Cyberpunk 2077 [PC, PS4, XBone] - out September 17 2020

[Raid]

So I had chance to look at the character creator before work. It's my preferred style of creator, allowing you to select from multiple options for lips, eyes, nose etc but not giving you infinite granular control over every option. Interestingly there was a change to something the Eurogamer article picked up on; you can choose a feminine body type with a masculine voice and vice versa, as well as choose your genetalia independent of body type. You couldn't do this in the build that reviewers played, which suggests that there are some pretty significant changes in the Day 1 patch (although I'm not actually sure that I have that; the game downloaded about 250mb after installation last night, and hasn't patched today).

A word of caution for those that may not be expecting it; your character is fully nude in the character creator screen - best not boot this one up with kids running around, or at least maybe select the nudity-free option before hitting New Game.

[Wrathbone]

A word of caution for those that may not be expecting it; your character is fully nude in the character creator screen - best not boot this one up with kids running around, or at least maybe select the nudity-free option before hitting New Game.

Hmm. I was going to start this on Christmas day at my parents' house. Maybe I'll create my character today instead.

[Raid]

Yeah, that's exactly the sort of experience I thought people might want to avoid.

Eurogamer have published their review, and while it gets a "Recommended", there's a paragraph that sticks out:

This is Cyberpunk 2077's final scourge. Bugs persist, slightly reduced after a patch but nowhere close to squashed. It feels cruel to linger on them too much, but they're topped by a persistent animation bug that's plagued my entire playthrough, and those of others I know to have played it too. Characters get caught in idle animations, while scenes of death and melodrama are repeatedly undermined by someone skidding about and pirouetting like a giant chess piece on ice, which is a devastating shame. There are more, and fixes are ongoing, but the point remains that Cyberpunk 2077 is a game that can feel very close to falling apart. It's immersion-breaking, in a game where immersion is absolutely paramount.

Stuff like that would ruin the experience for me. I want to feel absorbed by the world in games like this, and constant immersion-breaking bugs just don't lend themselves to that. Plus, the game doesn't run particularly well on my PC; I stuck with the auto-selected settings when I booted the game up earlier, but I can't have been getting more than 20fps in a setting that doesn't look to have a lot of detail. The load times were at least pretty good, with menu-to-autosave times of around 5 seconds on my PCI-E gen 3 nvme drive, but again, this wasn't a particularly detailed scene, and I don't know how often we'll see loading screens.

[Sly Boots]

A word of caution for those that may not be expecting it; your character is fully nude in the character creator screen - best not boot this one up with kids running around, or at least maybe select the nudity-free option before hitting New Game.

FYI though this is off by default, you're in boxers until you scroll down to the genitals option in the creator, and then you have to actually click to select anything.

[Wrathbone]

Somehow I know I'm going to have to see what I'm packing though.

[Animalmother]

Now I need to know what that film is..

[Wrathbone]

Captain Marvel.

[Sly Boots]

I've only played the initial hour or so as I've got some work to be getting on with, but I've loved what I've played so far. The only bug I've encountered so far was a texture in a cutscene (that was only on screen for about a second) failing to load.

I've gone for a male V and nomad origin for my first playthrough, highly likely I'll be playing through it again to see the others eventually as well.

[Animalmother]

Nomad would have been my choice as well I think, the corporate origin being my least likely one. I'm very torn about getting this now or waiting until I have something that will show it in its full glory.

[Snowy]

Corpo for me, although i cant do much before pain from my op drives me away.

No bugs for me yet.

[Raid]

I too took the Corpo path, but went with a female V after a number of reviews mentioned how well she's voiced.

I've played around 45 minutes worth, and other than some texture and detail pop-in, I can't say I've noticed any actual bugs yet either. Still, you'd think the the opening areas of the game would be the most heavily playtested, I suspect I'll see far worse once I get out into the open world.

Edit: A minor animation glitch after about an hour; Jackie left his pistols hanging in mid air when he holstered them.

[Snowy]

Mine also seem to be limited to floaty duplicate items - a cigarette and chopsticks so far.

I am enjoying it but not loving it yet. I am not a particular sci-fi officionado so probably not the ideal target market, some of it is quite enjoyable but there is a lot of gobbledigook too. The fact that you have the whole city to explore in first person is pretty mental and I am looking forward to being left alone to get on with it - currently most missions have had my sidekick along so have all felt quite scripted.

Liking the sword quite a bit, was miffed that headshots are not instantly fatal rather a health-bar, but a quick flurry with the katana sees limbs flying nicely.

[Raid]

You just have to assume that all of these people have cybernetic implants in their skulls that simple bullets won't breach easily.

[Solitaire]

I pre-downloaded on Steam Tues/Wed, and got the patch going as soon as it released here in Florida (came home for a few weeks).

Initial impressions:
- Disappointing visual bug, with distant palm trees cutting through textures everywhere. Also, I started out in Corp and maybe it's just my 1060 on med/high settings, but the interiors looked like original Deus Ex.
- Lots of weird object bugs, honestly - floating things that shouldn't be floating, mostly.
- Much less customization for the toon than I was expecting, but since I won't be seeing her much anyway, *shrug* I suppose.
- Can't change haircut, etc, at all, once started. That seems like a ridiculous thing to leave out of a 2020 game, especially in a supposed ultra-adaptable future where we're altering our entire bodies. Maybe it'll patch in or be modded.
- Lots of complaints about combat at low levels. For me, this feels similar to Neocron, when combat with guns just sucked at low levels bc it's an RPG - you get better. That's down the road, as I play, so we'll see if that pans out but all the tech trees and implants tell me that this is what will happen.
- Regarding beginning weapons:

Spoiler

Sword deals the most damage by far at the beginning

- It's refreshing to see that there are some ugly, overweight, obnoxious looking NPCs and not everyone looking like supermodels
- This needs, imho, lots of tutorials in-game instead of just one. I still have no idea how to choose/throw a grenade type, for example.
- Can't currently remap 'F' to 'E' for interacting with things. Quite annoying, honestly. There seems to be a workaround but I've yet to bother with it.

I'll come back later with further impressions. I haven't even done the first real mission yet, and I've got a dozen side missions just sitting there and more keep rolling in every time I answer my in-skull cell phone

[Sly Boots]

Great little easter egg in V's bathroom: