Cyberpunk 2077 - The Good, the Bad and the very, very Confusing

 Yikes. Yet another massive 3D world to get immersed in. I’ve played through the first act and I am now taking odd jobs and exploring Night City. BECAUSE I NEED MONEY.

First the good. Intriguing characters and game play kept me going despite massive eye shock and frustrating crashes. This is the type of game that will be declared a masterpiece after multiple patches and free add ons. Much like Witcher 3.

Oh but the bad. I am playing on a PS4 slim and we all know that’s bad. I have turned off additive camera, motion blur, film grain and chromatic aberration. Between that and the latest patch, the graphics are looking much better. Performance has improved slightly too. Objects are still jumping up and down occasionally when I get too close, there’s a bit of lag, brief freezes and mis-rendering but it’s not as common as before the patch. I had one issue with a corrupted auto save but an earlier save resolved it. My latest side job is refusing to complete. Grrrr! BECAUSE I NEED MONEY.

I am not real fond of the art style. I have no nostalgia for 80’s style DOS game UI. My initial reaction to the map was sheer horror. Excessive use of non complementary colours is a terrible design choice when you expect your players to do a lot of reading. And that UI is a bit of a f**king mess. Sorry for the language but I have strong feelings.

There was a point when I thought I couldn’t play the game at all because of eye strain. However, I needed to know what happened next and I wanted to see Keanu so I eventually got used to it.

This leads directly to the confusing bits. You do get some training in the basics and tips along the way but the player is left to figure out the crafting system, character progression and other systems on their own. The city is multi leveled and confusing to navigate. I have spent considerable time just trying to find things in my inventory. So I have had to deal with the map and the database whether I wanted to or not. I was without a vehicle for a period and did not have ENOUGH MONEY to buy another one. The fast travel points stick out because they are bright cyan against blood red but how do I get to them? The map isn’t so bad when you zoom in. You can filter for features and set a way marker. The game wants you to always have a quest selected and will helpfully auto select a main mission for you which has messed me up several times.

Being rideless did force me to get more familiar with navigation. Loot is plentiful and there’s no point in breaking it down early because  crafting can require a lot of components and perks. I need a lot of very expensive things like more Cyberdeck ram so I am selling most of it right now. You can filter and sort your loot but ammo does not have it’s own category. Ammo quantity seems to only be reported on individual weapon info boxes. Ammo does appear in the category for all items at gun shops. This drove me nuts for a quite a while. Many things appear to be moddable so I keep mods and upgrades.

Some hopefully helpful tips:

Gear has colour coded levels with purple being the best. High level gear usually has mod slots. You assign weapons and consumables to the quick access menu on the main inventory screen but everything is carried in your back pack. 

You install quick hacks in the cyberdeck and you can add mods to your implants.

Character progression reminds me of Oblivion’s. There is a character level raised by experience points. There are attributes that determine player stats such as health. Every level up grants a perk point and every 3 character levels grants an attribute point that can be assigned by the player. Each attribute is associated with specific skills which level up with use. Leveling up skills also awards perks. Street cred depends on player actions and gives game play related awards. Game play actions and gear may require specific attribute, skill or street cred levels.

I highly recommend the perk that regenerates Cyberdeck ram in combat.

You can breakdown and craft items or add mods to them in the menu but implants must be purchased and installed at a Ripperdoc. You will also need diagrams to craft items and mods but they can be purchased from vendors.

So yeah you need a lot of money better known in game as eddies. So get cracking on those gigs and side jobs. Fortunately, the fixers love you and will call constantly with work offers. Or they will try to unload some crap vehicle which costs a lot moar EDDIES.