Is it a chef-d'oeuvre? No. Is it worth playing it? Absolutely.

Hm, where to start.

First of all, I played and finished this game from the release till the end of 2020, in case you'll be reading it in the future. So yeah, there are a lot of bugs of various complexity, most of them can be cured with reloading the game. If you are the person who can be easily bothered by the lack of polish, then don't buy the game yet. Wait till most of them will be fixed.

Now with that out of the way, I can say my thoughts on the game.

When I've bought the game, I've decided in advance, that I won't expect anything as magical and superb from it, as some people did. I lowered my expectations, so to speak. Plus, I guess it's worth mentioning that at this year I've missed most of the big titles, mostly was playing games from my backlog, so I was kind of underexposed, if you can say so, to newest stuff on the market.

My first hours in Night City were pretty mediocre in terms of gameplay. But despite this and the immersion breaking bugs, I felt captivated by the visuals alone. Spent close to 18 hours in the first zone (prologue, so to speak) mostly doing generic activities and running around the hood.

The game truly opens itself only after the first part (when the whole territory finally opens to you). I've found myself gawking at the surroundings, at people, at their clothes and cars. I've experimented with different weapons until I've found the ones that I liked.

While the combat part is far from being the most interesting in this game (AI is FAR from being the brightest), there are still fun parts to it, like slicing and dicing your enemies with katana. Seriously, katana FTW.

What are the strongest parts of this game then? Story, characters, visuals and sound.

The main story and the side missions (not the Gigs) are pretty well written (with a few exceptions). Some characters are not that good, but most of them are pretty interesting, with unique personalities and feel to them. I'd say that the most flat character of the game is V themselves, which is kinda sad.

And that is where my guess of "why's that?" is touching one of the main issues with writing. At certain places it feels like literal chunks of content were cut out.

But anyway, the story and the characters are still pretty damn good.

The visuals are my soft spot in games and this game delivered it well. I won't dig deep into it here, so you can see it on your own, but I'll just say that the art direction is top notch, imo. I've also catched original Bladerunner's vibes a few times and that worths a lot.

Anyway, I would like to say that this game is at the edge of past- and next-gen. It's not really a next gen, for me, but rather something monumental that kind of generalizes things and tech from the past gen. At least it looks like that, when you look at it as a consumer. Don't know what's under the hood, so I might be really wrong. My point is mostly about game mechanics and some weird game design solutions.

Other than that, despite its problematic launch and REALLY questionable decisions made by (insert whoever decided that lying about PS4 and Xbox performance is a good idea), it's still a good game that has no analogues on the market, at least at the moment. (Deus Ex is a different game, I would not compare them, maybe only the setting and some augs unite them and that'a basically all, imo.)

So, yeah. Go, play it. Mind the "jank" though. Hopefully, they'll fix the most annoying bugs in the near future.

P.S. Forgot to add what I hated the most. The UI. Half of it is too small to read and it's all in red and bright blue. That's one way to get an eye-strain.

P.S.S. Some think that Keanu did a cringey job. Personally I think that he did a great job. I went from completely hating on his character to liking the awkward rocker grandpa. At some moments though, it feels like parts of writing that was made for him and the other characters were cut out. But I've already mentioned that above.

P.S.S.S. I wish they expanded story more on the Black Wall part and rogue AI. Sounds damn interesting. Maybe we'll get more of that in the next game, if it will ever exist. Who knows.

[b]Is it a chef-d'oeuvre? No. Is it worth playing it? Absolutely.[/b] Hm, where to start. First of all, I played and finished this game from the release till the end of 2020, in case you'll be reading it in the future. So yeah, [b]there are a lot of bugs of various complexity, most of them can be cured with reloading the game.[/b] If you are the person who can be easily bothered by the lack of polish, then don't buy the game yet. Wait till most of them will be fixed. Now with that out of the way, I can say my thoughts on the game. When I've bought the game, I've decided in advance, that I won't expect anything as magical and superb from it, as some people did. I lowered my expectations, so to speak. Plus, I guess it's worth mentioning that at this year I've missed most of the big titles, mostly was playing games from my backlog, so I was kind of underexposed, if you can say so, to newest stuff on the market. My first hours in Night City were [b]pretty mediocre in terms of gameplay[/b]. But despite this and the immersion breaking bugs, I felt [b]captivated by the visuals[/b] alone. Spent close to 18 hours in the first zone (prologue, so to speak) mostly doing generic activities and running around the hood. [b]The game truly opens itself only after the first part[/b] (when the whole territory finally opens to you). I've found myself gawking at the surroundings, at people, at their clothes and cars. I've experimented with different weapons until I've found the ones that I liked. While the combat part is [b]far from being the most interesting[/b] in this game ([b]AI is FAR from being the brightest[/b]), there are still fun parts to it, like slicing and dicing your enemies with katana. Seriously, katana FTW. What are the strongest parts of this game then? [b]Story, characters, visuals and sound[/b]. [b]The main story and the side missions (not the Gigs) are pretty well written[/b] (with a few exceptions). Some characters are not that good, but most of them are pretty interesting, with unique personalities and feel to them. I'd say that the most flat character of the game is V themselves, which is kinda sad. And that is where my guess of "why's that?" is touching one of the main issues with writing. At certain places it feels like [b]literal chunks of content were cut out[/b]. But anyway, the story and the characters are still pretty damn good. [b]The visuals are my soft spot in games and this game delivered it well[/b]. I won't dig deep into it here, so you can see it on your own, but I'll just say that the art direction is top notch, imo. I've also catched original Bladerunner's vibes a few times and that worths a lot. Anyway, I would like to say that this game is at the edge of past- and next-gen. It's not really a next gen, for me, but rather something monumental that kind of generalizes things and tech from the past gen. At least it looks like that, when you look at it as a consumer. Don't know what's under the hood, so I might be really wrong. My point is mostly about game mechanics and some [b]weird[/b] game design solutions. Other than that, despite its problematic launch and [b]REALLY[/b] questionable decisions made by (insert whoever decided that lying about PS4 and Xbox performance is a good idea), it's still [b]a good game that has no analogues on the market[/b], at least at the moment. (Deus Ex is a different game, I would not compare them, maybe only the setting and some augs unite them and that'a basically all, imo.) [b]So, yeah. Go, play it.[/b] Mind the "jank" though. Hopefully, they'll fix the most annoying bugs in the near future. P.S. Forgot to add what I hated the most. The UI. Half of it is too small to read and it's all in red and bright blue. That's one way to get an eye-strain. P.S.S. Some think that Keanu did a cringey job. Personally I think that he did a great job. I went from completely hating on his character to liking the awkward rocker grandpa. At some moments though, it feels like parts of writing that was made for him and the other characters were cut out. But I've already mentioned that above. [spoiler] P.S.S.S. I wish they expanded story more on the Black Wall part and rogue AI. Sounds damn interesting. Maybe we'll get more of that in the next game, if it will ever exist. Who knows. [/spoiler]