Take it for what it is: 3.5/5
Story 6/10
This game had so much potential. I don't want to knock on anyone, but I bought this after reading the reviews about how the story was great. It isn't good, but this is my opinion. The dialogue is cringe, and the acting is mediocre, except for select characters. There is hardly any character building before people die (I guess they did this because GoT was popular?), and story parts are out of place. It seems like they had an original story back in the day; then changed the entire script. How is it you are driving and talking on a personal level with Padre in street kid and the montage, only to be introducing yourself to him again later in the game like you never seen him before (they have patched this)? Also, the voice actor of the male V is just bad. He is different than the original voice actor we heard in the original trailers, which shows an even more convoluted story mess happened at CDPR. There are many inconsistencies with emotion too, one-minute characters show empathy to each other, then the next yelling and screaming at each other for no reason which seems out of place. Your choices are not that great either, or in most cases, they result in the same dialogue response. I know; I have played through multiple instances of these choices with multiple save files.
The main story is ultimately out of place. Again, the character build-up is nil too. I did not care for anyone because they died before I could genuinely get to know them. The montage in the intro was the original game, and they cut all of that with the new re-write. I only give it a six because the side-quests are good, and there are great story arcs there. But I can tell they were probably from the original script and just tacked onto the re-worked main story. This only makes the side-quest out of place. I can keep going on the story, but there are just too many issues and inconsistencies. I am putting this on par with Fallout 4 in how disappointing this is.
Graphics 10/10
I have to give this game kudos on the detail and immersion of the graphics. Truly incredible engineering on the Red Engine team’s part. This game has fantastic graphics that compare to the Crysis days when your video cards melted. You must see the game at max settings to respect the level of detail put into this world truly (currently running with an AMD 2700X CPU, nVidia 2070 GPU, 3.0 nVME, and 32 GBs of 3200 Mhz RAM.
I have started to play it on consoles and the patches are great. The game looks good and plays well now after all of the patches. As for performance, I have had no issues so far on Xbox or PS. Still recommend next-gen consoles and PC, but the older ones play it decently enough now.
Sound 8/10
The sound is excellent when it works well. I give this a higher score because it will be fixed later. Bugs are of no issue to me since I play many open-world games that are buggy from the start. Also, the soundtrack is outstanding. You genuinely feel like you are in a club or a cyberpunk marketplace or hotel. Overall, great sound for the guns, environment, soundtrack, etc. It will get better when they fix the bugs.
Controls and UI 7/10
Not as refined as I would like. The cars drive pretty bad (try FPS driving mode, they drive better), and the inventory controls have glitched out quite a bit for me. Also, the UI and tutorials are all over the place on the screen. It seems the UI team could not come to a centralized decision on where to put everything. I still give it a seven because you get used to the UI and the controls over time.
Gameplay 7/10
The overall gameplay is good. Some say the RPG elements suck; some say they are amazing, but they are just OK. They are not bad, but they are not great. Guns mostly feel the same to me, similar to a CoD title, and the RPG elements are present but do not matter as much as most other RPGs. Overall decent gameplay for running around in an open-world city. Also, they need transmog.
Environment 7/10
This is also where the graphics help. The environment and world are utterly amazing to see and walk around in. You feel like Night City is somewhat alive, but the NPCs are bland at the same time. The theme and the background gang stories are great but that is all. NPC gangs are just small groups who stand there with the same dialogue. Really, the graphics engine and the themes are great but the world needs more life. The overall impression seems like it was CDPR prepping for multiplayer.
Final Word
I would have to give this a 3.5/5 overall, to be honest (yes I went from a base 10 review to the star review. whatever). The story is meh, the characters are meh (except some, that are very good), and the gameplay is also meh. Take it for what it is as an OK open-world action game.
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