I mostly had fun, and felt the work they did to make Night City feel like a proper city, as opposed to the tiny village-sized “city” typical of open world games, really showed. (For example, the fact that people walking down the street had different ages, body types, and walking styles made it easy for me to forgive the occasional pair of NPC clones spawning next to each other.)
But yes, many of the activities/events offered by the game ended up seeming a bit pointless because their outcome was more or less predetermined.
Moreover, the RPG aspect of the game lacked depth, which seemed like a lot of wasted potential given that there were plenty of characters that could have been really interesting to get to know. Instead, the character development was nearly all Silverhand, nearly all the time, and I didn’t even have much influence over how that relationship developed.
Spoilers ahead:
What about Jackie? He was supposed to be my best friend, but I never had experiences with him to make me feel that way, and then he was gone in just a few scenes. What about Panam? She was so determined to make a difference in the lives of the people who mattered to her, yet she all but vanished once we bonded, after just a couple of missions. What about Judy?? Her personal mission-like encounter was really promising. We supposedly fell in love and were planning to leave the city together, yet for the rest of the game, we had no interaction but “dates” consisting of the same half-dozen lines of dialogue and two or three brief animations, repeated over and over again. I’m sure there are more examples, but I think I’ve made my point.
I think the biggest disappointment for me was the ending, though. And the other ending that I got by reloading and picking different options, and then the third ending, and the fourth. They all felt like such empty let-downs that I went online to read about the rest. [Edit: These might have been Phantom Liberty endings; I don’t remember for sure.] Surely there must be some good ones, right? Right?
The only vaguely satisfying ending that I found was a secret one that (IIRC) requires specific choices early in the game, and a very strong bond with Silverhand, and letting the game sit at a particular dialogue screen for several minutes without picking any option. The endings that players are actually meant to experience left me feeling empty. The great deal of time I had sunk into the game was for nothing after all. I guess that could be considered appropriate for a cyberpunk dystopia, but as an experience and a story, it left me feeling cheated. I wished I had my time back.
So, as I said, I mostly had fun playing it, and it had its share of highlights, but I don’t expect to ever play it again. I hope CD Projekt Red keep much of the technical progress they made with this game (I was so relieved that my character’s movement was responsive for a change!) and work more on character development and player agency in the next one.
Ah, see, I love the game. I’ve been replaying it, actually. I think the endings, yeah, they’re all pretty sad. Even the one ending where
Tap for spoilerYou actually get the cure, it’s a massive, massive bummer. Life moves on without V, and they are stuck. They try to go back to their life, and they realized it’s all gone when they got what they were trying for the whole time. Every ending but one is genuinely sad.
And that’s super duper rare, it feels like. I truly appreciate that everything was a gut punch. I really like my V, and when I’ve replayed it I make them the same way (looks-wise, I have made different builds). The male voice actor was not for me. I think he sounded like a douchebag and I couldn’t root for my own character. And that first play through I was honestly a little disappointed with the game. But when I found “my” V, I was much more invested.
I love the difficult choices they saddle you with. It was a big part of the game for me because they really made you feel like there were no right options, or two right options, and you weren’t just choosing black or white, you were choosing moral grayness or moral grayness. And you had to sit with those choices and, as OP pointed out, watch the consequences unfold for the—I feel, very well-written and acted—NPCs.
I really love the game. It and RDR2 are my favorites. I was never a gamer growing up. In my thirties I started playing games, but I am a huge story person—books, movies, tv shows—and I think the stories and the characters made it. So when I found games that let me really get a sense of these characters, even if there is a lot of dialogue, it’s like I’m playing a really long movie. That’s ideal for me. I could see how some people who game heavily wouldn’t like it though. But I fuckin love that game and its spiritual twin (IMO), RDR2. Both maybe “limited” for true gamers, but for some filthy cazh like me, fuckin excellent and highly enjoyable.
Almost every content creator I watch say their VR headsets are collecting dust. Part of that is because there aren’t many good VR games, but also I think there are very few types of games that are fun in VR. They’re just not made for long-term play, you’ll quickly get exhausted in half an hour and want to rest your eyes (or if you’re playing something movement heavy like Beat Saber, rest your body as well).
I tried Skyrim VR, albeit the vanilla version. It sucked. Once you get over the initial hype of “wow, it’s like I’m really there!” you quickly start to realize that VR adds nothing to the experience. It’s the same game, except way clunkier with broken combat and makes you dizzy after some time. Most VR games feel similarly shallow. Even when it comes to racing games which I thought would be killer in a headset, I came away realizing I’d prefer just playing it on a flat screen.
I don’t know where you live, but here there are a couple of places where you can try a headset. I would recommend finding a way to try it first before buying.
Very accurate. We have the Quest 1 and 2, both just collecting dust now, I’m not even sure if they would work anymore. We set up a VR gaming night with a few friends who also had headsets, played Beat Saber and Synth Riders a bunch, then got bored and decided to explore a new game where you walk about and chop wood and whatnot. Five minutes of that and I was so dizzy I almost threw up. It made me realize that the type of game you can play on these is very very limited. I did get a lot of mileage from Synth Riders, so I’m not saying it’s all worthless tech, but we probably could have got a better ROI just buying a regular console with the money.
Yeah there is some getting used to games where you walk around. I also managed a couple of minutes at a time at first. Now i can play for hours without issue. Also i havent been getting carsick anymore.
I think I have 5k hours in and the development style finally got to me in a bad way. I can go into detail if needed, but I don’t feel I need to to anyone with enough time in the game.
Thanks! I blasted my way through the main quest in preparation for 1999. Now I’m just working on getting my MR up and good frames and weapons built. My friends are so much farther along than me and they are a huge help. My fave part of the game, by far, is the fashion
I’ve started playing through some classic SNES and GBA games.
Chrono Trigger – Oh man, this one’s good. The soundtrack is on fire, and the game does a good job at making you feel like your actions make a difference.
Metroid Fusion – If you told me this was made in 2024, I’d probably believe you. It has a sense of pacing and suspense that I wasn’t expecting for a metroidvania.
I haven’t gotten very far in either, but so far it’s looking like they’ve aged like wine.
Story generators. Best kind of games, in my opinion. It’s truly amazing how the interconnection between numerous systems can result in totally unexpected and memorable experiences no scripted game could provide.
Elite Dangerous. Well over 1,000 hours, especially with friends to explore the black with. Hard to get into, but it has so much stuff to do. It made me passionate about space! (And it’s always fun reading articles about a far-flung star and thinking “hey! I’ve been there!”)
I like Cyberpunk. Not as much as the Witcher 3 and I think that’s mostly because I didn’t like the npcs as much. Jackie is about the only one you have a positive relationship with and he’s gone in an instant.
I haven’t played Cyberpunk, but I already felt that way about The Witcher 3, to some extent. CDPR makes nice looking games with seemingly vibrant and populated worlds, but I feel like interaction with the world and NPCs is pretty thin and boring.
Man, Witcher 3 is an amazing game and a lot of the secondary quests had a pretty alluring story. I read the books too, but the game is really great. Just the combat system is a bit tedious but apart from that the game world and the story was absolutely beautiful
It’s different to most other games, by not being goal-oriented except for the goals you set for yourself. No main quest line dictating progress. No mandatory tasks. No win condition. Instead, it drops you into a simulation of our entire galaxy roughly 1300 years in the future, where humanity has mastered hyperspace travel and spread through hundreds of star systems.
(To give an idea of the simulation’s scope: Around 85 million systems have been recorded by players so far, and those are a vanishingly small fraction of what’s out there. Space is big.)
I like that it offers a variety of activities to fit whatever mood I might be in on a given day. I can hunt pirates, mine asteroids, engage in a bit of piracy myself, find and collect bio samples, infiltrate rival settlements, venture into vast unexplored areas of space, discover Earth-like worlds that nobody has ever encountered before, defend humanity against hostile forces, photograph beautiful stellar phenomena, rescue stranded survivors, customize and finely tune my ship to perform beyond its original specs, team up with friends, pledge to a political power and expand their influence, or chill out as a space trucker and haul cargo to earn enough money for my next upgrade. It can occupy all my attention, or just be relaxing entertainment while I listen to music or an audiobook.
It’s an MMO in the sense of having a large game world (galaxy) shared by all players in real time, but PvP is optional. One mode exposes you to other players, while another limits you to NPC encounters. You can switch between them at will.
One warning: A space ship has more than a few controls to learn, and they’re better suited to a game controller or HOTAS than a keyboard and mouse. I use button combinations for almost everything beyond basic flight controls, since there aren’t enough buttons on a controller for everything.
hmmmmmm you’re tempting me to get back into this one. I think I have 60 or so hours on it? Not enough to try everything yet, but definitely enjoyed chilling in space.
Seems like a lot of people step away for a while only to return to it. I had hundreds of hours before taking a break, came back with new hardware, and have been playing hundreds of hours more. At this rate, it might end up overtaking Civilization as my most played game.
I finished Prince of Persia The Lost Crown. It’s good but some weird decisions by the devs. For example, you can buy treasure maps at the end, so you don’t need a guide to find everything, just for some reason those maps to not actually show everything. I already mentioned the arbitrary limitation on the pictures you can take last week. Then, the whole game you’re trained to use your parry, normal enemies or bosses, just so some of the later bosses can just spam attacks you can’t parry.
I’m also done with Vampire Hunters. Beat all the stages, unlocked all the characters, but it just doesn’t have a lot of variety. It’s all just “normal” weapons, that shoot forward, nothing really crazy going on. Every level also plays the same, so it gets old relatively quick.
Then I tried HoloCure - Save the Fans!. This (F2P) game isn’t just like Vampire Survivors, it is Vampire Survivors, but with a VTuber skin. Since it’s copying the best in this genre, it’s not bad, but I’d rather just play Vampire Survivors. I’d only recommend this, if you’re a huge fan of VTubers, don’t want or can’t pay for Vampire Survivors, or have put in like a thousand hours into it and just want something a little bit different.
Next is Karate Survivor. Like the name suggests, another VS-like game. This one I’m not so sure about. The theme is 80s Martial Arts Movies, and you’re playing as Jackie Chan from Wish. Instead of weapons, you’re combining different fighting moves into a combo. It sounds neat, but the beginning is pretty rough. You can only run around, and your attacks basically all go forward. Since it’s martial arts, your attacks also have a tiny range, so you’re basically standing inside the enemies, so you can hit them. My first few runs weren’t that fun, but you unlock new moves of course and also some movement-type abilities, like rolling over obstacles or sliding under tables. You can also kick or throw small objects at enemies, like bottles, buckets, etc. or use some objects as weapons, like a broom or baseball bat. These weapons are a bit lame though, since they all have the same attack animation. Later, you can also kick bigger stuff at your enemies, like pallets or motorcycles. Each of these unlocks make the game more fun, but the normal combat, still isn’t my favorite. I’ll stick with it a bit longer, but dunno how long.
Finally, a bit more Baldurs Gate 3 coop. Grymforge is cleared, there were no survivors (except our party). Next is the rest of the Underdark.
Yeah, it’s no Baldur’s Gate 3, and I do hope they learn more lessons from contemporary CRPGs, but I’d say it has other strengths. I liked the combat, and I liked the story, characters, and world-building. Open worlds in most open world games are pretty shallow, and I’d say both this and The Witcher 3 follow that same template to the same ends, but at the very least, it allows you to approach an objective how you’d like after scouting it out, which feels satisfying. It’s RPG-lite, which manifests as a pretty good action game with some story branching, and I’m not upset about that, as much as I’d prefer they lean into the RPG stuff harder.
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