Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is a beautiful and stylish game with an interesting story, memorable characters and decent gameplay, but woefully short on additional content and suffering from bugs and balance issues. In terms of visuals, it is, undoubtedly, one of the best games of the year. Night City is as huge as it is detailed, and, even though the textures are not exactly awe-inspiring, the vibrant colors and, especially, the lighting are to be commended. Even without ray tracing, the lighting and reflections in this game are among the best I have seen; in fact, ray tracing doesn't make a whole lot of difference and is certainly not worth the performance hit if your PC struggles with it. The story is engaging and well-written, even though it leaves some important questions unanswered; you will certainly be tempted to rush through it without even bothering with side quests. Gameplay-wise, this is a first-person shooter/stealth game. The stealth aspect is solidly implemented, if nothing special: you sneak around, distract or incapacitate enemies using quickhacks, then take them out either lethally or non-lethally. Unfortunately, the game doesn't really reward stealth or the non-lethal approach; at best, the contract giver will say a few words of praise. The shooting part is fun, too, but only when your guns and skills are sufficiently upgraded; in the beginning, especially, on the hard difficulty, it can be downright painful. In fact, the first major shootout in Cyberpunk 2077 was one of the worst gaming experiences I had ever had, and even had me considering dropping the game altogether. In part, bugs were to blame, but, mainly, it was the level system that CDPR had lifted straight from Witcher 3 without thought to how well it would work in a shooter. Basically, if your opponent is of a much higher level, you have to shoot him a trillion times to kill him (yes, even in the head), which is simply ridiculous. At least, most firefights can be avoided using stealth, although that brings me to another drawback. The main story has two boss fights, and the first one may come as something of a shock to a player that has been favoring the stealthy approach and distributing his skill points accordingly. It happens with absolutely no warning, and, depending on your current skills and weapons, you may even have to go back to an earlier save (assuming there is one, ha-ha) and do some farming, or else lower the difficulty. The game's real flaw, however, are the side quests. Oh, there is no shortage of them, but 90% of them are exactly the same: go to a place and take everyone out/steal some stuff. Yes, there is a story behind each one... assuming you want to open the journal and read through it, which I'll wager not many people will do. I'd rather there were half as many side quests — fewer, even — but with an actual plot. The only side quests really worth doing are the character quests. Each character you encounter is memorable, and so are their stories; besides, completing a certain character's storyline unlocks an additional ending. Speaking of characters, Johnny Silverhand, who will be your constant companion, is kind of a letdown. Unlike the Joker in Arkham Knight, or Vlodimir von Everec in Witcher 3, who were fun to interact with and offered an interesting perspective on things, Silverhand is, well, just a dude. Other than the parts where he takes control, or comments on people he used to know, he really doesn't make much of a contribution. His charisma is lacking, not so much because of Keanu Reeves's acting, but because of how the character is written. Like so many other things about this game, he feels unfinished, and, in this case, it is not something a patch can fix. As of this moment, Cyberpunk 2077 is a flawed, but fun game. It is not, and never will be on the same level as Witcher 3, but it is a memorable gaming experience, all the same. It is probably best to wait for a month or two to get the most out of it.