Recent reviews by TK-421

How is it that you upgraded the UI to make it so that I can actually see less at once? Why do I have to hold all my buttons down now? Who did you hire to do this UI? Someone who has only ever worked on console games? How is it that your upgrades are actually downgrades?

TLDR; DO NOT buy this game unless it is on sale. It is MAYBE worth $15. Do not buy the DLC, do not buy the extra garbage skins. This is some of the most garbage writing I've ever seen in a video game. 90% of every action that every character takes in this game, makes literally zero sense. Also, CO-OP only saves the host's progress. So the second player has to go and play everything again on their own to unlock certain aspects of the game, like the wingsuit or double barrel shotgun. This is positively infuriating if you only plan on playing this with friends, as it just seems beyond boring to play by myself.

The progression of the relationships between yourself and other primary characters happens far too quickly. My head canon for virtually every single cut-scene in this game to make any degree of sense is that some equivalent of the CIA was conducting experiments in the 1700s or something. They gathered every single person on the planet with a sub 20 IQ and dumped them on this island. Then they began intravenously injecting them with lead paint. The characters in this game a result of that experiment. Its like the devs couldn't decide between wanting to make some dark gritty revolutionary story line or just be borderlands. So they tried to do both, and it just feels jarring.

The gameplay could still conceivably carry this game but it just feels too shallow. There are so many constant tiny little nitpicks that add up and constantly break immersion. The worse of which for me personally is probably the weapons. You can tell that the devs who handled the art for the weapons have never been close to one in their lives. They sound weak, they lack any real meaty punch when hitting enemies, and none of their mechanical aspects sound very crisp. Audio design can also carry so much weight when it comes to immersion, and they have completely missed the mark on this. One of my biggest personal pet peeves is how every single round already has the primer dented, as if it were struck with the firing pin. You can see it on any of the belt fed weapons, as well as the revolver.

Think for a second. You are meant to be a guerrilla force, fighting a state. You should be constantly stealing enemy weapons, fighting a war of attrition against a state who has more expenses than your small band. You should be damaging their logistics, ambushing enemies, creating stockpiles. None of what you do in this game feels visceral. You don't feel like anything your doing is having any effect on the overall war; despite being essentially a one man army. For some reason, we actively take over enemy checkpoints and bases. Despite them still freely roaming the country side with heavy hardware. It doesn't feel like you're participating in guerrilla warfare, its just the same cookie cutter formula but with guerrilla paint slapped over the top of it.

When I think of a Ubisoft game, I think generic. That's what this game is, generic. Its just more formulaic Ubisoft.

I'll link below one of the scenes that really took my out of the game. It contains spoilers, watch at your own risk. So many of the characters make so many absolutely mind boggling decisions on both sides that it just makes it impossibly difficult to maintain my suspension of disbelief. Particularly when you know that the characters on your side are meant to be legendary guerrillas.
spoiler video below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgoeYMsdQMw
spoiler video above

I wish I actually got to feel like we were waging a guerrilla war against a superior opponent. A war where we needed to wear down the enemies resources and force them into engagements where we had the advantage despite both numerical and technological inferiority. I wish we got to damage enemy logistics and render terrain impassable to limit their ability to move supplies around the island and support their front lines. I will definitely continue this with my friend, just to see how the story turns out. But I already know that the best ending [joke ending] was the ending where we got on the boat at the beginning of the game and never looked back.

This is one of the worst games I own. Can't even join my friends in multiplayer, constantly get autokicked out of the lobby, or cant join it correctly. Program constantly terminates itself. Tried on multiple networks, tried reinstalling, tried validating, etc...

TLDR; I've played this game for about 80 hours now. I can thoroughly say that I am enjoying it. If you like this genre, don't mind a few bugs, and did NOT ride the hype train all the way to the station, you will probably like this game. If this is not the case you may want to do some research or wait 6-12 months for patches and some polish.

Please keep your PC Specs in mind before you purchase though.

Disclaimer:
I avoided basically all information about this game before it came out so that I could go into this without knowing anything or having preset expectations. I was hoping for some Deus Ex-ish type game and I haven't been disappointed. If you need a quick reference guide, I suppose you could say Deus Ex and GTA V had a premature baby.

Bugs:
I've encountered numerous Bethesda level bugs, things that could break me out of the immersion and others that just make me laugh. I've only crashed twice and had 2 game breaking bugs that required a load; luckily I quicksave often and the autosave is quite robust. All in all I haven't seen all the horrific things that the last gen console players and unfortunate PC players have been experiencing; but of course your mileage may very.

PC Specs:
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) 7-4790K CPU @ 4.00 GHz
GPU: GTX 980
RAM: 16 GB

Hows it run?:
Pretty decent. Not as well as I would want by any means. I get frame drops here and there but nothing that makes it unplayable. No massive drops to 1 fps, even in incredibly busy areas. I have it on a mix of high an medium settings. I am usually sitting around anywhere from 25fps - 48fps, depending on location.

Recommendations:
There is a really solid game in here, granted without all of the polish that you might want or expect. There is still a tremendous amount of entertainment and fun to be had.

If you love the Cyberpunk genre, don't mind a few bugs, and did ride that hype train all the way to the collision point, I would highly recommend this game right now.

If you love the Cyberpunk genre, do mind bugs, and boarded the hype train all the way to the collision. Maybe wait 6-12 months. Pick it up next summer or christmas sale when there will hopefully be more polish and more content. In the meantime maybe go check out the Shadowrun series. There is a lot of fun to be had there in a Cyberpunk setting.

Final word:
Despite the launch disaster and the constant PR screw-ups by the company, I am still enjoying the game behind all of that; and I believe there is a little bit of something for everyone to enjoy. Stop looking for things to hate about something that is meant to bring you joy, and instead find reasons to enjoy gaming. Does this game have flaws? Ohhhh yea. Does that make it a bad game? No. If you let it, this game really can draw you into it's world and care about the story you're creating around you.

Why the ♥♥♥♥ would you make an ONLINE CO-OP game have an auto kick feature for anyone with high ping. This game is meant to be played with FRIENDS FROM AROUND THE WORLD. Not everyone has consistently stellar internet.

Absolutely amazing game. Combat feels good, music is great, looks really pretty (although hard to hit 60 fps with a higher end pc), so much fun to play with friends.... when possible.

I'd love to give this game a glowing review and reee about how awesome it is from the roof tops, however theres one thing holding this game back IMO; the networking issues. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I just want to play with my friends and its nye on impossible without encountering some god forsaken networking problems with their garbage servers. But thats not all maybe I could just resign in and all will be well. Well I would if I could, but you have to exit the mission to relog into the online services.

Please just fix the damn networking issues. I want to love your game but ffs, you make it so difficult.

Edit: Game is awesome now last I checked. Move Along.

Wow... just go in blind

Amazing game. Great concepts. I mean I have virtually nothing negative to say about the game EXCEPT..... the price point.
This is not a good value proposition. At most I'd say try to get this for $10 somewhere or just watch a lets play of it.

This kind of behavior should not be tolerated. Again the quality of the game is superb, the price is just ludicrous.

Since they added 5 million dlc, p2w, and microtransactions this game isn't even fun anymore. I used to love the hell out of this game way back when in the good ol days before it became the thing they specifically said they would never become. Do not give them your money. They don't deserve it any longer. I'll never buy an overkill game again.