Recent reviews by Papa Box

I want to preface this by saying that, while I am personally hopeful of the game's success, I am genuinely trying to give as unbiased of a view as possible:

The game is unfinished. It is actually, totally, completely unfinished. It is a true Early Access game, and not what normally passes as an """Early Access""" game on Steam. What you are getting is a test build. The animations, AI, some models, some textures, are all placeholders, as in, genuinely default placeholders.

The movement feels extremely sluggish at first, as in, it was the first thing I noticed when I started the tutorial, however, while I still think the movement isn't perfect, after playing about a half dozen raids (all of which I survived), the movement speed, in my opinion, more or less suits the theme, although I would prefer it to be more fluid and responsive.

There are actually AI battles going on, and I actually did the thing that was promised, by waiting for one squad to wipe another, and moving in to loot the corpses. This was a big deal for me because that was what's promised on the tin, and it feels really cool.

Certain UI elements are extremely buggy, such as prompts being stuck on screen and being able to interact with things far away from where you are. I haven't been able to reliably replicate this, but it's only happened during one raid.

The gun names are stupid. The Glock 19 is the G-L 19. The Spas 12 is the S12. It bothers me but about half the games in existence do this so whatever.

Some of the ADS models look like absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, specifically the Remington 870.

The sound design is probably an 8/10 or 9/10. The guns sound good, the OST is good, when I fire the guns, they feel powerful and punchy. I don't feel like I'm throwing softballs.

The inventory system is probably my idealized version of a looter game. Items have both a volume and a weight, and you can only max out 1. I.e, you cannot carry 100 pillows even though you are strong enough to carry them, and you similarly cannot carry 20 bricks of solid tungsten, even though they would physically fit in your backpack.

The characters add flavor without it becoming a hero shooter.

Ammo types exist and are easy to swap between.

Weapon customization exists.

The water system, which has been addressed at length, is not good. I believe it should be reworked.

It is extremely difficult to try to interact with a specific object if two objects are on top of one another, which is a problem because enemies will drop a bag with their loot and, separately, their gun. I frequently find myself picking up all of the loot from the bag to make it despawn, then dumping the gear a few meters away, just so I can get the gun, or vice versa, picking up the gun and dumping it a few meters away to get the bag,

Spawns are completely jacked, as has been stated many times. It isn't quite as bad as some make it out to be, but I will give them a pass because this is a placeholder, as has been explicitly stated by the devs,

The UI in the Innards is extremely clean and functional. It is excellent compared to, say, Tarkov. All of the quests are on the same screen, without needing to cycle between different vendors. The stash is very easy to use and navigate. Guns are very easy to customize and modify.

The atmosphere they absolutely nailed. That is what first drew me to the project, and man, I was absolutely blown away. I love it.

The particle effects are excellent, although some effects are rough. Specifically, the muzzle flash on the AK is a little too big, and makes immediate follow up shots difficult to land.

The developers have been extremely transparent with what this release is. I have followed the game since its announcement, and the developers have been extremely forthcoming with information, and have been very clear that the game is not nearly finished. It is for this reason that I believe accusations of this being a scam or cashgrab are, at best, ignorant, and at worst, intentionally misleading. That being said, I do not think the vast majority of people leaving poor reviews are bad actors. I firmly believe a large number of the people that are upset have not read or listened to any of the material put out by the developers leading up to this release, and in their frustration, have given the devs both barrels, and, again due to their frustration, do not want to believe it is their own misunderstanding that led to their frustration, but that they were somehow duped.

Let me be clear:

THIS IS LITERALLY A DEV BUILD YOU ARE BUYING ACCESS TO, DO NOT EXPECT IT TO BE ANYTHING MORE THAN THAT. ONLY BUY THIS IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT THE DEVELOPER AND/OR TAKE PART IN THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS BY GIVING FEEDBACK.

That being said, I have found it worth the $27, and I fully intend to keep playing, and am excited for what the future of the game holds.

Managed Democracy has overcome corporate greed.

I absolutely do not think this game should be on the market, let alone recommended. On release, the game was, as we all know, virtually unplayable. Even with an Intel i7-10700K and a 1080Ti and the game loaded on a Samsung 960 Evo, which were no slouches in December of 2020, I was forced to downres to 1080p from 1440p and set most graphical and post processing options to low or medium, just to be able to suffer through the cinematic experience of a 24fps mess that suffered crashes, seemingly random, hard to replicate memory leak issues, nonfunctional quests, nonfunctional AI, texture pop in (or, far worse, texture non-pop in, I like to call this the "marshmallow world effect"), NPC pop in (the worst being cops, which would literally spawn only meters directly behind you, if it was outside your FOV), freezes, stutters, and just plain shallow gameplay.

Needless to say, I shelved the game indefinitely.

Now, in the year of our Lord 2022, I have returned 608 days later, this time armed with an EVGA 3080, an Intel i7-12700K, and the game loaded onto a Samsung 980 Pro.

The game is not good. Anyone that tells you otherwise, anyone that recommends the game, anyone that runs defense for CDPR over this abomination, is lying to you, very likely to justify their purchase. The game is not complete. Yes, the optimization is significantly better. With a full year of bug fixes and optimization patches, and just two generational upgrades in CPU, GPU, and SSD components, the game has gone from "literally unplayable, unfinished garbage" to "unfinished garbage." I don't say this lightly, and I will present evidence.

-Pathfinding is godawful, this is improved from launch, where the AI literally had no pathfinding, hence the teleporting cops and NPCs
-Combat is still terrible, specifically melee combat. The "improved" combat AI isn't. The difference between the combat AI at launch and now is that it exists. (will be explained below)
-Companions are useless garbage (will be explained below)
-Cars are garbage. Their handling, performance, and interactivity are objectively worse than say, Mafia II's
-Crowd AI is garbage, again, an improvement from launch, which had no crowd AI. (further explained below)

This year, CDPR attempted to scam their customers and the general public by using their contacts with hack game "journalists" to drum up significant anticipation and goodwill for their "soft relaunch" of Cyberpunk 2077 with Update 1.5. A lot of people fell for it, seemingly forgetting that the game is still unfinished, and significant parts of the core gameplay are still bad. Conjecture on my part, but this is presumably to cow their reliable fan base in preparation to announce they will soon be selling parts of the game that should've been included at launch to the fans at a premium DLC price.

List of things in Update 1.5 that are either pathetic to have to announce or have been done better by other developers (or even CDPR in their previous games) for over 10 years:

-Owning multiple apartments
-Taking a shower, making coffee, and sleeping. Yes, sleeping in your immersive sim is now considered a content update
-Post-creation character customization. Yes, that is right, it took them a year to add in the equivalent of a barber from Fallout 3.
-Combat AI was updated. They added taking cover, positioning, reloading, equipping weapons, dodging, and blocking. I will let this statement stand on its own. NPCs taking cover and reloading is new.
-Companion AI was updated. Companions can now be temporarily downed like in any other video game with companions. What is extra amusing, however, is they removed companions' ability to trip over corpses. This is billed as a quality of life update, but the truth is that CDPR could not figure out how to get NPCs to step over corpses instead of running into them. For context, Mafia 2 released with corpse physics and player and NPC behaviors for stepping over or on them, in 2010.
-Time skip makes time skip for everyone that isn't just you.
-Crowd AI was updated. They added different types of NPC reactions, and even have a small handful of crowd NPC behaviors, such as fearful NPCs that run away when you point a gun at them or aggressive ones that will fight you. Rockstar not only did this, but did it better, specifically with cops, which were programmed with a continuum of force, meaning they would respond to low level threats with batons or fisticuffs, and only use guns when the violence escalates. They did this in 2008 in GTA 4. In 2010 they improved that crowd AI further for Red Dead Redemption, where the player could intimidate others by drawing a gun, cause some NPCs to flee, cause some NPCs to defend themselves or even come to the aid of either the player or other NPCs, or sometimes initiate duels. Red Dead Redemption 2 improved on the crowd AI even further, and released in 2018.
-NPCs now drive away if they are in a car and are shot at. They also now respond to slamming your car into them. NPCs can die in car wrecks now.
-Selling cyberware. Yes, selling unused goods is a new feature.
-NPCs with shotguns will now try to engage in CQB. See, before this update, there were only 2 combat AI types: ranged and melee. Any NPC with a melee weapon would try to take the shortest path to you to beat you with their preferred stick. Ranged NPCs would adjust their position so that you are in their LOS, and then shoot at you.
-The player can now go through broken windows
-UI map icon resizing when you zoom
-Declining a phone call

As of this writing, Update 1.5 is 6 months old, and there is no meaningful release timeframe for the next patch.

Things CDPR claimed would be in the game but aren't:
-Wall running
-Vehicle customization
-Robot dog
-Fast travel subway
-Branching story
-Interesting factions to meet and join
-NPC daily routine
-Immersive policing (originally, there was supposed to be a corrupt police system to navigate, committing crimes would alter the area as the police would step up their patrols or conduct investigations, if the wanted level reached high enough, police gunships with heavily armed tactical cops would show up. The last one is important to note, because they tease this in the tutorial, and it factually does not exist in the game)
-Interactive random Trauma Team deployments, flights, and arrivals
-In-universe targeted ads. For example, a player low on ammunition or health would be directed to a vendor nearby by flying billboards or digital signs
-Quests that affect the city
-Day/night cycle that actually matters
-Varied types of drones
-Lifepaths that actually matter
-Weather that significantly alters gameplay

I have been very careful to not criticize things I find subjective, like the shallow characters, terrible RPG system, how you are forced to look like a goofball with booty shorts, a crop top, a fedora, and flip flops to have optimal gear instead of having transmog like every other looter RPG system, or how "Cyberpunk 2077" is barely cyber, with augmentations providing bland and generic skills or abilities that would be covered by perks in other RPG-lite systems such as Far Cry, and it is absolutely is not punk. The last one I take significant issue with, because I've been in the punk scene for my entire adolescence and adult years [inb4 "you claim to hate corpo shills and government but you participate in modern society, how curious."] and there is none of the nonconformity, rebellion, or desire for change that you would expect. V is "future person 54" and has very nearly no personality beyond "reluctant," and I mean for everything. V never actually does anything, he only reacts to things happening around him.

Do not buy this game, do not let the corpos get away with shoveling more garbage onto the market, selling it with lies, and avoiding all consequences.

The system is fundamentally bad. Linear scaling is bad. Accidentally wandering into an area that is +1 level? Oops, looks like you will suffer a tpk because linear scaling means that not only will you miss every swing, they will hit every swing. Accidentally didn't pick up some expensive fireball scrolls while exploring a cave? Lmao have fun suffering a tpk from a swarm of spiders since you need area of effect spells to kill them. Excited to kill the bad guy with 24AC to get his armor? Lmao actually he has 4 AC armor and the enemy was just hard coded to be hard to hit.

This is Artificial Difficulty: The Game. It isn't even fun challenging. Compare this to a game that isn't bad like DOS 2. In DOS 2 you can count on your party to hit things and proc their spells, which means that if you lose an encounter, either you made a wrong choice or you attacked a party far too high a level, which is easy to see since enemies have their levels in bold directly under them. You are aware how lethal an encounter is just on its face. You can make plans, you can combo skills, because you have a 95% chance of landing them. "Oh I can rain on them and follow that up with global cooling to freeze everyone solid." I don't have to wonder "well I mean, I have a 40% chance of casting rain and then I have a 30% chance of casting global cooling and they have a save vs 12 to..." No, you cast the spells. The spells do the thing.

No challenge here feels legitimate, everything seems comically arbitrary and you become obsessed with numbers go up because the only thing that matters in combat is numbers go up. It fundamentally does not matter how big your brain is, your party comp, your build, or your decisions. If your numbers are big, you win, and if your numbers are small, you lose. This is the worst balancing act possible. This is fundamentally poor game design and I will never, ever understand how people can take it seriously.