.

Overall, I enjoyed the gunplay - I think there is a good selection of weapons available (a lot of them, obviously, are very comedic in nature) and they’re fun to use, but the fact that you can’t really store them conveniently (there’s one particular room where you can keep them for your next run, but it’s an extremely tedious mechanic) and that the only weapons that you have permanent access to in your hub are the most standard shotgun/rifle/bazooka spoils the fun of trying out new weapons.

Two other issues I’d like to mention are underwhelming boss fights (they’re all very similar and at the very end you have to repeat them all in one go, which is a chore) and the fact that about halfway through the game you find a way to earn tons of cash quickly and run out of things you can spend them on. I think the upgrade system could’ve been expanded to account for that.

I remember playing Call of Duty 2 right after it came out and the immense impact it had on me. I’m not sure how many times I started the campaign (never cared much for the multiplayer), but I definitely spent most time in snow covered Stalingrad, mowing down hundreds of Nazis. I can still quote word for word the training Vassilyi receives from Comrade Commissar. I also remember having to quit the game to cool down after clearing the German hideouts in one of the missions in North Africa - that’s how powerful the experience was for me back then. And recently, after going through my Steam library looking for something to play, I stumbled upon this oldie and thought I could give it a go, all these years later.

Alas, some childhood experiences are not meant to be repeated in adulthood. The second installment in one of the biggest gaming franchises in history did not age gracefully. And I’m not even talking about the graphics, although naturally they show their age. The character models hold up pretty well and some of the animations still look decent. The main problem is the levels - most of them look drab and empty, and it’s sometimes difficult to spot any differences in levels across the same campaign - all levels in Stalingrad look alike, same with the deserts of Libya or the villages in France. This is a serious problem that made me feel like I was replaying the same level over and over again until I got to the next campaign.

What exacerbates this feeling of running in circles is mission structure. Throughout all three campaigns - Soviet, American and British - the player is usually given the task of clearing houses/bunkers/fields/whatever of German troops and moving to the next location where he’ll be doing the exact same thing. Sure, there are some variations - shooting down a tank, sniping enemies from a high vantage point, a (very underwhelming) tank battle or some on-rails vehicle sections (which would become a series staple in further installments), but they are mere drops in a sea of mundanity. Yes, the shooting is still quite fun and the weapons feel fine (although I think they could’ve used some more variety), but repetitiveness is still the defining factor of most levels.

What I found most frustrating is the AI on both sides of the conflict. Enemies tend to run out of cover for no good reason and sometimes spawn right behind your back, just when you thought you had cleared the area. Your brothers in arms are even worse, unfortunately. They love to get right in your line of fire, they block hallways and stand on German grenades, waiting for them to explode and end their short lives. I also witnessed the legendary Captain Price throw a grenade right into the wall in front of him and the thing ricocheting back to one of his soldiers, who patiently waited to be blown to pieces (by the way, the game could do with fewer grenades available to your enemies, on Hard difficulty especially, as on some levels I felt like I did more running away from grenades than actual shooting, and in this game you can’t throw them back yet).

And when your companions and enemies meet, miracles happen. There were so many instances of German and Allied soldiers standing right next to each other and not acknowledging each other’s presence simply because the AI was focused on enemies tens of meters away. This obviously kills any sense of immersion, where you’re thrown into an environment where you’re supposed to be fighting for your life but every minute you stumble upon soldiers so stupid you just stop and look in sincere admiration instead. These moments kill the feeling the game tries to create - of facing overwhelming Nazi forces, fighting side by side with your compatriots. Instead, the faulty AI made me feel like I was the only human amongst malfunctioning robots.

There are some interesting ideas regarding AI, e.g. your brothers in arms will often shout the current location of enemy soldiers. This would be useful in a game with more open levels, because apart from some specific scenarios where enemies approach you from all sides this was rather superfluous. On that topic - yes, I realize it’s Call of Duty and it’s expected to be linear, but I felt like some levels were too limiting in where I was allowed to go. There are some levels with opportunities for flanking for example, but there is also a large number of corridors where you’re just supposed to face the enemy head on.

There are some truly amazing moments and I’d like to make it clear. Taking down the first tank in Stalingrad, landing on the beaches of Normandy (yes, ripped straight from ‘Saving Private Ryan’, but still pretty effective), the first level clearing Nazi bunkers in North Africa. But they’re few and far between, and the vast majority of the game is a pretty run of the mill World War 2 era FPS. I found out rather quickly that the game is quite tedious in longer sittings and works best in short, no more than 30 minute sessions.

One quick note - I was taken aback by the choice of quotes that are shown on screen when I died or reached a new level. The game clearly tries to romanticize the conflict it portrays - the score full of pathos, the Hollywood-like last minute rescues, the over the top voice acting (the British sound like caricatures), or the soldiers that are always eager to jump into action to ‘take down some Krauts’ and never express any fear or discomfort. The only level that might be considered an attempt to emulate ‘real’ (very thick quotation marks here) experience is the Normandy landing with its well directed introduction and incessant, deafening artillery strikes (although that might just be the Spielberg influence). Other than that it’s a pretty clean, inoffensive, ‘Greatest Generation casually killing Jerries’ type of narrative that doesn’t have absolutely anything to say. Why the odd choice of quotes, then? There are plenty of examples of lines harshly criticizing war and lamenting the loss of life, which are in stark contrast to the actual game which makes war look fun. Also, I wonder how some historical figures who said those quotes, e.g. Churchill and Zapata, would feel about being placed next to each other. Perhaps I’m reading too much into this and the developers simply looked up ‘quotes about war’, chose some that they thought sounded cool and never thought about it again. All in all, I think that the following Erasmus quote sums up the whole experience and at the same time it’s extremely ironic for having been included in this particular game: "War is delightful to those who have not experienced it."

Would I rather EA had greenlit a brand new entry in the franchise? Of course. Did the original age enough to warrant a full remake? I don’t think so, no - I played it for the very first time 3 years ago and it was still superbly playable. But did I enjoy my time with this remake? Absolutely.

The new graphics are very impressive, with the enemy designs looking more gruesome than ever. The haunting atmosphere and palpable feeling of danger lurking just around the corner are still very much present and make traversing Ishimura a harrowing experience, perhaps just a little too easy, even on the Hard difficulty (yeah, I’m not risking hours of progress on the Impossible setting, thanks). The dismemberment mechanic is satisfying as ever and the available array of weapons and tools make combat both tense and fun.

Sure, there are some nitpicks here and there - the zero gravity movement is still wonky, turning Isaac into a voiced protagonist doesn’t work well since he’s not interesting a character at all, and the final battle is kind of meh. But as I said, these are nitpicks and the overall experience is still highly recommended, in all of its 12 hours of slashing through some of the most hideous monsters in survival horror history (plus some really interesting lore!) glory.

Man, I really wish I could give it a positive review, because this is clearly a labor of love. The score is very effective, oftentimes reminding me of big budget Hollywood espionage thrillers. The art style is minimalist, akin to ‘Firewatch’, but I liked it, even though some larger areas could’ve used some more ‘clutter’ to make them feel more lived in and not like empty sets. The character animations are very simple, but I felt they were usually effective in conveying the emotions of NPCs.

‘Virginia’ goes for the cinematic experience with very little interactivity available to the player. You’ll be mostly jumping from one short scene to another, observing events unfold in front of you. Sometimes you’ll be able to roam around a room or an apartment in search of an object to click on to move the plot further. Unlike in most walking simulators, you don’t have the opportunity to explore and interact with a variety of objects or documents that would help you fill in the gaps in the story - here you’re basically just shown 90 minutes or so of vague cutscenes (there is no dialogue in the game).

Understanding the story is one thing (mostly doable on your first playthrough, although some story beats could’ve been presented in a better way), but caring about the characters is a completely different issue. Towards the end of the experience the devs clearly wanted to elicit some emotional response from me, but they failed miserably as I was given almost nothing to make me form any attachment to any of the characters. This is where the game suffers most from its extremely minimalist approach.

I think this might just be the dumbest game I have ever played.

Starting off with a now legendary opening, where as Lucas Kane you need to cover up a murder you unwillingly committed in a diner restroom, the game effectively immerses you in its story. The chosen setting, a snow covered New York, plays really well with the potentially supernatural murder mystery the game seems to be going for in the beginning. I also really enjoyed the fact that you get to control both the perpetrator and the two policemen chasing him (a plot device that would return in Quantic Dream’s later games). And that’s pretty much everything positive I can say about ‘Fahrenheit’.

Before I delve deeper into the disastrous plot (especially in the second half of the game), let me quickly go over the ‘gameplay’ side of things. This is pretty much a QTE-fest with very little actual interaction available to players. Many of those button mashing sequences are ridiculously long (vide Lucas’ visions), and in some cases they appear in places they have no business being in. Why are we forced to do quick time events during an interrogation? Is it because otherwise the players would realize how shallow and poorly written this scene is? There’s also a level where we’re forced to do a painfully slow QTE sequence over a character delivering lengthy exposition. What is the purpose of this? Were the writers afraid that otherwise the players would get bored and not pay attention? If so, I hope it was caused by the writers’ awareness of the poor quality of their work rather than lack of faith in the players’ ability to focus on the game when they’re not actively mashing buttons like a maniac.

The controls are horrible and often I’d get frustrated with the controlled character for going in the total opposite direction I needed them to go in. There’s a dubious lives system that I see no other reason for being here than because it’s something that apparently should be in a video game (even though this video game tries desperately to fool you into thinking it’s more of an interactive movie). There’s also a mood meter affected by the characters’ actions and it also plays no important role in the game (other than sometimes reaching a failstate and retrying the scene). It’s just a trick to give players an illusion that what they do has some bearing on the story (oh, you’re depressed because you killed an innocent bystander? Here’s a cup of coffee, that’s +10 to mood, chin up!). You get some bonus points for ‘exploring’, which is not difficult as the levels are rather tiny and easy to navigate. There’s no other point to exploration, though, unless you enjoy opening and closing empty drawers.

Every little action - opening a drawer, then closing it, opening a door, climbing up or down a pipe or wall - is needlessly long due to the creators’ choice to have the player move the right analog stick rather than simply press a button. At times it was simply infuriating, especially in the many sections where you’re working under a time constraint. Also, the two sections with Carla walking around the police archive and the psych ward where she needs to hold her breath are simply annoying.

Returning to the story, the game takes some time to completely jump the shark, but even before it does there are a lot of serious problems with the writing. The dialogue is mostly terrible and very cliched, the characters are either a wet blanket (Lucas), a pretty offensive stereotype (Tyler) or a woman with big tits that gets undressed by the devs on numerous occasions (Carla). Most NPCs show up only for short episodes and they’re not given too much time to be developed properly. The worst part, however, is that the characters seem like total idiots. They take forever to reach the most obvious conclusions or make decisions so baffling that they would surely cause a collective burst of laughter in a movie theater. An old cop didn’t arrest a killer on the loose because he saved a kid from drowning?! Carla, a detective with years of experience, falls without a single question for Lucas’ story about ancient prophecies and secret societies?!

Another thing: the game throws in so many different inspirations from (or sometimes even blatantly copies) famous movies and tropes that it’s truly hard to keep track. We’ve got a scary psychiatric hospital, a serial killer in NYC, the chosen child who was born to save the world, The Matrix-like combat scenes with characters flying all over the city, a noir crime story, Mayan beliefs, secret military bases, alien artifacts, secret societies, the apocalypse, premonitions, ancient prophecies, rogue AIs trying to take over the world, brain controlling microchips. This is a total mess and there isn’t a writer that’d make anything coherent out of this. It seriously feels like a parody, but I have a suspicion it isn’t one, simply because Quantic Dream lack the self-awareness required. If this was turned into a movie or a series, its only hope for any relevance would be reaching a cult classic status a la ‘The Room’. You can’t even use the argument that player’s choices force them down these odd paths as until the very end of the game there aren’t any choices affecting the outcome - all this talk about ‘giving players ability to choose their story’ is just a ruse, always has been.

Fuck this game for wasting 10 hours of my life.

After a rather disappointing two playthroughs of the base game I was eager to jump into the DLC, which received widespread acclaim upon its release. My initial reaction was mixed. On the one hand, Dogtown makes a great first impression, especially the stadium filled with NPCs and interesting looking places which serve as an entrance to the large, brand new area. I also found the starting point of the plot interesting, as I seemed to have been contacted by a netrunner struggling with the same affliction as V. Also, the president of the NUSA needed to be rescued! As I went along, though, I felt more and more like I was playing an extremely generic, 2010s AAA title rather than Cyberpunk. Lots of bombastic set pieces and corridor shooting of private militia enemies (which look like something straight out of a recent Call of Duty), a B-movie like plot, where the president of the country turns out to be capable with a gun and starts mowing down enemies like it’s just another Tuesday for her. And yes, there’s even an annoying jumping section and a boss fight against a gigantic mech/tank.

I don’t know if this ‘camp’ was something that the game’s writers were aiming for but it felt slightly out of place compared to V’s main quests, which were often very somber and self-serious. A similar thing can be said about some portions of the story which quite clearly go for the James Bond type of narrative, also feeling slightly off when looking at both the DLC and the main game as a whole. The problem, however, is that most of these new missions are much more fun than wherever the base game had to offer. This is the root of my ambivalence towards ‘Phantom Liberty’ - on the one hand I was enjoying my time, but I knew well that was due to the game allowing itself to be written as a more standard AAA action title. There are definitely some more serious moments in the main quest concerning Songbird and Solomon Reed, but they’re often drowned out by the big set pieces and campy espionage shenanigans. There’s even an entire level dedicated to Alien:Isolation-like stealth horror, which was enjoyable, but drove home even further the point that the DLC was aiming for things that seemed fun rather than to present a more coherent, serious, truly cyberpunk narrative. This feeling was further exacerbated by the game frequently forcing the all guns blazing approach on the player (if you only focus on stealth, you might be in trouble) and drifting even further away from the original idea of a deep RPG presented in a complex, morally gray setting. Hell, they even introduced QTEs early on when fighting alongside president Myers.

There aren’t too many new gigs available (ten if I remember correctly), but this time around they are definitely more engaging and include a more meaningful narrative background. The way they play out is: you get a gig from Mr. Hands, you infiltrate an area (usually much bigger ones than in gigs in the base game) and at the end there is a twist that forces the player to make a choice. You won’t find anything too substantial in there, as there don’t seem to be any long term consequences for choices made in these, but they were a welcome addition as I could finally think for more than two seconds about what I wanted my V to do. I also liked the fact that some areas in Dogtown are only accessible on foot (or, if you try hard, on bike), making me pay more attention to the surrounding areas and in effect becoming more aware of the world around me.

What I didn’t enjoy at all was the addition of car theft contracts from one of the fixers. They seemed really low effort and simply have you drive a car out of Dogtown to some remote location within a given time limit, fighting off enemies on the road or delivering the car without damaging it too much. I gave up on those pretty quickly.

There are some genuinely interesting moments in ‘Phantom Liberty’, a standout for me was the youth sports ‘academy’ providing some scathing critique of the world of professional sports. Songbird’s story also turned out to be quite tragic, making me regret some of the earlier choices I made regarding her and her relationship to Reed. There’s also an alternate game ending included here, although it was rather disappointing and I don’t recommend it (although the base game endings were equally disappointing, so I don’t know).

Let’s state the obvious first: this game is inherently broken.

My second playthrough was spread across versions 2.0 and 2.1 and while it was significantly better than the original release or even the much celebrated “one year after” version, it was still unbelievably buggy, to the extent that it often killed any sense of immersion the game desperately tried to build.

Some of my ‘favorite’ bugs included:
cars still not being able to drive around a vehicle left in the middle of the road, they simply start honking and waiting patiently in line, creating a jam; also, traffic lights and driving patterns of NPC cars are two completely separate worlds, it was actually funny;
starting a quest with an NPC while being chased by cops or a gang, and seeing e.g. Jackie taking several full magazines into his face while explaining some exposition to me, while I was hiding away from the enemies;
fixers calling in the middle of a dialogue, with V having then two separate conversations at the same time;
a number of times V’s color changed to pitch black and I wasn’t able to change it unless I restarted the game (I prefer my V’s hair blue, thank you very much);
misleading GPS that keeps changing its mind, plus the city architect’s penchant for roads with multiple lanes and exits makes it sometimes near impossible to navigate;
during open air shootouts NPCs often keep enjoying their meals, standing amidst flying bullets, and sometimes not even reacting to explosives dealing damage to them;
not being able to access my inventory and journal, because the game thought I was still in a cutscene (a restart and loading much earlier save was required)

I was surprised by how much more I enjoyed the gameplay of the game compared to its world and story (a complete opposite to my feelings after playing ‘The Witcher’ games). Cyberpunk allows both for guns blazing approach and to move stealthily, even sparing lives of enemies if we incapacitate them quickly from behind. Stealth mechanics are nothing unusual, but they’re competent and moving through a large area without alerting anyone, possibly using some non-aggressive quickhacks, can be satisfying. If enemies’ AI doesn’t start going crazy, that is.

Shootouts are surprisingly well made, given that this was CDPR’s first foray into first person shooting. There is a large variety of weapons available and they feel distinct, punchy and are simply fun to use. Although I found out rather quickly that for many enemies, the easiest way to defeat them was to get up on some nearby roof or a similar point of elevation - they tend to lose their minds then, even the ones that can easily follow V up on those roofs. I do think, however, that the number of guns looted from enemies is too high - I ended up getting rid of almost all of them, sticking to 3 or 4 favorites. An aggressive playstyle using melee weapons is also possible, although on both playthroughs I ended up focusing on stealth with a little sprinkling of pistol combat and simple netrunning on top.

Quickhacking is a welcome addition to the game - it provides a decent variety of tools, both for combat and stealth, and is definitely one of the elements that help Cyberpunk stand out (compared e.g. to Watch Dogs, I had much more fun with netrunning and hacking in CDPR’s game). There is also another type of hacking, i.e. the minigame for accessing computers and terminals. I thought it was done well and often found myself trying to solve these short puzzles for the fun of it as I didn’t care much for the eddies or crafting components they provided.

This is also the first game by the Polish developer with a driving mechanic and it turned out rather mediocre. There is a good selection of cars, but many of them slide on the road like bars of soap, especially the faster ones. I found vehicular combat rather clunky, except for one particular pseudo-tank that helped me wreak some real havoc in Night City. Surprisingly, even mowing down a couple of dozen cops didn’t reward me with the highest chase rank - honestly, I don't know what more I could’ve done to piss off the guys in blue more. Plus, the cars feel surprisingly slow - even when driving at 200mph (according to the meter, at least) I felt like I was hardly moving any faster than many cars around me.

Crafting is in the game and that’s all I can say about it. It feels extremely underdeveloped and its inclusion in the game feels like a response to the popularity of survival games with this mechanic around the time of Cyberpunk’s release. I crafted a couple of items early on just to see how the mechanic worked and later on completely forgot that it was a part of the game.

I didn’t do a lot of melee combat, but I did finish the boxing side quest and unfortunately V’s movement felt stiff (especially the dodge, which is extremely clunky, I kept crouching instead as both actions are assigned to the same button). Finishing the boxing side quests would’ve been impossible if it weren’t for the overpowered parry mechanic (way too easy to get it right, even on highest difficulty) and the fact that every single opponent seemed to have learned at the same boxing school, since they all shared the same exact moveset.

Braindances are a major letdown. They mostly boil down to clicking on the highlighted thing - not unlike ‘witcher vision’ in CDPR’s previous game, only here you get to watch a short cutscene. I think a lot more could’ve been done with this concept, as right now it only shows up a few times throughout the story and it is a very limited tool.

The game offers a decent number and variety in its quests and gigs. They usually require infiltrating an area and performing some simple action, like escorting out an NPC, installing malware or hitman jobs. They work because the gameplay is pretty fun, but the narrative background for these is weak. Writers try hard, but it’s impossible to care about these little missions. They get more complex and by extension more fun as they go along, although they rarely stray from the beaten path. The one exception to this would be the cyberpsychos - some of them are fun mini bosses, but you can’t really approach them stealthily or with much nuance, it’s always a direct confrontation. And they do get quite stale pretty quickly.

There are a number of points in the game where you’re forced to take on enemies or bosses directly. If up to that point you were building your V as a stealth hacker, you could be in trouble. This reminded me heavily of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, where a similar approach proved quite problematic for players opting for a more quiet playstyle (myself included).

The main story is pretty terrible when it comes to the actual quests. A lot of time is spent on listening to exposition, being driven in a car by an NPC while listening to exposition, meeting with NPCs to discuss the next steps (which takes way more time than it needs). The actual playing time is rather limited and it feels like CDPR realized that the main storyline is too short and wanted to pad it out to make it seem more substantial. The worst offender that stuck out for me was walking around the club Clouds, trying to find someone with knowledge on Evelyn’s whereabouts - you literally go from one NPC to another, learning almost nothing until the very last person finally points to a completely different location, triggering a new quest. Same goes for the beginning of Panam’s storyline - before it really gets going (also, what a waste of a tank mission!) it takes forever. The main storyline suffers from a deficiency of memorable moments or set pieces, and in some instances they limit the player’s actions (like getting rid of snipers during Arasaka’s parade) - these parts reminded me heavily of some missions from GTA where you could reach failstate for some dumb, arbitrary reasons. Sure, there are some nice moments with particular characters (like Panam or River), but overall it feels like a slog to get through and I was putting away forwarding the story and opting for focusing on side content.

The game pretends to be an RPG, and does it with little conviction. Aside from choosing your starting point (affects the first moments in the game and some pretty insignificant dialogue choices later on) and choosing the ending of V’s story there aren’t that many opportunities to make any meaningful impact in Night City.At one point V can pretty much directly influence who will become Night City’s next mayor. This quest is quite interesting in itself, probably one of the most memorable ones from the game, but it doesn’t change the fact that its conclusion doesn’t introduce any meaningful change in Night City. Another particularly egregious example that stuck with me was the initial choice between Evelyn and Dex - who to side with prior to the big heist. It’s presented like a major choice but it ends up having no impact on the rest of the game due to the way the heist unfolds.

When it comes to the main story, I was left unimpressed. Jackie’s death
lacks the emotional punch it aims for mostly because it happens so quickly (and it was spoiled already before launch by CDPR themselves). It’s supposed to push V to strive for influence in Night City to honor Jackie’s greatest ambition, to become a legend of the town, but it falls flat despite being brought up regularly by V herself. We receive a bit more backstory on Jackie after his death, however it’s too little too late.

There are quests that feel undercooked and end abruptly. Best example for this is the Lizzy Wizzy quest - I don’t know if it’s because of Grimes’ busy schedule (she voices the popstar) or something else, but it is shockingly short and without any satisfying conclusion.

I appreciate that Johnny Silverhand is a large part of the story - not only as a catalyst for V to embark on her journey, but also as someone she can discuss current events with. I like that he often argues with V and criticizes her choices, creating an interesting dynamic. And the fact that it’s Keanu Reeves helps flesh out Johnny visually, however the actor’s performance didn’t always convince me and a some of his more emotional lines were delivered poorly, which stood out even more when you heard the talent behind some of the other major characters in the story, which were all very well voiced.

Despite the game offering a gigantic open world, it mostly feels hollow. Most shops and street vendors you can’t interact with, and the ones that you do mostly sell useless stuff - like food items, which I don’t think I ever used. There are plenty of stores with guns and clothes, but it makes little sense to spend money there since during a playthrough you’ll stumble across so many weapons and clothing that you’ll just keep selling them at the nearest drop point and keep the best ones. Those are usually found after defeating an important enemy or at particular points in the story.

Speaking of money, there’s no good use for it in Night City. It’s nice to buy an expensive car, but I mostly stuck to one or two favorites and whenever necessary I’d just steal one parked nearby. Safehouses also aren’t very useful, and they’re actually pretty cheap. By the end of the game I found myself with around 2 million eddies in the bank with nothing to spend it on.

Many NPCs still wander aimlessly, bumping into each other. I’ve encountered a number of unique (at least they seemed so) animations for NPCs around town, but they seem to be stuck in them in perpetuity, and every time you come back to the same spot you see them doing the same thing, like the two drunks outside of the elevator leading to V’s apartment. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s a bug or a feature at this point.
Some other complaints I have for the story include:
Not setting up Adam Smasher as the villain properly - we see him in one braindance and for a brief moment in Johnny’s flashback, and then Johnny mentions him several times and that’s pretty much it. For someone who serves as final boss in a game aspiring to be an RPG, beating him feels simply like defeating another of many mini-bosses found in other parts of the city;
There are too many gangs and most of them blend into one, I’d rather have half the number but with more space and possibly more quests to flesh them out to be able to tell the difference in businesses/ideologies and perhaps side with some of them and fight others;
Many quests don’t seem to carry any significant, long-term consequences. Most of the time after finishing one you’ll simply receive a text from the NPC you helped and that’s it. This feels like an easy way out on developers’ part and doesn’t encourage players to become invested in this side content;
No sense of urgency in terms of V’s affliction - no matter how many relic malfunctions I witnessed during the main quests, I still couldn’t care less because I knew well that V would be alive for as long as I didn’t hit ‘Yes’ on the point of no return notification. Also, her condition doesn’t affect the gameplay in any meaningful way;
After finishing companion quests, they get super clingy (at least River was, don’t ask me why I romanced him). And the possibilities for interaction once we enter a relationship are pretty limited, as well.

The main issue I have with this game is its narrative direction.

The world feels like a very shallow attempt at satire on consumerism of the ‘western’ world. All of the TV shows, commercials, ads, and many NPCs as well - they aim for the GTA-like level of irony and satirical commentary, but even GTA V, which was far from perfect in that regard, felt like it had some more interesting things to say than Cyberpunk. Sure, there are some quests that delve a bit deeper into criticism of corporatism and mass consumption, but I can’t recall any single idea in the game that’d make me go “oh, yeah, I never thought about it that way”. Same goes for the sci-fi element of the world and narrative. There are very few quests that try to analyze the impact of potential technological advancements (unless you count “overreliance on technology is bad”, which is something that can be easily said even today), and that’s what good sci-fi should do. The world feels like a pretty standard evolution of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer with some minor tweaks, but not only does it not provide meaningful commentary, it also does not allow V to make any major dent in the status quo. No matter how many Militech convoys you destroy or whether you steal a valuable tank with the Aldecaldos, this doesn’t change anything in Night City. Same goes for Arasaka, where V has the ability to affect the corporate structure at the very top in one of the endings. Why should we care? The game shows you horrible inequalities and corporations wielding more power than politicians, but instead of allowing you to try to bring down these gigantic corporations, at least to some extent, it lets you choose (at least it initially seems that way) which spoiled rotten, detached from reality child takes over a gargantuan company that’d put Google and Facebook to shame.

You can’t really challenge the current state of affairs, you can only try to navigate throughout this world and gradually make more and more money, sometimes hearing from a fixer that “major clients are showing an interest in your services”, even when it doesn’t feel like it except for some slightly more complex gigs and a slightly better payout that you can’t even spend on anything meaningful. This would be fine for an open world action title like the aforementioned GTA, but for a game with aspirations for a deep RPG it simply isn’t acceptable. The game is perfectly content focusing on V’s struggle for survival, looking for ways to get rid of the lethal Silverhand’s engram, and feeding the player a pretty shaky story about their rise to the top of Night City. Replace the engram with some deadly disease and you could have the same plot in a completely different environment. Look, I’m not saying you should be able to follow in Johnny’s footsteps and detonate a nuke in the middle of the city, but any opportunity to shake things up in Night City would be greatly appreciated. Now this criticism of corporatization and unfettered capitalism feels like a coat of paint applied to a pretty conservative narrative, simply because this is what’s been popular in the last few years.

Launching this cult classic, I was expecting to require a lot more outside help during my first playthrough, which is often the case with adventure games from that era. When playing each of the chapters devoted to the main five characters I found the puzzles to be manageable, even if sometimes they veered into the more abstract category. This changed dramatically, however, in the epilogue - I honestly have no idea how anyone could achieve the ‘good’ ending without following a guide or prior knowledge of the game. The scope of that final chapter and the number of items in the inventory and interactable objects certainly don’t help. This should’ve been streamlined, or at least explained better to give players a real chance to arrive at the desired ending by themselves.

What I found a bit puzzling was the inclusion of a spiritual barometer of sorts. When the character we’re in charge of does something considered positive, e.g. helps an NPC, then it flashes green and the face of the character starts showing a faint smile. I understand that it is supposed to work in line with the overall theme of the game, which is facing one’s guilt/fear, but I’m not sure how some instances of relevant behaviors work into that. Let’s say a character is being kept hungry by AM - if they find something to eat, it also improves their situation and the meter starts glowing green. Perhaps I’m missing something, but I just failed to see consistency in the actions that were assigned meaning when pushing the characters into their best ending, which would see them face their guilty conscience.

The biggest problem I have with the game is its selection of characters and their ‘faults’. I struggle to understand why on the one hand, you’d include a literal Nazi scientist (who sold out his parents to Gestapo, no less) conducting experiments on prisoners of concentration camps and a war criminal who also might be a cannibal, and on the other hand a woman whose only fault was being raped or a man blaming himself for committing his spouse to a mental institution. I figure the common factor between all those characters is a sense of guilt that they need to overcome to finally find peace within themselves, but I found it hard to sympathize with the first kind of characters described above. Plus, they are all being subjected to unspeakable tortures by AM, regardless of whether or not they are actually guilty of anything. Those feelings were taking me out of the game at times, and what didn’t help was that some of the more mature topics, like the aforementioned rape or concentration camp, were handled poorly and without the necessary delicacy or nuance. Ellen's story especially feels out of date and in poor taste. The game also doesn’t skip out on gory details in most scenarios, which to me reads like a juvenile attempt at edginess rather than trying to comment on some important topics in a mature way. It does get slightly better in the final chapter, which leans slightly into some Freudian concepts and proves that humanity’s creations will always bear the flaws of its creators.

What I need to admit is that visually the game is still quite impressive, mostly due to the sheer variety of the levels. Each character finds themselves in a completely unique setting and each time I was eager to progress to see what else the game had to offer. The pixelart holds up really well, and it still proves to be the best way to preserve a game (unlike e.g. early 3D graphics from that time which often look hideous today). The music and voice acting are solid (even if some lines are janky), with the author of the short story Harlan Ellison stepping in to voice AM, the villain. I also appreciate the multitude of endings (not that many if you think about it, but still it’s a nice touch to have some variety in the outcomes in a point’n’click).

This is the kind of game that is pretty much just pure joy. I was smiling throughout most of it simply because the levels and power ups are so wonderfully inventive I was being surprised constantly until the very end. The difficulty level is just right, meaning that most levels took me 2-3 attempts to collect every collectable, especially in the latter stages of the game. Sure, there were a handful of pretty banal levels that didn’t require too much effort and a couple that I found frustratingly difficult (thinkinking mostly of the level unlocked after beating the story and collecting all collectables - yeah, that one was tough). But the impeccable controls and the aforementioned level design kept me entertained regardless. If I had to nitpick I’d say that the search party levels felt superfluous. Also, perhaps there weren’t enough opportunities to use the full array of available power ups - I mostly stuck to 3 that I found worked best for me and managed to get through the game with relatively no issues. Oh, and the rhythm sections were fantastic, please include more of them in the next installment!